Rabbi David Wolpe

Auren Hoffman (@auren) (00:00.578) Hello, fellow data nerds. My guest today is Rabbi David Wolpe. Rabbi Wolpe is the emeritus rabbi of the Sinai Temple of Los Angeles, one of the largest synagogues in the United States. He's written extensively about ethics, beliefs, and the role of tradition in a rational data-driven world. And he's also a longtime friend. So Rabbi Wolpe, welcome to World of DaaS.

Rabbi David Wolpe (00:23.382) I'm happy to be in the world.

Auren Hoffman (@auren) (00:25.166) I'm happy to hear you're as well. Now, is the role of religion in AI development?

Rabbi David Wolpe (00:36.484) Well, I could go way back and say that actually I really do believe that the whole idea that the world operates rationally is in its origin a religious idea, right? Because if a God made the world according to certain rules and standards, that it makes sense both that the world has rules and standards and even that human beings are designed to be able to discover them. So you could make that argument.

Auren Hoffman (@auren) (00:48.782) Okay.

Rabbi David Wolpe (01:05.205) I mean, this is obviously might take us far afield. But the other part of it, I think, is that religion is well-placed to pinpoint those things that AI does well and does not do well. Because religion is not essentially an information-based enterprise.

It's an encounter and experience based enterprise, at least as I understand it. mean, other religious figures may feel differently. So what I would say is that.

Auren Hoffman (@auren) (01:41.006) Because part of the religion is like the community and how you feel and being there when someone goes through hardship or goes through a death or etc.

Rabbi David Wolpe (01:44.095) It's the community and the encounter.

Rabbi David Wolpe (01:49.315) And even the idea of God is obviously, it's less informational than experiential. That is, ultimately, you can't prove or disprove God. mean, people have been arguing it for thousands of years. But at least according to my tradition, you can encounter God, which is a very different sort of claim. So I think that AI

might actually do some very good things for religion. I think that it will give it, first of all, a lot more information immediately and even difficult questions that people ask rabbis you can get at your fingertips. But I don't think that it actually encroaches on the central message of religion, which is

Auren Hoffman (@auren) (02:36.577) Yeah.

Rabbi David Wolpe (02:45.93) that human beings occupy a unique niche in the universe and are both part of nature and also out of nature. Now, when AI becomes AGI, if that ever happens, we may have a different challenge on our hands.

Auren Hoffman (@auren) (03:02.54) Now, even in the short term, just like today, people have like AI therapists, you could have an AI religious leader, an AI kind of rabbi or an AI priest or an AI minister, or, know, something like that, where you could ask questions, you could have a talk to, obviously, maybe not as good as the real thing, but maybe more accessible to people, or maybe for some people, kind of like when you go to confession with the priest, maybe you want to be a little bit more anonymous.

Rabbi David Wolpe (03:18.872) Right.

Auren Hoffman (@auren) (03:30.459) and you, you want to have this conversation without them necessarily knowing who you are, et cetera.

Rabbi David Wolpe (03:35.66) So that's an interesting question is if AI absolves you, does that have the same psychological and spiritual impact as if a priest absolves you? I don't know. Also, in my experience, and this again, it's the same question. A lot of what people come to a rabbi for are questions they already know the answer to, but they don't trust their own instincts without some kind of

Auren Hoffman (@auren) (03:44.588) Yeah.

Yeah.

Rabbi David Wolpe (04:05.854) Yes, that makes sense. That is all right. For that, AI might be.

Auren Hoffman (@auren) (04:08.11) Mmm.

What would be an example of something like that?

Rabbi David Wolpe (04:12.938) So someone will come and say, my father is abusive to me, like really abusive. And I want to cut off contact with him because I mean, when I'm in his presence, he can be physically abusive. When I talk to him, he's emotionally abusive. And if he were different, I would be in contact with him. But right now, every time I speak to him, he's abusive. And I know the Ten Commandments say you should honor your father and mother. Is that OK?

Auren Hoffman (@auren) (04:39.265) Mmm.

Rabbi David Wolpe (04:42.154) And when the rabbi says, yes, actually you don't have to be in contact with a truly abusive parent, I think it makes it feel easier for the child to be able to say, this is really ethically OK.

