Rabbi Zvika Krieger, Chochmat HaLev
June 6, 2026

Some of you may have seen in the news that Pope Leo the Fourteenth released an encyclical, an official Catholic proclamation on Artificial Intelligence. It’s just the latest indication that AI is reshaping almost every aspect of the human experience, and even forcing us to question what it means to be human. 

As a rabbi who has also been a tech executive, I’ve been getting asked a lot of questions about the Pope’s encyclical. Some of you may know that I was the head of Responsible Innovation at Meta, where I spent a lot of time anticipating and mitigating the most harmful impacts of AI on our users. I helped TikTok create their Responsible AI team. I advised Pixar on how they portray AI in their movies viewed by millions of children around the world. And I currently advise Anthropic and a number of other companies on similar topics that I can’t talk about publicly.

So perhaps it’s not surprising that a lot of people have been asking me this week whether Judaism has a similar position on AI. Well, since we don’t have a central authority like Catholics do, Judaism doesn’t have a single position on anything – thank god! But we do have some ancient wisdom that holds up pretty well even a few thousand years later.

I was recently asked in an interview at the Aspen Institute whether AI is god. Let’s turn to this week’s Torah portion and see whether it might help us answer that question. We’re in the book Bamidbar, which chronicles the travails of our ancestors as they wander through the desert for 40 years. It’s a treacherous landscape, full of potential threats, where the road ahead is unclear – not unlike the world we’re confronting today.

So where did our ancestors find guidance?

וַיהוָה הֹלֵךְ לִפְנֵיהֶם יוֹמָם בְּעַמּוּד עָנָן לַנְחֹתָם

God went before them by day in a pillar of cloud, to guide them on the way.

The God character appeared to the Israelites in a cloud. It would rest on top of the Mishkan, the traveling sanctuary. Whenever the cloud lifted from above the Mishkan, the Israelites would pack up all their stuff and follow the cloud. When the cloud settled, they would set up camp there.

Why does God appear in a cloud? Not a throne, or a sun, or a big hand pointing the way. A cloud is a strange place for God to appear.

Throughout Jewish tradition, the cloud is a symbol for confusion, obfuscation, and not-knowing. Clouds obscure our view. They turn bright colors into shades of grey. And as much as you might want to grab one, its intangible form would slip through your fingers, if you could reach it at all. It’s a paradox – the thing Israelites looked to for clarity offers no clarity at all. 

Rabbi Shem Tov ben Joseph, the medieval Spanish philosopher, says that God dwells in a cloud to teach us:

שנתקרב לו בשלילות לא בקיום

We experience God not through certainty, but by letting go of the need to know.

As if to emphasize this point, this week’s Torah portion teaches us that God doesn’t just dwell in any cloud – but a very fickle cloud. It specifies that sometimes the cloud would stay put for many years, sometimes a month, sometimes a day, and sometimes it would settle in the evening and take off the very next morning. They had no idea when they would have to pack up and move, how long they would have to follow it for, and when they might have to do it all over again. 

According to the Ishbitzer Rebbe, the 19th century Polish mystic, this experience of not-knowing is a key Jewish spiritual practice. He quotes King Soloman from the Book of Kings, who says 

יְהוָה אָמַר לִשְׁכֹּן בָּעֲרָפֶל׃

“The Divine Mystery has said we must dwell in the cloud.” 

The Ishbitzer Rebbe explains: 

היו מוכרחים לסבול ההסתרה

They were compelled to sit with the not-knowing

היו צריכין לשמור בכח שלא ידחקו את הקץ ואת השעה

They had to restrain themselves from forcing the end or forcing the time.

It’s not just that God is inherently unknowable – it’s that by being unknowable, God teaches us the importance of embracing not-knowing. As the Zohar says, quoting the Book of Proverbs:

כְּבֹד אֱלֹהִים הַסְתֵּר דָּבָר

“It is the glory of God to conceal a matter.”

***

This feels like a very counter-cultural practice these days. We are living in a world that hungers for certainty. With so many unknowns all around us, our grasping for certainty is understandable. It offers us the promise of safety, of predictability, of stability. 

So we vote for the people who are the most confident, who stick to their positions even in the face of countervailing evidence. Our pundits speak in exclamation points. Our social media feeds reward the hottest take, the sharpest edge, the most absolute claim. Everyone seems to know what you should do with your life, your grief, your relationships, your body, your children, your future. 

On all sides of the spectrum, we are rewarded for being decisive, not discerning; for being loyal, not honest; for knowing exactly what to say before we have fully taken in what is true. Certainty gets clicks. Certainty wins elections. Certainty sells books, builds brands, fills comment sections, fuels outrage, and makes us feel safe. 

AI is the perfect God for this age of certainty. I was reflecting recently on why AI tools like ChatGPT and Claude have so quickly replaced our previous go-to approach for finding answers: The Google search. I think the reason is that a Google search didnt use to give us answers – it gave us a list of sources, usually with a range of perspectives, that we had to sort through and come to an answer on our own. The new AI tools just give us the answer – in a voice full of certainty, engineered to give us confidence.

A few weeks ago, I was looking to buy a new dishwasher – actually the first time I’ve had to buy a dishwasher. I hate making big purchases. I’m the kind of person who spends hours creating spreadsheets, comparing the pros and cons of each model, reading thousands of reviews and customer comments, scouring the corners of the internet for the best deals. 

AI is made for someone like me. I plugged all my parameters into ChatGPT and it said: This is the model you should buy, listing all the ways in which it met my criteria. The confidence of its answer sent huge waves of relief into my nervous system. No endless hours of deliberating – just the answer. Honestly, it just felt so good to be told what to do.

