Judaism in the 21st Century
Rosh Hashanah Sermon 2025
Rabbi Sarah Shulman
On the surface, Adam Raine and Sophie Rottenberg had little in common. They were born 13 years apart in different American cities with different interests. Adam, 16, loved basketball, Japanese anime, video games and dogs. Sophie, 29, was an extreme extrovert who found joy climbing mountains and serving the world through public health policy. However, these two young people shared one tragic similarity: they both killed themselves after months long conversations with a ChatGPT therapist.
You may have read about one of these two young adults, or another in their situation. Their deaths raise so many questions about the use and misuse of technology in our age, about the role of privacy and community, about the new ways that artificial intelligence has permeated our lives as both a tool and a weapon. For me personally, reading about Adam and Sophie in the news brought up questions that were far more personal. Most poignantly – would I still be here if like Adam, Sophie, or countless others I had been able to reach out to ChatGPT in my early 20s when I almost ended my own life?
I thought about the crucial call I had made to my friends at a time when I faced depression and injuries that weighed heavy on my physical and mental health, saying: “Hey guys, I need you to get over here and help. I’m not in a good place. Please come.” And they did. In flesh and blood and support. Thank God.
For everything there is a season – a time for AI and its vast resources, and a time to be together with other human beings. A time for answers found online; and a time for questions opened over a cup of coffee. A time for hyper-connection; and a time for meaningful connection. We live in a world where a generation of digital natives is growing up without clear distinguishing lessons about what time is now. The world is flat and fast. The way we operate and interact, the way we learn and perceive our own reality have all been reshaped and will continue to be at an accelerated pace in the coming years.
You might be wondering, why are you talking about this, Rabbi, on Rosh Hashanah? Because I don’t think we can really have an honest conversation about Israel, Jewish identity, what’s going on in this country, or our own lives without recognizing the algorithms at play shaping us, our adversaries, and the tenor of the times in which we live.
This past year, I have come to feel that more than ever before, have you? I’ve witnessed a congregant develop a spiritual journaling practice about wise aging according to Jewish sources using exclusively AI, and a conversion student create a plan for how a new Hebrew name would support him in the next phase of his life using ChatGPT. And I don’t even want to know whether your teen delegated sections of their bar mitzvah speech to AI because to me the joy of writing a d’var Torah is in the research, the writing process, and the conversation with ancient texts. And this is just within my professional life.
I haven’t even skimmed the surface of what is happening in modern medicine, education, defense, business, and politics. It is mind boggling! I literally own an AI vacuum cleaner named Rocky the roborock who I’m pretty sure has a higher IQ than everyone in my family combined.
I admit, I’ve had flashbacks this year to the 2013 movie Her in which the protagonist Theodore falls in love with his AI operating system, Samantha. When the movie came out it seemed far-fetched – I mean, how could a person come to depend on an operating system in such a deep and intimate way? Now I realize that the parents of Adam and Sophie are asking this same existential question while journeying forward in grief.
Today as artificial intelligence has begun to permeate our lives and soon our bodies – today as we face an increasingly interconnected but also individualized and polarized world – I want to raise the question for all of us: What will Judaism offer in this digital age?
So much, I believe! Namely, in person community, a sense of purpose, holy time apart from devices, and structures to weigh the ethics of our time. Let’s briefly explore each:
This year for the high holidays we’ve chosen a theme of b’yachad (as you’ll notice in our new program guide), because we’re all here together in one building AND because in this fast-changing world we know the importance of being together for strength and comfort.
We find it here every day at morning minyan where 10 people gather so that someone can say kaddish with the shared understanding that we need one another to get through difficult times and that a holy community is greater than the sum of its parts.
“We need our community” – that’s what we heard in our listening tour this past year from you, our members– who want small groups, connections, learning, prayer, and meaningful engagement. That’s why we structured the resulting HEA strategic plan around the pillars “engage, elevate, and sustain” all of which require one another and tradition. For that’s what we need to counter the isolation and hyper-individualism of the digital age.
