Question

Hello to the honored Rabbi 

1. I happened yesterday to be at a sermon by a very well-known rabbi from the Religious Zionist public who was speaking about the matters of the Three Weeks and hope for redemption. (I am writing from memory, although they were recorded, since the things were so baffling and strange that it is impossible not to remember every word.) He asked: as is well known, our sages say that the Messiah will be close to Moses our teacher in prophecy, and wiser than King Solomon. (I remember that I myself saw this in the sources; perhaps one of them is Maimonides’ famous Letter to Yemen.) And he asked: how can it be that today, in 2025, there is a religious person among us—editor’s note: Haredi—who is wiser than King Solomon? True, there are many talented people among the Jewish people in Israel and around the world, but with all due respect, go check in the words of the sages how King Solomon ruled not only over the whole world but also over all the powers of nature and what lies beyond it, including demons, spirits, angels, etc. etc. There is nothing like it. As an aside—so the preaching rabbi added—he does not even know whether there is anyone capable of answering the riddles of the Queen of Sheba to King Solomon; maybe, maybe after a year of thought, but certainly, certainly not on the spot the way King Solomon answered her. And my ears sharpened to hear how the preaching rabbi would resolve this fine question. I tell you, Michi, if I had not heard it with my own ears, I would not have believed it possible to reach such a low Torah level. (Just to remind you, we are in the Three Weeks, not in Purim time.) In my opinion, this may even go beyond the boundary of sanity. No less and no more, this sandal-wearing rabbi suggested that in the recent period he has increasingly formed the insight—following all the talk in the world about replacing the human factor in all fields with artificial intelligence—that only in the mode of AI can one understand how it could surpass human beings in wisdom, and in his view it is not far-fetched at all—editor’s note: “the level”—to say that this is the Messiah hoped for throughout the generations, who will come when people are distracted. (He explained that this also makes very good sense of what “when people are distracted” means. Is there really such a thing that the Messiah will arrive and it will be while people are distracted, without some world-shaking apocalyptic fanfare?) After the sermon, first of all I pretended to compliment the rabbi on the insight and added: who knows whether the intention of the sages regarding the war of Gog and Magog is not the spiritual war of the internet, whose hallmark is Google (a nice play on words: Gog and Magog = Google). It seemed he accepted the idea. In any case, I made a supreme effort to keep a straight face and not burst out laughing, and to act as though I were innocently asking: if so, what about what is well known, that the Messiah is supposed to come from the house of David? And I was astonished for a good hour—at first it seemed for a moment that he had not thought of that direction. But he recovered pretty quickly and asked me: do you know the Brisker Rav, known as Rabbi Chaim, who regarding all kinds of questions on “I believe in the coming of the Messiah every day,” etc.—after all, with regard to the Sabbath we hold that he will not come because of travel limits, etc., etc.—about all this the Brisker Rav would say that Elijah the Tishbite will answer that too, but one must believe in the simple sense that at every single moment he can arrive. So this question too, said the rabbi, we will ask Elijah when he comes. He added another brilliant line, that perhaps Elijah will reveal to us that the inventor of OpenAI is actually a Jew from the seed of the house of David, and therefore it makes no difference whether it is the fruit of his loins or the fruit of his mind. (What a bastardized definition. It reminds me of decades ago when someone was horrified by your words that there is quite a bit of evidence in evolution that man came from the ape, and to his question, but doesn’t the Torah say he was formed as dust from the ground?—you gave your well-known answer regarding facts in the Torah while making a similarly bastardized remark to the one above, that you do not see an essential difference whether a person came from an ape or from mud.) I know that a lot of nonsense can be said, especially on mystical subjects, but every somewhat sane Torah person has limits to stupidity, and certainly such a respectable rabbi, and certainly, certainly to say such nonsense in public with no filter whatsoever. So my question is simple: may I publish such a recording? (I can also obtain video documentation of it.) Because although this fool does not understand that when he says such things in public it makes him and the public he represents look ridiculous to the dust, and in the end it may reach the ears of learners—and it is clear to me, at least, that the Haredi public will have a field day with it. As a Lithuanian yeshiva-type, I no longer know what is more dangerous: to believe about a rabbi who died that he is the Messiah, or to follow such a foolish goat as this. Seemingly, if this is not defamation in the simple sense, then at least it is “cursed is one who strikes his fellow in secret.” What does the Rabbi think?