One of the benefits of the model it suggested was it had a stainless steel tub, which is more durable and better at cleaning dishes. But when I Googled that model, I saw that it had a plastic tub. Incensed, I immediately called out ChatGPT. Its response was, “Oh, you’re right, sorry, don’t buy that dishwasher.”

It was then that I realized that in using AI, we’re trading accuracy for certainty. That feeling of confidence has become a value in its own right, separate from whether it’s actually true.

I heard a similar story from my former Meta colleague, Brian Fuller, who literally wrote the policies governing Meta’s AI tools. His lawnmower battery charger was deteriorating each year between his annual springtime mowings, so he asked Gemini what to do. It suggested that he store it in his indoor utility closet to avoid exposing it to temperature changes.

As he was about to plug it in, he switched over from the free version of Gemini to the premium Gemini Pro to ask a final question. “Stop!” the screen read. “I am so sorry! Disregard my prior messages. When charging, lead-acid batteries off-gas hydrogen. An enclosed utility closet under the stairs is typically unventilated. The hydrogen gas that will accumulate in such a tight, enclosed space will explode in the presence of any small spark (even from simply unplugging the charger).”

Gemini had essentially invited him to build a bomb beneath the feet of his sleeping children. And because of Gemini’s performative confidence, he almost did it.

There are many reasons to be worried about AI. Its huge environmental impact. Massive job displacement. Racial biases. Its flattening effect on art and creativity. The decline of relationships as people increasingly choose obsequious chatbots over interpersonal friction. And as demonstrated by Brian’s lawnmower, of course we all need to be aware of AI’s inaccuracies.

But I think one of the most pernicious harms of AI is the subtle ways in which it pushes us toward certainty. It is both a symptom and an accelerant of a culture that prizes knowing all the answers. And the truth is, it’s exhausting to live as if we are supposed to know everything. To have a take on every tragedy, a plan for every uncertainty, a diagnosis for every feeling, a prediction for every future. It is exhausting to constantly convert mystery into explanation, grief into lessons, people into categories, and life into content. 

The word for cloud in Hebrew – Anan – shares a similar root with the Hebrew words Anah, which means Answer, and Inui, which means suffering. There’s a particular flavor of suffering that comes from always seeking answers – from feeling like you always need to know the answers. 

My experience is that just as certainty can provide a nervous-system relief, so can the acceptance of not-knowing. The God who resides in the cloud of confusion offers a different kind of relief – not the relief of having the answer, but the relief of being released from the demand to have one.

I invite you to close your eyes and imagine somewhere in your life where you are confronting uncertainty. Maybe it’s a decision you need to make, a job or a relationship or a plan. Notice how it feels to not know. Are you judging yourself? Check in with your body – Is it uncomfortable? Do you feel tension? Is there a sense that you need to move from not-knowing to knowing?

Now consider the possibility that, in that feeling, God chooses to dwell. By sitting in that discomfort, you can connect with God. Take a deep breath into that. What if that uncertainty is not a waystation toward certainty, but rather a core Jewish practice for experiencing Divinity – שנתקרב לו?

What if, as in this week’s Torah portion, the Divine dwells in a cloud to comfort us

וַיהוָה הֹלֵךְ לִפְנֵיהֶם בְּעַמּוּד עָנָן לַנְחֹתָם הַדֶּרֶךְ

The Divine dwells in a cloud to show us that it’s okay to not know.

As King Soloman told us,

יְהוָה אָמַר לִשְׁכֹּן בָּעֲרָפֶל

The Divine Mystery says, come stay with me in this place of not-knowing. This is a holy place. This is a sacred practice. 

From this place, I invite you to whisper these words: I don’t know.

How does it feel to say that?

Say it again with me: I don’t know.

And now own it [louder]: I don’t know.

And now celebrate it [louder]: I don’t know.

How does it feel in your body now?

If AI presents one approach to living in the cloud, Judaism offers an alternative. And though it may not be as grandiose as a Papal Encyclical, the God of the Cloud is potent medicine for our times. It pushes against cultural currents, and so we need to practice working those muscles of not-knowing. 

***

I want to end by going back to that line from the Ishbitzer Rebbe, who wrote that when we feel lost in the wilderness, we need to practice not “forcing the end or forcing the time” —
שלא ידחקו את הקץ ואת השעה.

That phrase feels so powerful. Because so much of our suffering comes from trying to force the hour: forcing a decision before it is ripe, forcing a conclusion before the truth has emerged, forcing clarity because uncertainty is uncomfortable.

But the cloud teaches a different rhythm. Sometimes the holy thing is not to solve. Not to conclude. Not to accelerate the process.

Sometimes the holy thing is to wait without collapsing. To stay awake without forcing. To let the hour arrive when it arrives.

Mi Sheberach Avoteinu v’Imoteinu v’Horeinu, may the sacred Oneness that blessed our ancestors bless us with the humility to embrace not-knowing. May we be released from the exhausting demand to have an answer for everything. May we learn to recognize uncertainty not as failure, but as holy ground — the cloud where the Divine chooses to dwell.

May we be blessed with the patience not to force the hour. When the truth has not yet emerged, when the decision is not yet ripe, when the path ahead is still covered in grey — may we not panic, harden, or grasp. May we learn to wait without collapsing, to stay awake without forcing, to trust that not every sacred thing arrives on our schedule.

And may we be blessed with the courage to follow the cloud. Not the voice that performs certainty. Not the machine that flatters us with instant answers. But the quieter wisdom that moves when it moves, rests when it rests, and teaches us that even when we cannot see the road ahead, we can still take the next faithful step.

May we dwell in the cloud together. May we find God there. And may the mystery itself guide us on the way. 

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Rabbi Zvika Krieger is the spiritual leader of Chochmat HaLev. You can read more of his teachings here.