Welcome to the Age of the Storyteller or Hebrew as The Ultimate Programming Language

In a recent interview with a prominent writer on technology, when asked about the biggest trends in the foreseeable future in the area of technology, she responded briefly and to the point with two words: “Mobile and Sensors”.

We live in the Big Data world. It surrounds us everywhere we go. Our desire and more importantly our ability to gather it are growing exponentially. Yet we need better ability to analyze this data so we can use in our personal and professional lives. Experts say that the most important skill the workers and the managers of the future alike will need to have is ability to work with data.

Yet while we are still going through the Big Data phase, the next phase is already upon us. I call it “The Age of the Storyteller”. You see, data is meaningless until it can empower you to make decision and take actions to help you accomplish your goals. Data is only as good as the logic you have in place and parameters you set up to first gather the right type and amount of data and then second as your ability to interpret within the existing context to move you into your desirable future.

It is at the intersection of four-thousand-old Jewish wisdom and most innovative technology that we find some interesting ideas that can empower us in our attempt to get a better handle on the process.

Key idea # 1: Old fairy tales might  be more than fairy tales

According to Jewish wisdom, our world was created through speech. Ten utterances or statements, to be precise. But that was not the end. Actually it was just the beginning. The world has never stopped growing or expanding. It happens right now as you are reading this. Interestingly, the String Theory says that our world is in the process of continuous rapid expansion.

When I attended a NY Tech Meetup at NYU in April 2013, one of the presenters wrote a few lines of code and showed us how he can, by running the code and using the Arduino platform, make the light go on and off. That same software that brings together software and hardware can do many other exciting things. Yet, nobody in the audience was jumping up and down. As amazing as it was, we sort of expect technology to do this kind of cool stuff these days.

Perhaps now, in light of the unfolding technological progress we have been witnessing and things it has enabled us to do by simply writing a few lines of letters mixed by numbers and pressing Enter, the idea that the world was created through speech does not seem that absurd. I mean, we can have a 3D printer make a toy for us, or a shoe, or a glass…and we are just getting started.

Key idea # 2: if Hebrew is a programming language, then Torah is a very long line of code

Let us go back to that story of how the world was created, as it is described in the Torah. We know there were 10 “sayings”. Now Hebrew is a very special language, some say the most special of all. It has 22 letters and it is by using/speaking this letters in a particular combination that the world was created. This is another statement that not too long ago would sound completely unrealistic. Additionally, using gematria (a traditional Jewish method of converting letters into numbers) every single Hebrew letter can be translated into a number. Alef is 1, Bet is 2, Gimel is 3 and so on until we get to Tav which is 400. By using gematria we can  turn the 600,000 Hebrew letters that comprise the Torah into an even longer line of numbers. It starts sounding more and more like a typical line of a software code.

Interesting detail is that even though the Torah was revealed some time after the world was already in existence, the Jewish wisdom has clearly explained that Torah was created before the world. The Torah is perceived as a blueprint or a map. The Creator looked into Torah and according to its content he created the world. This is why study of the Torah in Ya’adut (Judaism) is such a primary commandment. We, the Jews, are asked to constantly study the Torah, to actually view our life and the world through the lens of the Torah. Think Google Glass for a moment and you will get the idea.

Now let us go back to the idea of continuous expansion. In software, by using loops we can run/execute a block or entire code a number of times. For instance, we can say that as long as the specified value falls within a certain range, a certain action will be performed. We can also specify that every time a loop is executed/run the value of the initial variable increases.

Key idea # 3: The story of Creation of the World – retold by a programmer

If we can now go back to what the Jewish Sages have been saying and interpret their words through our freshly explained software prism, the story of [continuous] creation of the world looks something like this:

In the beginning there was nothing. And then The Master Programmer (HaShem/G-d)wrote a very long piece of code (The Torah) using his programing language (Hebrew). He ran the code for the first time and He liked the outcome. So he added a few extra lines. When He saw the results he was happy. So He added a few extra lines and set up a few Loops in place and then set the program in motion.

The world would be incomplete without helpers that can be part of the creation process. And so men (and women) were created to be those “helpers”. Judaism talks about humans being partners in the creation process with the Creator.

