Chevre, this week’s parsha is Re’eh (ראה). There is a lot of discussion with Re’eh and the blessings and curses on Har Gerizim and Har Eival. What is striking, having been there, is that 1 mountain is lush and green with trees and the other, right next to it, is empty and barren. And looking at the mountains, you can imagine a huge number of people split between the mountains and someone at the bottom reciting the Brachot (Blessings) and Klalot (Curses). And it is our choice which side we individually and we as a people stand. We can be moral, righteous and follow the path laid out in the Torah as best we can. Or we can choose to not.

I remember several incidents of first learning computers. Staring at a blinking cursor and thinking “now what”. A clean slate, I have no idea what exists behind this machine or how to interact with it. I started on a Radio Shack TRS-80 connected to a TV. Later I moved up to DOS (before windows). And in college, I started to learn Linux. I could even put the first time I tried writing a Lambda into that category. Or the first time I fired up Q cli, what do I ask it? How do I work with this thing. What I’ve found over the years of interacting with computers is that the Learn and Be Curious needs to take over. Along with the Work Hard, Have Fun, Make History. Jumping in, playing, maybe reading an article or a book. Whatever it takes.

These technologies have become the cornerstone of our world. And no matter how deep you go, there is always someone there who has and can go deeper. But we should always remember that we are making a choice when interacting with the real world and the digital world. We need to remember to be moral, righteous and follow the good path. Because on the other side of those other computers are people that are keeping them running, making them available for us, or helping us with support issues. So while saying please and thank you may anger the GenAIs (because they take resources for them to compute and essentially not do anything), those are important concepts when dealing with people.

Shabbat Shalom.