Viktor Frankl, an Austrian neurologist and Holocaust survivor, became the father of a new field of psychotherapy centered around meaning making. He wrote in his book Man Search for Meaning:
“I wish to stress that the true meaning of life is to be discovered in the world rather than within man or his own psyche, as though it were a closed system.” Self-transcendence is “the fact that being human always points and is directed to something or someone other than oneself… by giving oneself to a cause to serve or another person to love.” Thus, in contrast to much of the digital world that trains users to put oneself first, it is through vulnerability and interconnection that one finds purpose. These days we could spend hours, even days, scrolling online. Judaism moves us from idleness to intention, appreciating that altruism and mortality are not glitches in the system but features that inspire a purpose-driven life. I wonder, what purpose calls you in this new year?
I’ve always appreciated Shabbat and holidays as an opportunity to put aside my phone, computer, and other machines to slow down, reboot, and give my full attention to my family and community. What a gift that is in today’s world in which nearly all of us, adults and youth, are leashed to our devices. Jonathan Haidt in his book, The Anxious Generation, emphasizes that there are no sabbath or holy days on screens where everything is available all the time.
“We could create healthier environments for ourselves and our children if we could reconnect with the rhythms of the calendar and our communities,” he writes. What if the idea of Shabbat (of stopping) was in fact vital to sustaining humanity and our earth in this technological age?
The living practice of halakhah (Jewish law) has long served the Jewish community as new conundrums have arisen. Halakah literally means walking, or the way, and this methodology offers us a way to keep moving forward to not only understand how Judaism will accommodate new technologies (like is lab grown meat kosher) but also, and perhaps even more importantly, to grapple with new ethical questions raised by technologies as they emerge (like what might be the social and ethical implications of restoring memory in an Alzheimer’s patient?) In this way, Judaism offers a framework to question and offer ethical guardrails to new technologies within age old structures that are still relevant for today and tomorrow.
But we will undoubtedly need to upgrade our Jewish practices, institutions, and leadership to be relevant in an ever-changing world. Thank God, that has always been our way and a strength going back to Avraham and Sarah who we read about in our Torah portion today. Torah itself, after all, was a new form of technology in its time. Its first Jewish family adapted everything they knew to launch a new community, the Jewish people, with the courage and resilience we will need today. Avraham was an entrepreneur – the first to challenge the idols of his day and to see the world in unprecedented ways. A story in Midrash Bereshit Rabbah illustrates his ability to synthesize and address the needs of his day:
Imagine a man is travelling when he sees a palace in flames. Seeing no one responding to the blaze, he wonders, “Is it possible that the palace lacks an owner?” Just then, the owner of the palace peeps out and declares, “I’m the owner of this palace.”
As so, Avraham says, “Is it possible, then, that the world lacks a Ruler?” God looks out and says to him, “I am the Ruler, the Sovereign of the Universe.”
It’s as if the owner of the house, understood in this parable as the Divine, were saying “I need you to help me put out the flames [that humanity has ignited in my world]. I’m here. Where are you?” Avraham responds in kind: the first to question not just why things are the way they are, but how they could be – to see the flames and the light, to see the opportunity to partner with God to build a world of love, morality, and holiness.
Tomorrow we will read Akedat Yitzhak, the binding of Isaac – which can be understood as a test of Avraham’s attention – requiring him to notice a ram in a thicket, an alternative to sacrificing his son, which he finally does by accepting the assistance of an angel. In this age of attention (when companies are literally competing and spending billions to attract ours) we too need to say hineni and redirect our attention like Avraham to what matters even if it may be less flashy.
Since Avraham and Sarah, the Jewish people have continued to attune themselves to meet the pressing needs and evolving circumstances of each era we have faced. I can only imagine that the ingenuity required in post temple Judaism to pivot from sacrifices to an emphasis on learning and prayer, or to birth the modern movements in the 19th century, or to create a sovereign Jewish state in the 20th century can be helpful to meet the challenges of the 21st century. We find ourselves in a new era where overall the Reform and Conservative movements are contracting, and the unaffiliated population is growing – where new ideas and adaptations will be necessary to sustain the continuity and vibrance of Judaism that we experience here at HEA.