As a matter of fact, it was for human beings that the world was created. And so following this logic, we can say that He created humans with similar set of characteristics (in his image), who in our story will be called “junior programmers” for men and “advisors/guides” for women. Men and women have different roles and responsibilities in this process of co-creation. He gave them both their own unique set of tools, namely “thought, speech and action, with which they too can create or code in their specific way within the framework He setup and defined”. By using these tools, the assistant programmers continuously write code – as long as they’re in the state of being awake. Once the code has been written, it goes back to the Main Server (Upper Realms), where it gets in the queue and when its time comes, it is run. When that happens – the world experiences a change of sorts. Sometimes it is more visible than others, but ultimately as the changes accumulates, it reaches a certain tipping point and a more significant transformation/shift occurs.

Key idea # 4: Our world is an infinite data field

“Know what is above you – a seeing eye, a hearing ear, and all your deeds recorded in a book”. Until not too long ago, this would have sounded like another line from an outdated fairy tale. Today with advancements we made in mobile technology, cameras and drones, it starts looking more and more like a plausible scenario.

Every line and symbol a “junior programmer” writes using either one of the three methods (thought, speech and actions, also known in Kabbalistic thought as the garments of the soul) is carefully recorded and that data is sent back to the Main Server where it is stored. To be precise, what is recorded is the following:

• Beginning position and location of the “junior programmer” within the system
• The content of the newly added line of code
• The nature of change it triggers in the System(positive or negative). The change is observed and recorded on three different levels – immediately in the very same location of the “programmer”, in the surrounding area within the System and then the overall cumulative change in the whole entire System.

What this resembles very closely is a very sophisticated performance management system. And indeed in line with Jewish perspective on life, we are here to accomplish a very specific mission and it can only be done if our progress is recorded and documented. Interestingly enough, the first commandment the Israelites are given while still in Egypt is to count the months. Makes complete sense, because just like in business process theory, performance/actions are measured per a unit of time (even thought in Ya’adut, this is not the only reason why the commandment of counting the months exists).

Conclusion:

The goal of this brief essay was to illustrate striking similarities between software codes, data mining and the Torah, between structure of software languages, data gathering & analysis and structure of Hebrew and this world of action we live in. If assumptions laid down here are indeed true, it can have positive implications for the importance of studying of Hebrew and ancient Jewish wisdom.  If Hebrew is indeed the very language used by the Creator to create this world, learning Hebrew within the larger context of Jewish wisdom (both Written and Oral), can reveal new insights and open new doors into the future of technology, business and data mining.

Open Source Judaism

Earlier this year, I attended a lecture given by a Rabbi and a professor from Bar Ilan University in Israel. He spoke about the results of the recent elections in Israel and what he thought most of the media outside of Israel missed. Namely, he believed that the recent elections were first and foremost about the unity of the Jewish people and the “soul of the Jewish people in Israel”.

The speaker described with great excitement the process of revival of Jewish traditions among the secular Jews in Israel. He described how after the collapse of the peace talks with the Palestinians, many secular Jews were searching for a new sense of purpose, both personally and politically. The settlers were going through a similar process. After Gaza strip was given back to the Palestinians and the settlements of the Gush Katif were eliminated, the religious Jews from the settlements understood that the rebuilding of the Greater Israel was being reversed and not progressing according to their dreams and aspirations, which they in turn inherited from their teachers, namely the two late Rabbis Kook, the father and the son.

According to the lecturer, this phenomenon of resurgence of Jewish spirituality and the thirst demonstrated by secular Israelis to re-embrace their tradition and spiritual heritage has been happening for a while. Groups have been forming all over Israel that come together once a week to chant ancient Jewish melodies and to study Yahadut. G-d is now mentioned more and more in the mainstream Israeli music. People, especially young people, are searching for something. They want to be spiritual and they want to be Jewishly spiritual. People are very curious about Kabala and Jewish mystical teachings.

Then the conversation turned to American Jewry. The professor feels that the rate of Jewish assimilation in America is not going down but perhaps on the contrary and that overall the Jewish identity among American Jews is getting weaker. By contrast, in Israel the feeling of togetherness certainly has a strong almost “tribal” element to it, therefore creating a much stronger national bond and unity among Israeli Jews.

Recent Israeli elections have been a reflection of these sociological trends. As per the speaker, 35% of Israeli Knesset is now observant. Even “Yesh Atid” has two Rabbis on its list of PMs.

