This Jewish Ritual Is My Secret Weapon Against AI Anxiety
What machines can never replicate
Lately, I've been having these strange moments. I'll be reading, or teaching, or cooking—and a quiet thought creeps in: Will AI replace me?
It's not always a dark thought. Sometimes it's simple curiosity. But beneath it lies a deeper question many of us are asking. In a world of looming superintelligence and advanced robotics: What makes me irreplaceable?
It's unsettling to imagine that many of the qualities we take pride in—intelligence, creativity, even productivity—might one day be performed better and faster by machines.
But alongside those flickers of unease, I've been having another kind of moment—moments of clarity and grounding. Moments that feel utterly, defiantly human.
This past Shavuot, I was lying in a hammock beneath the trees when my five-year-old climbed into my arms. We nestled into one of our "cuddle sessions." I wasn't just hugging her—I was trying to make her feel, deep in her little body, that she is loved.
For being her. For being mine.
In that moment, I thought: No machine will ever be able to do this. Not like this.
Love—embodied, intentional, unconditional, singular—cannot be automated.
This isn't just what makes us human. It's what reveals the divinity we carry.
And it's exactly what sits at the heart of this week's Torah portion.
Parashat Naso continues the Israelites' preparations to leave Sinai and journey toward the Promised Land.
Amid the logistics, the Torah offers one of its most enduring gifts: Birkat Kohanim, the priestly blessing. The priests are called to serve as conduits of God’s blessing to the Jewish people:
יְבָרֶכְךָ ה׳ וְיִשְׁמְרֶךָ
May God bless you and protect you
יָאֵר ה׳ פָּנָיו אֵלֶיךָ וִיחֻנֶּךָּ
May God shine His face upon you and be gracious to you
יִשָּׂא ה׳ פָּנָיו אֵלֶיךָ וְיָשֵׂם לְךָ שָׁלוֹם
May God lift His face toward you and grant you peace
We still recite Birkat Kohanim today—on holidays in Ashkenazic synagogues, and daily in Sephardic ones.1 I have the joy of receiving this blessing often from both my husband and my son.
But there’s a detail in Jewish law about this blessing that has always struck me.
The Mishnah Berurah explains:"If a priest harbors hatred toward the people—or if the people hate him—it is dangerous for him to deliver the blessing." This is why before they bless the congregation, priests must first declare - loudly - that they are blessing "with love."
Love, in other words, is not optional. Love is required as a precondition for blessing.
Which brings us back to AI.
Machines can already simulate love—offering soothing words, warm expressions, even companionship. Children form emotional bonds with social robots. Elderly patients respond to robotic caregivers. Soon, perhaps, we’ll have blessings on demand.
For some, that’s enough. If it feels like love, they ask, why insist on whether it’s real? If a machine can replicate the gestures of love and deliver comfort, who cares if it cannot choose to love?
But the Torah cares.
Because the choice to love—freely, consciously, with intention—is a uniquely human capacity.2 And in the Torah’s view, that choice is what gives a blessing its power.
To bless is not just to recite sacred words. It is to channel something divine. And that, our tradition insists, requires love—deliberate, willed, and utterly human.
As machines become increasingly able to replicate us, Judaism offers a counter-claim: our capacity to love with intention is one of the things that make us irreplaceable.
But irreplaceability isn’t the endpoint—it’s an invitation.
If intentional love is part of what defines us as human in the Genesis sense—bearers of divinity, not just products of evolution—then this is the terrain where our spiritual lives must deepen.
The question shifts from “Can I be replaced?” to “In the areas that are uniquely human, how do I grow this divine capacity?”
The issue isn’t just what machines can do—it’s whether we’ll have the wisdom and courage to orient our lives toward sacred human work.
This lens has helped me understand the deep sense of purpose I feel each Shabbat when I bless my children—a moment that takes place in countless Jewish homes around the world.
Parents place their hands on their children’s heads and recite the ancient words from Naso. The priestly blessing becomes a parental one.
When I bless my children, I do what my parents did—and still do—for me. I hold them close. I whisper the Torah’s words. Then I add my own: the beauty I saw in them that week, a kindness they offered, a question that made me proud. I try, in a moment, to offer a vision of who they’re becoming. I intend to love them.
When we place our hands on our children’s heads and bless them, when we choose to love with intention—in friendship, in care, in the relationships we tend and honor—we’re practicing what it means to be human in God’s image.
No algorithm can do this.
We can debate whether machines might one day develop real consciousness or emotional depth—whether they might truly love, not just appear to. Count me unconvinced.
This made me imagine a perhaps not too distant future, recently described by Sam Altman in an interview, in which the streets are literally filled with humanoid robots picking up garbage, walking people’s dogs, and putting babies to sleep. The craving for true human love and care will no doubt become so intense that people will cram into synagogues to receive Birkat Kohanim from flesh and blood kohanim who preserve the timeless, in-person tradition of pronouncing these words of blessing with love towards those so longing to hear them.
There is nothing that can replace the feeling when the mother puts her hands on the head of each child after she lights candles everts a Friday , and that of the Father’s as he does the same before he makes Kiddish Friday night
NOTHING
Shabbat shalom
Thank you for this beautiful important Torah message
Sending it to as many people as I can