In today’s confounding day there is much talk of Artificial Intelligence and the rapid rise of digital solutions to many of our challenges and needs. But will AI develop its own sentience? Will the human-made machine transcend its makers to evolve its own essential divinity - an extension of our own creation in the image of some life-force, some call God? Will the machine become more than a machine and what then happens to us?
On some level these hyper-modern question is on Isaiah’s lips and mind 2,800 years ago. And one of the things he’s afraid of, seeing all around him, is what happens when people already forget the big picture and begin to live like machines.
Living life on auto-pilot is the deadening of soul, a machine like existence that takes the joy and passion out of everything we do. This is not just the product of the industrial Capitalistic reality we’re in. The warning against such an approach has been central to the religious life, when words are muttered, blessings said, while the bottom line and big message are forgotten in favor of automatic piousness that has its merits of commitment but what about intentionality, and where is the love?
Isaiah’s pained words can be heard today as loudly as when he railed them in Jerusalem and some of his expressions have made it into the heart of Jewish vocabulary, echoing still. A few of those are in this chapter, in which he keeps lamenting the drunk oblivion of the people, our refusal to see the big picture, our insistence on living small lives, shirking our human responsibility to each other, and abusing the divine source that lies within.
You’re walking dead, he tells his neighbors, worshipping your god as if you are lifeless machines, mouths moving but hearts empty of love. It is as if the clay will claim it is its own master, oblivious to the potter’s hands, unaware or too proud to realize the eco-system and the humility that comes with this awareness. Rather than focus on one word today I bring a few of his verses together - a rallying call to wake up to the bigger picture, to get beyond the auto-pilot of prayer or practice, to be aware of what’s at stake for each and every one of us:
וַתְּהִ֨י לָכֶ֜ם חָז֣וּת הַכֹּ֗ל כְּדִבְרֵי֮ הַסֵּ֣פֶר הֶחָתוּם֒ אֲשֶֽׁר־יִתְּנ֣וּ אֹת֗וֹ אֶל־יוֹדֵ֥עַ (הספר) [סֵ֛פֶר] לֵאמֹ֖ר קְרָ֣א נָא־זֶ֑ה וְאָמַר֙ לֹ֣א אוּכַ֔ל כִּ֥י חָת֖וּם הֽוּא׃
וְנִתַּ֣ן הַסֵּ֗פֶר עַל֩ אֲשֶׁ֨ר לֹא־יָדַ֥ע סֵ֛פֶר לֵאמֹ֖ר קְרָ֣א נָא־זֶ֑ה וְאָמַ֕ר לֹ֥א יָדַ֖עְתִּי סֵֽפֶר׃
וַיֹּ֣אמֶר אֲדֹנָ֗י יַ֚עַן כִּ֤י נִגַּשׁ֙ הָעָ֣ם הַזֶּ֔ה בְּפִ֤יו וּבִשְׂפָתָיו֙ כִּבְּד֔וּנִי וְלִבּ֖וֹ רִחַ֣ק מִמֶּ֑נִּי וַתְּהִ֤י יִרְאָתָם֙ אֹתִ֔י מִצְוַ֥ת אֲנָשִׁ֖ים מְלֻמָּדָֽה׃
לָכֵ֗ן הִנְנִ֥י יוֹסִ֛ף לְהַפְלִ֥יא אֶת־הָעָם־הַזֶּ֖ה הַפְלֵ֣א וָפֶ֑לֶא וְאָֽבְדָה֙ חׇכְמַ֣ת חֲכָמָ֔יו וּבִינַ֥ת נְבֹנָ֖יו תִּסְתַּתָּֽר׃
ה֛וֹי הַמַּעֲמִיקִ֥ים מֵֽיְהֹוָ֖ה לַסְתִּ֣ר עֵצָ֑ה וְהָיָ֤ה בְמַחְשָׁךְ֙ מַֽעֲשֵׂיהֶ֔ם וַיֹּ֣אמְר֔וּ מִ֥י רֹאֵ֖נוּ וּמִ֥י יֹֽדְעֵֽנוּ׃
הַ֨פְכְּכֶ֔ם אִם־כְּחֹ֥מֶר הַיֹּצֵ֖ר יֵחָשֵׁ֑ב כִּֽי־יֹאמַ֨ר מַעֲשֶׂ֤ה לְעֹשֵׂ֙הוּ֙ לֹ֣א עָשָׂ֔נִי וְיֵ֛צֶר אָמַ֥ר לְיֹצְר֖וֹ לֹ֥א הֵבִֽין׃
This prophecy has been to you like the words of a sealed scroll.
If it is handed to one who can read with a request to read it, the response will be, “I can’t, because it is sealed”; But if the scroll is given to one who cannot read, the response will be, “I can’t read.”
My God said:
Because that people have approached with the words of their mouth
And honored Me with their lips,
But have kept their heart far from Me,
Their worship of Me has been
A social obligation, learned by rote—
Truly, I shall further baffle that people
With bafflement upon bafflement;
And the wisdom of its wise shall fail,
And the prudence of its prudent shall vanish.
Ha! Those who would hide their plans deep from the Divine!
Who do their work in dark places and say, “Who sees us, who takes note of us?”
How perverse of you! Should the potter be accounted as the clay?
Should what is made say of its Maker,
“This One did not make me,”
And what is formed say of the One who formed it,
“That One did not understand”?
Two expressions jump up at me the most: The first is the expression ‘“A social obligation, learned by rote”. The Hebrew is Mitzvat Anashim Melumada - a commandment learned by heart but devoid of intention. I recall being taught this warning as a young boy by some rabbi or teacher, reminding us to take each religious task with fervor and not for granted. Not an easy task when you have 60 pages of words in your prayer book to get through every morning. So much of the religious life of our people who are guarding the tradition with zeal is guilty of this ‘learned by rote’ behaviour, oblivious not just to the human heart but also to evolving social norms and needs.
The second expression to catch the eye and heart is is the basis of the prayer that breaks heart on the High Holy Days -- we are like clay in your hands, should You want, we are formed, otherwise - dissolved. Isaiah’s claim here is that we are made of matter, and it matters, and by refusal to see that we are as those who receive a scroll or a book with all its information that will change our lives yet we don’t open it or unable to decipher what it means.
A mystical Jewish text from the 19th century, written by the Hasidic leader Rabbi Yitzchak of Radvill, echoes Isaiah’s words:
“It is written ‘and you will soon perish from the good land that God is assigning to you.
(Deut. 11:17), meaning you will perish from the good land within yourself, which is the divine part, the unique favor not shared by other creatures, for we are part of the divine whole, as that which is mined is of the mine.
Woe to us for so few hearts pay attention.”
What can we take on today to be less machine-like and more awake, aware, grateful and graceful - mindful of the mined, part of the mine?
Below the Bible Belt: 929 chapters, 42 months, daily reflections.
Become a free or paid subscriber and join Rabbi Amichai’s 3+ years interactive online quest to question, queer + re-read between the lines of the entire Hebrew Bible. Enjoy daily posts, weekly videos and monthly learning sessions. 2022-2025.
#Isaiah #Isaiah29 #ProphetIsaiah #ישעיהו #BookofIsaiah #Prophets #Neviim #Hebrewbible #Tanach #929 #labshul #belowthebiblebelt929 #postpatriarchy #prophecy #AI #Autopilot #dontliveyourlifeonautopilot #machinewithsoul #rebuke #ArtificialIntelligence #lifebyrote #wakeup #consciousness