The speaker ended his lecture on an optimistic note by saying that he is very encouraged to see these positive developments. He even went as far as saying that he truly the hand of Hashem at work.

My first comment is that, while I do not doubt that the overall trend is there, all this is hardly surprising. In a way it simply is a repetition of hundreds of years of Jewish history. Jewish communities stayed together and were united partially because of the existential threats that always existed around them. There was simply no other choice. The threat was twofold. On one hand were the hostile, anti-Semitic goim/gentiles around them. On the other hand was the threat of being excommunicated from the community, if the person did not follow the rules. Both threats combined kept people “in line” for centuries.

What we see in Israel today is very similar. Disenchanted with international organizations, including the UN, and the overall international community; seeing that the peace process with the Palestinians is not going anywhere, mainly because it is unclear at this point who to negotiate with, Israelis feel increased isolation and perhaps loss of hope. When that happens, as is often the case in times of uncertainty and danger, people tend to draw closer together. New Yorkers demonstrated this on 9/11, as they came together to support each other during the time of tragedy.

Regardless of how we feel about the current phenomenon, what I want to understand is the root cause of why this is happening. Does it happen because people are simply rediscovering some of the richness of their old tradition, like a child who finds his father’s old watch in the attic, or does it happen because the people of Israel are under enormous amount of stress, feel that they are stuck in a “no way out” situation and they find relief in their tradition?

This is where the American Jewish experience can serve as a helpful point of reference. In the absence of existential threats, living in an open society where all doors are open to them, young generation of American Jews are putting validity and Judaism’s entire reason for existence to a test. Gone are the days of being Jewish by guilt. As are the ghetto days of first Poland and Russia and then Boro Park in Brooklyn. Jews in America enjoy freedoms and opportunities like none of the generations of Jews before them.

The speaker made a statement that I found interesting. He said that many young people in Israel want to be more Jewish however they do not want to be religious. Once again, nothing new here as young people of all faiths have been saying for a long time here in the U.S. Rabbinic Judaism has been in existence for at least two thousand years. Rabbis have claimed the spot of being the custodians of the tradition for all this time. So my question to Rabbi Wolf was how does he, as a Rabbi, feel about these young truth seekers questioning the authority and the status quo upheld by the Rabbinic institutions and the Rabbis. Technology and easier access to information create disruption not only in education, business, and manufacturing but also in traditional form of social organization and spirituality, two roles which religion has historically fulfilled. The Rabbis were not only the custodians but also to a certain degree the gate keepers. We can say that they monopolized control over the Jewish experience. They were the selector at the door of a night club who decided who goes in and goes out. They claimed that they know the texts and they have the last word. Now of all it is changing. The young generation in their search of their own identity and decidedly more, Jewish spirituality is going back to the texts, to the origin. They want to know. They do not just want to be told what to do. They do not blindly trust in the Rabbinic authority like the previous generations did. And so the Torah no longer belongs to the Rabbis. Everybody has equal access to it. And most importantly, equal ability to decide what parts can be followed and what parts might need re-interpretation.

The central question that we now come to is the question of evolution of Judaism and the Jewish people. I do not think of it as a question of survival. Did Judaism exist, develop and survive because of its inherent strength or mainly because of outside threats and rejection by the non-Jewish societies where Jews lived? If Judaism is really the powerful, life-giving and enhancing teaching that we, The Chosen People, were given, then it should survive the test of time and the test of change.

I do not agree with some of the Rabbis’ assertion that I hear here in the U.S. that we Jews are different, because we cherish different set of eternal values and therefore will always be separated from other nations and alone. I also hear opinions propagated by the clergy in all denominations, especially in the Conservative, the Orthodox and Chassidic movements, that state that in the end nobody really likes us or wants to be with us, that we are meant to be forever isolated and misunderstood. And therefore, we only have each other at the end of the day and so we need to stick together and take care of each other.

