Parshas Toldos: Torah Study, Labor Pains, and AI

This is where it all begins, the famous and epic clash between good and evil, dark and light. The two twins, the older hairier, more rooty, red-like, red-cheeked fellow named Isao and it is humble and truthful younger twin, jacob, yakov and Asaf. Ever since these two brothers jostled for position in Riftga Imeenu's womb, there has been this eternal battle between the forces, the cosmic forces of truth and Beneyakov, and darkness, the dark side of the moon, and Asaf. But actually, before we even are introduced to the Yakov and Asaf saga, the whole story really begins with some labor pains and the tough pregnancy of Riftga Imeenu, in which this week, parashas Toldos tells us how Riftga Imeenu reached a point of such discomfort from her pregnancy that she says and came. Why is all this worth it? Why is this happening to me? She can't tolerate what's going on inside of her belly. She explains to us on the words or at this point, it's only told and only known to Riftga that it's just one child. Every time that Riftga walks past the houses of idolatry idol worship, may we say, casino is in bars and pubs the baby is moving to exit. But then, in a very schizophrenic manner, when Riftga walks past Madras, gavoha and Ishevas Mir, the baby also wants out. The two-faced, duplicitous nature of this baby is something that Riftga cannot tolerate. And, like any good Jew, what do you do when you're unsure about the current situation and how to respond? You run to the lore, the local Orthodox rabbi, which in this case is Sheva, and Aver, the local Rastya-Shivan. She tells the Rastya-Shiva about what seems to be the problem and, after she discusses with the Great Sage what's going on, the answer she receives is that Mazltav, it's not one baby, it's twins. There are two nations that are inside of your belly, two separate governments. One is stronger, one is weaker, but the weaker one will overpower and prove triumphant On top of the stronger one. Riftga is calmed. The problem is assuaged. I want to discuss a very famous question on this story. It comes really by way of the great Briscoe dynasty. The question actually comes based on this Gemara Mesachtanita that discusses the jostling of the children and how they wanted to exit at different times and different places that their mother walked. The question is actually asked by the Briscoe Rov's son, rebuyosev, doiv Soloveitchik, and the answer from the disciples of the great Vilna Gone that the briskers and abusive types of Salavachek relay over as the answer to this problem. See, we know that the babies, all babies, all Jewish children, when they're in the womb they have an angel that teaches them Torah, all of Torah. When the baby is born, it forgets all of Torah. But the certain exposure to these holy wisdom of Torah, it gives us a leg up and the ability to understand Torah while we're alive. If not, if we didn't have the angel, it seems like we would never be able to grasp this high-end Chokhmaz Hashem called the Torah, the university of angel womb, so to speak. But the question is, if this is true and how does it seem to see eye to eye with the fact that Yaakov of Inu wanted to get out of the womb to go to the holy places, to go learn, to go do Torah, to go be Isaac and Torah, it doesn't seem to make any sense. There's nowhere better to study Torah than from the mouth of an angel. So why would Yaakov of Inu even want to escape the belly of Rivka Imenu to escape the college of angel womb? So the answer, the first answer given, is one that I never merited to understand, but it basically describes that, even if you do have a great chavrusa like an angel, but if the guy sitting next to you, aka Esau in the womb, is rather smelly and a wretched, nefarious Russia who's distracting and ruining everything. Well, to be in the mere proxy and chutzir of Asav, even if I'm with an angel, the whole thing, becholze, enen, chaveli isn't worth it to me. I don't like it. An interesting answer. I thought about it, I don't know. Of course it is true, but it seems one has to be on a certain level to understand it. I guess, maybe not, maybe, if one does really have a smelly chavrusa next to him, that it would make one want to move seats. But the second answer is what I want to focus on. The second answer comes by way of a misire that we have, that the Vilna Gones. Talmedum said that the Vilna Gones actually was offered visitations from angels to teach him Torah. The Vilna Gones is well known, denied, said no, I'm not interested in the university of angel Torah study. I didn't want it because he told us and stamped for all of the future Jewish generations Torah legacies that Tyra acquired without Amelis, without toiling, without effort, without the sweat of the brow, said the Vilna Gones isn't even worth anything to me. It's not Makhshevah, it doesn't see it as significant. Not interested in this offer of learning with an angel, I want to push myself. I want to gather my strength to go further on in Tyra, working for it, to be Isaac by Tyra, and this is what Jacob of Inu wanted. University of Angel Womb is the same university of being sputphen Torah. It comes easy. He deus, not Tyra, from an angel. Jacob didn't want that. He wanted the real thing. He wanted to get out and start working for it. He wanted to be Amal by Tyra. Perhaps