Justin Reidy

When the Seer of Lublin, a great Hasidic master, was a child, he would wander in the forest. His father asked him why, and he said, “I go there to find God.” “That’s beautiful,” his father answered, “but haven’t I taught you that God is the same everywhere?” “God is,” said the boy, “but I’m not.”

God will not dispense health like a cosmic vendor or be enlisted as a party to our quarrels. The only real promise is presence. What God wants from me is me; from you, you.

People of steady faith cannot always understand why the rest of us do not simply open our hearts.

The Kotzker Rebbe famously asked his disciples where God dwells. Schooled in the rudiments of theology, they answered, “Everywhere.” Doesn’t the prophet teach us that “all the world is filled with His glory” (Isaiah 6:3)? But the Kotzker was having none of it. “No,” he told them, “God dwells wherever we let God in.”

Our deepest connection to this world is not reason but relation. People who, in tragedy, lose their faith do so not because they learn something new about God but because their relationship with God changes from experiencing God’s world in a new and painful way. Though reason must be allowed its say and sway, we come to God as we come to any deep r... See more

AI’s creative contribution also enhances the creative performance of old intellectuals, because the bottom line is not the number of ideas. It’s how well you choose the final idea and how well you execute on refining it. The more raw ideas we dump into that sausage maker, the more flavorful the final sausage. (And whether you find this metaphor cre... See more

For those of us who are not geniuses, it may be tempting to outsource some portion of our creativity to the AI, so we can get past the fact of our non-geniousness, but those barriers and climbing them is the work of creativity. The goal isn’t to become a genius. It’s to do the work.

Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

But here’s the point, the promise of this technology is speed and efficiency, a shorter route to an end product, and the removal of barriers between you and your creative self.

For those of us who are not geniuses, it may be tempting to outsource some portion of our creativity to the AI, so we can get past the fact of our non-geniousness, but those... See more

But here’s the point, the promise of this technology is speed and efficiency, a shorter route to an end product, and the removal of barriers between you and your creative self.

For those of us who are not geniuses, it may be tempting to outsource some portion of our creativity to the AI, so we can get past the fact of our non-geniousness, but those... See more