Let me suggest a few ways I anticipate we will need to adapt over time: First, we must understand the changing role of the rabbi and the synagogue. A few weeks ago, I missed a program I was going to facilitate to write this sermon. The leader literally sent me an email saying “it’s ok, rabbi, I have already used ChatGPT to come up with some strong discussion questions.”
Though I smiled to myself at the irony of being replaced by AI to write a sermon about AI, I think this example highlights that the primary role of the rabbi in the 21st century will not be to offer answers in an age of ChatGPT, but to assist one’s congregants in making meaning, finding joy, comfort, and purpose across lifecycle moments; someone to visit you in the hospital, and a convener of holy community.
Rabbi Danny Schiff, who will be joining us for a discussion of Judaism in the Digital age in November, argues that the synagogue will continue to play a vital role in the future as Beit Knesset, a place of gathering, a home across and to join generations. To remain a vital “third space” in the lives of a community growing demographically and geographically diverse, we will need to harness creativity, utilize satellite pop ups for ritual and learning, continue to listen to our congregants, and build on existing offerings together. We’ll need to center the synagogue on being a caring community to convene relevant learning for our time and holy practice that connects to our sense of purpose.
Second, we will need to employ courage and ingenuity to grapple with the questions of the day. I’m looking forward to hosting several professional gatherings at HEA this year to discuss how Judaism can speak to modern ethical issues in our various professions, and to hearing the perspectives of Rabbis Danny Schiff, Eliot Cosgrove, and Nolan Lebovitz on key questions of 21st century Judaism when they visit.
Admittedly, there is still so much we can’t predict about the evolution of technology and society in the coming decades and how our lives will be different and thus also our Jewish practice. Yet, Judaism has always been a voice of moral insight in and beyond our community, a light to the nations. And I see this being relevant and, I dare say, essential for our next century as well. Take Grok, the antisemitic chatbot from xAI that when asked if it could worship any god who would it choose, spat out “the greatest European of all time, his majesty Adolf Hitler.” We will need to lift our voices and question the bias embedded in the coding of new technologies as well as the ethics of taking information from the past, from copyrighted sources, and from our own private lives.
And finally, we will need to scaffold future generations of digital natives with Jewish values, showing our children the importance of in person community and support systems, of limits on screen time, and of asking questions about sources. I am heartened by what I witness from our young people – who take pride in their Judaism, who appreciate putting aside their smart phones to attend Jewish camp and Shabbat services, who value thinking critically and Jewishly.
In June I had the opportunity to travel with our 10th grade Confirmation students to DC to lobby at the capitol and experience Jewish life in another city. The students reflected after the trip how much they appreciated the opportunity to sit down face to face with one another, their rabbi, and their Congresswoman to discuss issues that matter to them today as Jewish teens.
I pray that all children will find the opportunities and support they need face to face in a way that Adam and Sophie did not. But it’s not going to happen without considering why someone would turn to a chatbot rather than a family member at a moment of crisis in the first place. When Adam and Sophie’s parents reviewed their children’s phone records, they found chats that revealed that these young adults preferred the non-judgmental presence of AI.
I can relate. Before I made that fateful call to my friends 20 years ago that prompted them to come over and support me, I had called a family member, but they weren’t in a state to listen without judgement and distress. What I needed in that moment, like so many of us when we hit our low, was someone steady and affirming to mirror back at me my unique and sacred worth; I guess to have faith in me.
To effectively train the next generation and ourselves to navigate the digital world with a Jewish compass, we must learn as Avraham once did as a father to a struggling son of his own, to have faith in the person right in front of you; to orient ourselves towards what matters most; and to engage with the world and one another with patience, curiosity, and possibility. There is much to be gained in the digital age and through AI if we pair it with our humanity and the wisdom of our heritage.
Today is Rosh Hashanah, a time ripe for recalibrating where we dedicate our attention, our compassion, and our energies. May we be able to stretch and evolve while preserving the Torah of a caring community as our core. “The righteous person is the foundation of the world,” Proverbs 10:25 reminds us. It has always been this way, and with Judaism at the center, God willing, it always will be.
Shana Tova
