The Rebbe's Redemptive Soul of Tech
✨ Chai Society Dispatch Season V Episode V
This email is structured differently than the weekly Dispatch. In honor of Gimmel Tammuz, the 3rd of the Jewish month of Tammuz and the Rebbe’s 29th yahrzeit which took place last week, it takes a deeper look at the Rebbe’s philosophy on computers and technology. The first half is available to general subscribers, with the broader, expansive take of how Judaism views technology (and our weekly Reads) saved for after the jump.
So scroll on down explore: The Redemptive Soul of Tech
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💡 Think:
Innovation doesn’t come out of a vacuum - the creation of transformative tools comes, more often than not emerges from the unique combination of iterative advances transformed an innovative new product than an entirely new invention plucked from the mind of genius and gifted to the world at large. One need not start from scratch to create something new, but rather build upon past innovations to reach greater heights. Yet even with this iterative growth, the possibility to combine existing ideas into a startlingly new paradigm exits.
Take the computer —today at the center of how we work, play, learn and connect— in some of its earliest iterations, the computer felt like a glorified adding machines.
A person with a keen mind could very well reason “Give me a pencil and paper, and I can figure out the number crunching myself.”
After all, Pascal, Newton and Einstein all made their discoveries before the power of the processor. NASA put a person on the moon, largely aided by the slide-rule…
But of course, there are two shortcomings to this approach:
Who said your calculations will come out right? A computer, once the basic code works, should continue to perform its primary functions with ease. But you, a human being, may be subject to error.
Think of how much more you could accomplish if you harnessed this technological advance, reaching newer heights, instead of just replicating over the course of hours, days or weeks what it could do in seconds.
There is a powerful lesson here: As Jews, we may look at the Torah and say, “Why should I commit myself to a given Jewish action. Why jump in feet first? Rather, let me study and slowly gain an intellectual appreciation. Let me fully understand matters, and then, surely, I’ll come to the right conclusion and do.”
Yet this approach is flawed. After all - if you leave your Jewish engagement solely to the realm of intellectual calculation, you may miscalculate and come to err. What is more, Judaism is experienced through action. Sitting on a bench and meditating will not launch you to the spiritual heights of action.
This does not mean that as Jews, our relationship with Judaism can not embrace the intellectual - just the opposite. We must probe the Torah with our minds, wrestle with its discussions.
Rather the question is, will you build off of the platform of Torah and Judaism and reach new heights.1
All of this views tech through the kind of traditional chasidic lens2 - the Baal Shem Tov, the founder of the Chasidic movement, famously taught, “Everything one sees or hears is to be taken as a lesson in how to better serve the Creator.3”
But the technological revolution in which we find ourselves is one that has been so sweeping, so transformative to the very fabric of society, surely Judaism offers a deeper lens through which to understand the world around us.