you've heard this idea. By this point, several hundred years after the Vilna Gones, it's kind of become part of our Jewish jargon. You've probably heard your local Orthodox rabbi say Amelis by Tyra rather frequently, and probably by the time of Parshah's Bechel Kosei is when this idea seems to come up. But that idea of Amelis by Torah, I'd like to discuss one critical perspective that I received this week and share with you. Now. We begin because the Chavitzchahim writes something really fascinating and it's a for the shem eilam, a muscle work, a Shkafa work, a popular work, and the Chavitzchahim puts down there and declares that all inventions, all new things that come to the world are a lesson from Akadish Bargh, even something he says like the invention of the telephone, of the radio, these new technology advances, these leaps forward. They're there. The Shem has now revealed this khachma to somebody to bring it forth, and there's something that we should be learning from this invention. And he actually tells us what the lessons are. He says the video camera. The camera. It's a lesson that is part and parcel of our Jewish faith. That was slipping away. The idea that you can be watched and not know it, the idea that everything that you do is seen by Akadish Bargh, the idea that somebody can record something and review it later on, was slipping away from Jewish faith. And this is given to us as a matana. The video camera is a gift from Hashem so that we can refresh ourselves that God is watching and that he will watch my life in 4K, 1080p, hd after I pass on. And it continues about the radio and audio. And I was thinking, in following in the Chavitz-Kheims path, which, after all, is very much the hopes of all of us, hopefully our plans, are we to make of the internet artificial intelligence? What lesson can we learn there? And internet, a couple years old already, but I was thinking that maybe, basically, the internet is one big information hub Anything you do, all the cookies. You accept. All the settings, all the data, it's all stored, everything remembered. If you ever wondered why they're advertising basketballs on the side of your screen, it's probably because you were checking up some basketball scores. Everything you do, no matter how many times you may erase the history or re-wipe the computer, it's all data, it's all stored, it's all numbers, it's all letters, it's all put down somewhere, forever Tracked, graphed Data and analyzed. Everything we sold. That's besides the point and that's very much seems to be the idea of where, tracked, our lives have meaning and everything we do is nichthofen, besiefer hazechronus, written in the book of Remembrance and artificial intelligence. When we had our discussion with Rabbi Gladstein, the great Magid Shearer, the great Rove of New York, we discussed what he thought the idea behind artificial intelligence was and he said very, very eloquently, very, very passionately, that we may be off base in one area of this Osig-Batora that we're talking about type of idea. See, we have such a Riboy-Hatira. There is so much Torah study at the current moment. Who doesn't have some weekly, at least daily, torah study, shear Chabura that they go to? Who doesn't learn Daph-Yomi? Who doesn't learn Mishnias? How many tens of thousands of people are Osig and Torah Yom Ambalayla, day and night. The Riboy-Hatira is unparalleled, unrivaled, unprecedented. But what about the? Are we able to say the same thing? Is it commensurate with the level of fear of heaven? Is the Torah being digested and changing us as people? Hard to make a general rule, but it definitely seems like there may be some of a discrepancy of a lot of Torah. But perhaps we aren't being offered to learn with angels like the Vlnagon. Perhaps that was the lesson he said of artificial intelligence. If it's just about more Torah and more amassing of khachma, more amassing of knowledge, well then amassing of knowledge is always going to be. Your accomplishments will pair in comparison with what a computer can compute, organize, inform, study and then output. Artificial intelligence will write a better Chabura, amass more knowledge, give better Hidushim and a human mind. It can process thousands, if not millions, of things in seconds. So just the acquisition of wisdom, that can't just be it. But Osak Bhattaira, what the Almighty wants is that when we go to these Shiyurim, when we study Torah for Osak, osak means we are toiling, but it's according to my misoara. I was educated from my Rosh Hashiva that Osak means more along the lines of it's made real, it's made like a job. It's made like a rock hard knock on wood lifestyle. The Torah isn't just a subject that when one closes his math book he doesn't ask himself what do I do now to change my life? But when one closes his gemari he should ask himself have I learned a new halacha? Can I act in a different way? Nachmanides, a thousand years ago, already told us that every time you close the safer, you should ask yourself what does it mean to me and how can I change my life and be better, do more, connect in a greater way. Osak, batora, it sounds. Yaakov wanted to get out of the womb because to just acquire Chachma it's not even in the same ballpark. It's waking up, fighting for the learning, making it real, making it a lifestyle, becoming one with it, becoming