Auren Hoffman (@auren) (04:54.604) Yeah, okay, got it. Interesting. Now these these LLMs and AI, they can already mimic like creativity, empathy, sometimes even wisdom. How should we think differently about like this idea of AI and personhood?

Rabbi David Wolpe (05:02.657) I

Rabbi David Wolpe (05:11.884) So I think, I mean, this is not obviously unique to religious thinking about it, but if we believe that there's an internal experience to the other, it's very different than if we believe the other has this almost uncanny ability to muster words that are helpful. And so I think that

People will want to believe that the other actually feels what they feel or understands what they feel. And absent that, I'm not sure it will have the same impact on the seeker, because you will ultimately be alone in your search, even though AI might be able to respond to you.

Auren Hoffman (@auren) (06:01.613) Yeah.

Auren Hoffman (@auren) (06:05.28) And, you know, one of the, know, going back to that therapist thing, like, how do feel when, you may have people in your congregation using it as some sort of therapist, some sort of tool? Like, how do you, how do you think about that?

Rabbi David Wolpe (06:22.112) It worries me a little. First of all, just on a very practical level, as you and I both know very well, AIs are still subject to some wild hallucinations. And you can't, at least in my experience, you can't always talk them out of it. No, this quote does not exist in the Bible. Can you give me the one that does? And they'll give you the same quote. And so there isn't a good system of checks for that.

Auren Hoffman (@auren) (06:43.842) Yeah. Yeah.

Rabbi David Wolpe (06:51.776) And that's one worrisome thing. And at least I've read recently, and you know more about this than I do certainly, that the stronger AI gets, the more it seems to hallucinate, which is really bizarre and interesting, but also dangerous. So the other piece of this is that I think for some things, like AI can be a really helpful therapeutic presence because

Auren Hoffman (@auren) (07:08.973) Yes.

Rabbi David Wolpe (07:21.372) A lot of what people ask, I don't know how to say this in a way that is like tender, but a lot of what people ask, you'd be really surprised that they ask. And you recognize these are people who probably did not grow up with like even decent parenting. Cause if they did, they would know, they would know that for example, when your 14 year old daughter says, I hate you.

that that's what 14-year-old daughters often do, and it should not destroy your world. So for things like that, I think AI could probably be very helpful because it's crowdsourced in the most gigantic way and say, is a common experience of parents of teenage daughters, for example.

Auren Hoffman (@auren) (07:54.774) Yeah. Yeah.

Auren Hoffman (@auren) (08:12.492) And, and, you know, my, my guess is so many human therapists are pretty subpar as well. So it's, it's, it's possible. might be as good as, as, as the average human or maybe not as good as the best human or something. Yeah.

Rabbi David Wolpe (08:18.505) That's another issue.

Rabbi David Wolpe (08:25.799) Right, the truth is that I think that that's true, that a lot of therapists are like a lot of almost every profession that requires a really high degree of understanding and empathy and insight. mean, such people are harder to get than, and also I think there's another reason why therapists aren't as good as they might be. I'm gonna be honest about this is because a lot of people of

real skill and insight and wisdom who would have gone into the humanities in one way or another are now going into fields like finance and software, fields that are more remunerative. So I'm actually worried that the next generation, they might be even less skilled.

Auren Hoffman (@auren) (09:12.046) Interesting. One thing, you know, if you think of like a marital listening and stuff like that, let's say I come home from a hard days of work and my wife comes home for a hard day to work and I just want my spouse to listen to me or she just wants me to listen to her. And, but it's like, it's actually really hard to listen, especially if you're listening for like 30 minutes or something. And you're like, God, you know, it's a tough thing to go do that, but you know, okay, as a spouse, I'm supposed to listen. That's what I'm supposed to do. So I'm going to.

Rabbi David Wolpe (09:30.226) Yes. Yeah.

Auren Hoffman (@auren) (09:40.888) try to do my best, but I'm not going to put my problems on my other, you could, an AI would be like so much better at that. Like, like, like an AI husband would be so much better than me in so many ways.

Rabbi David Wolpe (09:44.255) Yep.

It would be so much better. And it would never forget.