I am very proudly Jewish and I see so many people full of admiration towards Judaism, its teaching, its rituals and wisdom. I am amazed by how many of my non-Jewish friends from all walks of life are absolutely fascinated by Jewish people. I meet people of diverse beliefs that exhibit such love, admiration and curiosity towards the Jews. Surely there are people out there that do not like us. But there are always people who find something or someone they do not like. Why as Jews, we do not always remember to do that and instead focus so much on how much others hate us? It seems to be simply un-Jewish. Our Sages taught us to “judge the entire person favorably”. Perhaps it is time to take a different approach, one that can balance remembering the past with insistence on finding all the people that love us the Jews and focus more on them. Interestingly enough, this is right in line with our own tradition.

In this open world where ideas and values compete with each other in one big open forum, I feel confident that Judaism has so much to offer. Isolating it and propagating the feelings of insecurity, fear and mistrust between Jews and Gentiles, is perceived by me more as a sign of weakness and lack of confidence on the part of Jewish men and women. It can also be perceived as lack of desire to let go of control and security on behalf of the leaders of the community. Change is good but not everyone feels comfortable with it.

If you have something that is so superior and you truly believe in its power and abilities, why would ever by afraid of competition? If a person has healthy and strong immune system, he is not afraid to go to a supermarket shopping because he is scared that he is going to catch a virus.

If we raise our children with a strong sense of Jewish identity, self-awareness, knowledge of how to love those around them because they know how to love themselves unconditionally, with a clear understand of how our thousand-year-old values and principles can be directly applied to their life to make it better in all its areas, why do we need to be afraid of intermarriage? Or of Christian missionaries? Or of simple and plain secularization? True strength does not fear a thing. True strength exhibits confidence and infuses a man with sense of purpose and direction that nothing can take away from him. And if it does not, perhaps it is not the real thing.

“Words that come from a heart enter a heart”. So if they are not reaching a heart, perhaps they did not come from the heart. Perhaps the issue is not with the other side, not with the demographical and the societal changes in the Western countries, specifically in the U.S. Perhaps the real issue is that it is time to change the old set of clothes for a new one. Taking these ancient principles, and while preserving their inner integrity re-dressing them so that they can deliver that which they are meant to deliver: peace, happiness, fulfillment, health. Jewish wisdom is the foundation of our entire Western civilization. In the words of John Adams, 2^nd President of our country, the U.S. :”I will insist the Hebrews have [contributed] more to civilize men than any other nation. If I was an atheist and believed in blind eternal fate, I should still believe that fate had ordained the Jews to be the most essential instrument for civilizing the nations … They are the most glorious nation that ever inhabited this Earth. The Romans and their empire were but a bubble in comparison to the Jews. They have given religion to three-quarters of the globe and have influenced the affairs of mankind more and more happily than any other nation, ancient or modern.”

If we are here on a mission, have we forgotten that have a job to do? If we have knowledge in our hands that has ability to bring transformation for good to others around us, it is not our responsibility to share it with them? Perhaps we forgot what our real job in this world is.

Software experts tell us that open source software tends to outperform proprietary software. Google’s open source mobile platform Android captured the world. It is the way of the future. Judaism as interpreted by the Rabbis has been that proprietary software. It did well so far, but it is losing ground quickly. It does not mean that Judaism does not have merit or has nothing to offer – it simply means that our approach to it must change.

Elders’ Crown

“Children’s children are the crown of the elders, and the glory of the children is their fathers”, Mishlei 17:6

It is not easy to be Jewish. It is, of course very rewarding on many levels, but easy it is not. Because in addition to all the other things everybody else is doing, we, the Jews, have this things called “The People”. We came from somewhere, we have roots and we belong. Which has nothing to do with observance of Jewish commandments per se, also known as Halakha.

Because we come from somewhere, we have responsibility to take all the things we received from the previous generations and pass them on. It is not always a very rational thing. As a matter of fact, the whole definition of what it means to be Jewish, when answered by the Jews, at times makes no sense to other people. Is it a religion, peoplehood, culture, ethnicity…what is Judaism? Perhaps all of the above and more.

Sometimes, some of us almost wish that we did not have to deal with all this. But in the end, almost all of us, sooner or later begin to realize that at the very least out of respect to all the previous generations before us, we need to give it enough thought and take this seriously.

And so this site comes to life in an attempt to not only add yet another humble effort to the already existing wave, but to also try and make this old wisdom and tradition of ours something that is alive, relevant and vital today, something that you, my dear reader, and I can use to make our own lives and the rest of the world around us a better and happier.

In Peace,

Aharon