What Did Elon Musk Ask The Chasidic Rabbi?
Tech Tribe Dispatch #127
💡 Think:
Rabbi Chaim Abraham relates:
The world says that fact is sometimes stranger than fiction. Several weeks back two of my close friends, Chasidic businessmen, had a meeting with Elon Musk... Realizing that this could possibly be the first time that the richest and perhaps most influential man in the world would meet Chasidic Jews, my friends asked me to come as “their Rabbi” so that I could help clarify and answer any questions he might have about Judaism and Chasidic life.
The meeting was set for September 14th, the night before the historic launch of Inspiration4 - the first all-civilian spaceflight - through Musk’s company Space X.
I did my homework before the meeting. After all, while this isn’t the first famous person I met, Musk is no elementary school student; He’s considered to be one of the greatest thinkers in the world. I was sure his questions would be deep and piercing, ones that would require a considered response...
When it came to meeting a renowned personality, I wanted to figure out what sort of person Elon Musk is, which questions about Chasidic life might he ask, and which pertinent points from our vast trove of holy books I could convey?
Perhaps he would would want to know what spiritual and moral directives were there for a person that dreams about accomplishing great things. Or perhaps it would be a more technical matter that might speak to him - how our sages came upon certain foundational truths and understandings, sometimes in matters that only now are being understood by modern science.
For example, I thought about something wondrous I’d recently seen in the writings of Rabbi Abraham of Montpellier, the Provincial Talmudist who wrote that sound did not travel in Space, noting in his commentary on the Talmud (Yoma 20b) “It is known that sound is caused through vibrations in the air, and where there is no air, there can be no sound.” His comment predates Robert Boyle, who is often credited as the one to discover this fact, by 350 years!
Or perhaps he’d be more interested in a halachic question, how Jewish law can be observed in space. Many of these questions were practically explored when Ilan Ramon flew on the ill-fated Columbia mission in 2003. I could tell Elon that these questions were explored in connection to another Ilan. How's rhat’s for a pretty decent ice breaker…
That evening we didn’t need to travel far. Musk came to Brooklyn, where we met him in a large building owned by a Chasdic Jew. After showing identification and proof that we were fully vaccinated for the Coronavirus, we came in to the meeting. We were introduced to Musk and his team as businessmen and their humble rabbi…
It was a pleasant meeting, especially considering how it was the evening before the historic space launch. Musk even found time to play with his small son that was with them. (The son’s name is X Æ A-12. If it’s useful to know, the name as Musk pronounced it, is ‘eks esh ay twelve’.)
As soon as we ended the meeting, Musk, as it was expected, began to schmooze with us in a more casual manner. He shared that this was indeed his first personal encounter with chasidim. At this point I raised my ears, to be ready to hear the questions he would wisely ask.
It seems that Musk had only one question about our Chasidic lifestyle: “How do you curl your hair so nicely?” How were our payos so nicely curled?
Not about our unique lives, about halacha and how self-driving Teslas might interface with how we keep Shabbat, not about how we rebuilt our communities after the bitter Holocaust, nor what the Torah might say about the possibility of SpaceX eventually finding extraterrestrial life. Instead, his question was “How do you curl your hair so nicely?” …
(Translated from Yiddish in Moment Magazine)
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The article has its own conclusion… But I’d like to share my own. While the prohibition of shaving our sideburns is Biblical, growing long payos and curling them is a custom. The Lubavitcher Rebbe notes, that often it is the customs of the Jewish people, as opposed to the Biblical and Rabbinic commandments that catch our eyes.
And for a good reason. The time honored customs of the Jewish people, the special nuances and beauty we add to enhance our observance, are the wonderful loving flourishes one makes when doing something for a loved one. In these customs can be found the most intimate expression of the Jew’s bond with G-d. The things that we do not because we must, not because we should, but rather because we love.
🏃 DO:
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