They wouldn't forget your complaints and it wouldn't do what I just did to you, which is interrupt. So it's actually maybe a little, but it's true. like, will remember, didn't you say about that person at work three weeks ago that they did this to you then? And you go, my God, yes. And your spouse might not remember that, but the AI would. It's true. There's no question. I mean, look, used as a smart tool.

Auren Hoffman (@auren) (09:57.71) Well, maybe a little interruptions maybe guide. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Auren Hoffman (@auren) (10:10.555) Totally. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Rabbi David Wolpe (10:22.727) You know, it could be great. The problem that human beings tend to have with tools is they expect too much of them, especially if the tools are as sort of omni-competent as AI seems to be.

Auren Hoffman (@auren) (10:37.154) Now, when I got, when I was getting involved in AI, you know, 15 years ago, I'd say almost a hundred percent of people I met in AI were like extreme atheists. now most of the people I know, they're kind of extreme creationists. They believe they're in a simulation. So was essentially they believe there's a, there's a God that created the world. Like how, how do you think that happened?

Rabbi David Wolpe (11:02.014) I have a very off the cuff theory, okay? Don't take this to the bank, but here goes. Do know the quote by the biologist J.B.S. Haldane, who himself was not, he was not a believer. One of his famous quotes is someone asked him what he's learned about God by being a biologist and he said, the creator has an inordinate fondness for beetles, you know, because there are so many different kinds. So he's not like, but he once said,

The world is not only queerer than we suppose, it is queerer than we can suppose. And I think the more you actually get down to the foundations of anything that is baffling, the more it induces a certain intellectual humility where you feel like there is intelligence beyond us. It may not be that I come to the God of the Bible. I don't necessarily think that that intelligence said to Abraham, go, but

It's really hard to see these marvels and think it's totally blind chance. So I understand the simulation idea, the attraction of the imagination that there are worlds that we can't begin to really understand.

Auren Hoffman (@auren) (12:17.304) Yeah, interesting. Now, in the Jewish religion, you're you're supposed to keep kosher. You're not supposed to eat pork. How do you think? I mean, maybe this is already resolved by the rabbis that be or something. But how what about like a lab grown bacon? Like are we can you eat that as a as a.

Rabbi David Wolpe (12:35.486) I mean, this is actually a really fascinating question. And yes, I would say it has been resolved, but it hasn't been resolved. That is, rabbis have opined on it, but I don't think there's any perfect consensus. I won't go into all the legal detail. There are a lot of different ways of approaching this legally. But I think in the end, there's going to be for most

Auren Hoffman (@auren) (12:45.282) Okay.

Rabbi David Wolpe (13:05.892) for most religious Jews, a sort of visceral, doesn't feel right to me, so I'm not gonna partake in the same way that like, I've been a vegetarian for decades. I think lab grown meat would be hard for me to eat just because I have been so conditioned not to eat meat, even though now there would be no ethical objection to it.

So I think that that's probably where the majority of the religious world will come down. But it's so new and so different that I can't say for sure. I'll give you an analogy, which is kind an interesting one, I think, for your listeners. According to the Jewish tradition, the mother classically decides whether the child is Jewish. And the reason is because you always know who the mother is. Not only that, but

even if you implant a Jewish embryo in a non-Jewish woman, and the non-Jewish woman gives birth, according to Jewish law, the child has to be converted because the birth mother is not Jewish. And so you say, well, it's because the surrogate is not Jewish, but that's according to Jewish law. It's whoever gives birth to the baby. So here's a case where this

Auren Hoffman (@auren) (14:10.318) Wait, what? I had no idea. Okay.

okay, got it. So if the surrogate is not Jewish.

Auren Hoffman (@auren) (14:23.566) I got so so what what about if the egg is a donor who isn't Jewish or you would or you don't even know whether

Rabbi David Wolpe (14:29.029) If the egg is a donor who isn't Jewish and a Jewish surrogate gives birth, the baby's Jewish. Because the mother, because the birth mother, which is the only kind of mother that traditional Judaism knew, is Jewish. Now, as you just saw,

Auren Hoffman (@auren) (14:33.702) I had no idea.

