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Today we begin the month of Nissan, which marks the approach of Passover and is seen as a time of redemption.

I’ve been thinking a lot about everyone in Israel right now, especially in these difficult days. To our Committed readers in Israel: please know that you are on our minds and in our prayers. May you be safe. May those who seek to harm the Jewish people be defeated.

If you’d like to support Israelis who are struggling right now, I encourage you to give to JLIC-Tel Aviv and note that your donation is to support those affected by the war.

I’m in regular touch with Rabbi Joe Wolfson in Tel Aviv and have seen how much his community is doing to support those in need, especially in central Israel, where the impact has been severe.

Chodesh tov—may it be a good month and may we only have besorot tovot, good news!

Leviticus and the Age of AI: Make Leviticus Lit Again

If a machine can do what I do, then maybe what I do never really mattered.

Maybe I don’t really matter.

Underneath our anxiety about AI — the jobs, the social effects — is something more existential: a machine is coming not just for what we do, but for the very premise on which we’ve built our sense of worth.

For centuries, we have lived by a simple idea: that human significance is earned through productivity — through what can be measured and sold. AI threatens that premise at its root.

But this isn’t the only way to think about what makes us worthy.

A powerful alternative comes from a book most of us avoid: Leviticus.

A few years ago, some wonderful members of our Downtown Minyan community created stickers that said “Make Leviticus Lit Again.”

For most of us, Leviticus is the hardest book in the Hebrew Bible — foreign, all about sacrifices and purity and impurity and the sacred and profane. But I’ve come to understand that “Make Leviticus Lit Again” is an invitation: to ask whether this seemingly archaic book contains something our world has lost.

Here is what I’ve come to understand: the same framework that makes AI so threatening is the one that makes Leviticus feel alien.

We can’t see what Leviticus is offering because we’ve been looking at everything through the wrong lens.

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This week’s Torah portion of Vayikra revolves around korbanot — usually translated as sacrifices or offerings given in the tabernacle in the wilderness and eventually in the Temple in Jerusalem.

Vayikra is filled with rules and categories: five different types of korbanot, rules about which animals (or other foodstuffs like grain) can be offered, rules about what to do for those who can’t afford it, rules about when one must bring an offering and when one may.

My son, who is a Kohen, a priest, was asking me recently about these offerings, and I was trying to imagine with him what the courtyard of the tabernacle or the Temple felt like. There was blood, guts, entrails, devotion, the cymbals of the Levites, the neighing of sheep not yet slaughtered, the smell of a barbecue.

Overwhelming. Strange. And somehow Holy.

This is a world wholly foreign to us moderns, not only in texture but also in meaning — really, why should a woman have to bring a purification offering after giving birth? Can an animal sacrifice really appease God after we sin? Does it actually matter in which direction the priest sprinkles the blood?

Korbanot are alien to our world of meaning.

But underneath all these details there’s a simple idea: the word korban is primarily about relationship. It comes from the root Kuf–Reish–Bet (קרב) meaning closeness, intimacy. It is an act of drawing nearer to God.

And this act of drawing near matters — it is prescribed and wanted by God. The poor person’s two birds matter as much as the rich person’s bull. Ordinary moments, gratitude, repair, return, all of it warrants consecration.

This is not a utilitarian system of worth. A korban does not produce anything measurable, at least not in the way our society measures worth.

Korbanot belong to a category of commandments called ḥukkim. Unlike mishpatim — laws any society might derive on its own — ḥukkim resist human logic and justification. Why these rituals? The Torah does not say. That’s the point.

Ḥukkim refuse to ground human significance in outputs our eyes can measure. God declares them significant even when we cannot see why.

But even though we do not understand the rationale for Ḥukkim they produce the following truths: You matter enough that God asks this of you — even when you see no reason why. That is not a system you can fully understand. It is a reality you can only inhabit.

And then the Torah does something subtle.

The very first verse of the portion: Vayikra el Moshe — God called Moses.

The commentator Rashi notes that every communication from God begins with this intentional calling — a lashon ḥiba, a language of intimacy. He contrasts it with another word used elsewhere: Vayikar — ‘he happened upon’ — a chance encounter.

Vayikra versus Vayikar. Called versus happened upon. Intimacy versus accident. Love versus coincidence.

This is the foundation of the entire system: you were called. Not processed, not generated, not predicted — called. By name, with intention, with love. You matter. Every act of drawing near is an answer to that call.

Now think about what artificial intelligence actually is.

At its core, AI is a pattern recognition system. It processes inputs and generates outputs. It does not call you. It predicts you instead.

It is the most powerful Vayikar machine ever built — coincidence at scale.

What AI cannot be is the thing Leviticus is built on: the premise that you were called by name into existence, that your actions matter not because of what they produce, but because of who is performing them and to whom they are addressed.

Our world — a world of metrics and productivity scores and bank accounts and follower counts — is a Vayikar world. It asks: what did you make? What did it achieve?

Leviticus opens a different dimension entirely. A dimension where significance is not earned through results, but through relationships built with rituals we don’t fully understand.

The question is no longer what you produced, but: did you show up? Did you draw near? Did you answer the call?

We didn’t need AI to reveal this. But AI is forcing us to rediscover it.

Every year before Passover, observant Jews clean their home of ḥametz —leavened grain from five specific grains.

This year, as I was emptying out my cabinets, our wonderful housekeeper looked around at the upheaval — the checked cabinets, the careful inspection of corners — and asked me, genuinely curious: why? Why does it matter if you have bread at home? What difference does it make?

I laughed and agreed: you’re right, it’s a lot. And I left it there.

Because the honest answer isn’t easy to translate into a culture that measures everything in terms of returns. Ḥametz can be understood as a ḥok — its meaning beyond what our logic can reach. I can’t point to an outcome. There is no ROI. And yet here I am, checking the corners.

Korbanot and the “weird” laws of Leviticus can feel the same way — like an annoying burden.

Or they can feel wondrous: because you are told that you matter enough that God asks you to do this, even when you see no reason why. The act is the answer. Showing up is the point.

Because Vayikra, not Vayikar.

Because I matter enough that it matters.

That’s the portal Leviticus opens — into a dimension of human significance our language has almost entirely lost, and that the age of AI is forcing us to rediscover.

Shabbat Shalom!

Mijal

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We had the chance to sit down with New York Times op-ed columnist and Sapir editor-in-chief Bret Stephens for a thoughtful conversation on Wondering Jews about this moment we’re living through.

We spoke about antisemitism in America, the Israel–U.S. war against Iran, and what the priorities of American Jews should be right now. Bret was both insightful and genuinely inspiring. I think you’ll find the conversation meaningful—listen here or watch on youtube.