a family with the Torah getting cozy with the Torah, sweating over the Torah being Osak and Torah. Nachman was polishing. He was famished, he was starving to be able to begin as brilliant and glorious endeavor. I have to say, not a controversial story. It shouldn't be a controversial story. I remember I was standing outside it was Thursday evening couple months ago talking to an old friend who had just come back from Eretz Yastroel, fresh off the boat, as they say, a budding superstar. Late at night the conversation was flowing, we were catching up and we got into this conversation about artificial intelligence back when it was really a popular thing to discuss and what the lesson is, and I threw out this idea, the idea that if it's just about amassing wisdom, well, computers will always do that better, but rather Torah has to be about making it real and making it a lifestyle and working for it in a very authentic way. He said you know what? I was just somewhere in Eretz Yastroel I'm going to hold back some of the names there was a great Rav who was giving a speech and he was talking how some people were going for brachos, for blessings from people that have amassed a lot of Torah but maybe in a way, aren't top five in their Yerashima, and he was talking about the point of brachos, which is something interesting to ponder, basically also on this week as well, with the blessings and the nature of what blessings do G'dayl and brachos. But the Rav said but you guys don't get it. The reason that we make G'daylum into G'daylum and we're machsh of them and we view them as significant heroes is not just because they know a lot of Tyra, but it's because what the Chachma means to them. It's because of how hard they worked for it and how much dedication they showed on behalf of Hashem's holy Torah and how it affected them in such a powerful way. That's why they are called a G'daylum. They proceeded to mention one of the famous G'daylum and say that G'daylum, I knew him and I knew him even when he was a G'daylum and he is. I'm not even going to say the word, but he's S-T-U-P-I-D. I can't even say it. He is that. But that's why he's a G'daylum, because he worked harder and continues to work harder than anybody else on this planet. So when he learns the halacha, it becomes cast iron strong in his life. It creates boundaries. His fear of heaven is top notch. He stays up till the middle of the night because he can't fall asleep, because he doesn't understand why Rashi and Tosphos are arguing. That's why he's the G'daylum. The G'daylum Adar. He said if you really want to get a bracha from someone who knows Tyra, then go get a bracha from artificial intelligence, go get a bracha from the internet and knows more Tyra. Yakov wanted out because he wanted to make that relationship between him and Tyra one that was real, one that was packed with a soak, a amelus. Amelus, but Tyra, it's the very key to everything. And one struggles three hours, let's just say even for a half hour, to understand one piece of Tyra. Contemporary wisdom will say that he didn't get very far. The guy next to him, who's a smart one, learned already two pages of Gemara. This guy only learned a half hour. He barely, he didn't do anything. He can't get very far. No, I reckon that the guy who was Amal, who worked harder, the guy who put in the time, the guy who put in the effort, has accomplished leagues, legions more, because it's about amelus by Tyra and the relationship that one has to Hashem's holy Tyra, and not just about another sheer, another learning session. I learned this many pages, but rather this is how many hours I spent pushing myself to understand Hashem's Tyra. That's what we should ask. This is our key. This is what Yaakov wanted. This is where everything begins. In B'chukkoye Saitelaychu, if you go on Hashem's ways, it all begins with real Torah study. I want to end. I think this is something that is really in our power to do. Often we talk about ideas that are dreams of ours, perhaps ideas that are even steps above us. But we daydream. But this it doesn't take brains, it doesn't take knowledge, it doesn't take skill, it just takes effort. When you put in the effort, you follow in Yako's ways and you automatically start to shiig until it becomes real to you and eventually it becomes very pleasant. So, like they say that the dream is free but the hustle is sold separately. So if we take anything from this week's Power Shed, it should be that get me out of the spoon-fed university of Angel Torah or Angel Womb, I believe, is what we said. Get me into the study hall, let me work for it, let me make it real, let me get cozy with the Gamara, let me get comfortable and cozy and be friend M'sh'nayus. Let me give Rava and Abayah a hug. Let me learn Chumash, let me learn Nach, let me learn whatever it is. But I just want to be Amal, I just want to be Osak in Torah study. That's where it all begins. This is something we all can do. That's what Yakova Vinu taught us Right At the very beginning, even before he was born, when the whole Yakova and Ace of Saka began. So grab your books, start your engines, Start learning in a very real way and like this. Shem should see our efforts, bless us with beautiful, enjoyable Torah study. I'll be Zocha to fulfill Hashem's word in keeping his mitzvos and bring his Torah all the days of our lives.