Auren Hoffman (@auren) (14:40.824) Got it. So you could have, you could like, like some Christians could have a Jewish baby without even knowing it. Cause they may not ask the question, you know, or the surrogate. Okay.

Rabbi David Wolpe (14:47.321) Absolutely. That's right. Yep. So now, as you all saw from Orin's reaction, this is completely counterintuitive in the modern world. But whether that law will change over time is a real question, because when you have a law for thousands of years that makes sense, and then for 20 years or 30 years or 50 years, it doesn't make sense the same way, it's still

Auren Hoffman (@auren) (14:57.816) Yeah.

Rabbi David Wolpe (15:16.176) the conservative force of a religious tradition really fights against it.

Auren Hoffman (@auren) (15:21.036) Now, what about, you know, if you think of adultery, okay. think we all know what adultery is, but if you have like a relationship with an AI girlfriend or something, and it's a real relationship, are you cheating on your spouse? You not like, how does one think about that religious? mean, intuitively, I think you would be like, if you go to back to your two tuition, but like, you know, I I don't know. Yeah.

Rabbi David Wolpe (15:30.523) Right.

Rabbi David Wolpe (15:37.154) Rabbi David Wolpe (15:42.608) Right. Well, here's an easy test. Does your spouse know?

Auren Hoffman (@auren) (15:47.823) right, right. So if you didn't tell your spouse, if it was a secret, then it probably is wrong.

Rabbi David Wolpe (15:50.492) then it's some kind of betrayal, even if not an explicit betrayal. But if your spouse has a robot on the side and you have a robot on the side, I wonder what that would be. mean, these are, again, right with AI, the circuitry gets very complicated. what you're saying.

Auren Hoffman (@auren) (15:54.946) That's right. That's right. Okay. Yeah.

Auren Hoffman (@auren) (16:03.264) Right, right, right. I guess if you're open about it, then it's an open relationship. Yeah.

Polyamory with AIs or something. Yeah.

Auren Hoffman (@auren) (16:16.982) Yeah. I mean, in my relationship, we have to even tell each other for like, and like watch the Netflix series without the other person or something. Yeah. Yeah.

Rabbi David Wolpe (16:23.515) Well, that's that's already serious. That's like cutting the turkey without me. These questions are are just like the beginning of and you know, you and I both I mean, you know, my brother, Paul, who's an ethicist, is a friend of yours. And he always says,

Auren Hoffman (@auren) (16:43.575) Yeah.

Rabbi David Wolpe (16:48.025) that people think ethical questions are a choice between right and wrong, but they never are. The really hard ones are choices between two rights, and you have to decide which one takes precedence. And so here, for example, none of these questions will be easy because we're introducing a new component, and we don't know yet how it will play out. But I would say that having a relationship like that, even with a non-human entity,

Auren Hoffman (@auren) (16:52.44) Yeah.

Auren Hoffman (@auren) (16:55.776) Yes. Yeah.

Rabbi David Wolpe (17:17.891) The possibilities for the disruption of the relationship with your partner are really immense. So it's a dangerous enterprise.

Auren Hoffman (@auren) (17:24.61) Yes, for sure. Yeah. Now, when you when you're talking about people about prolonging lifespan, and that's obviously very trendy thing right now, something that, you know, maybe you're prolonging for decades, maybe even in the future, hundreds of years. Like, how does that make you think?

Rabbi David Wolpe (17:43.547) First of all, it raises certain practical questions. does that mean that we stop procreating? Because what's the world gonna do with babies that keep coming and adults that don't die? And also, it's funny because you and I both know people who can't figure out how to spend a Saturday night, but they wanna live forever. I don't know how they're gonna do with that. But I would say...

Auren Hoffman (@auren) (18:08.846) I'm talking.

Rabbi David Wolpe (18:10.944) It's going, if that ever happens, it's going to require a huge adjustment in a thousand cultural forms and adaptations and ways of living. and, you know, the, the one thing that I will say about it is it's death that gives the values that we treasure in life. Because for example, if you say, you know, I had a fight with my friend, but I'll make up with them in a hundred years.

or it's actually the knowledge that we have a certain limited time that gives urgency and priority to the way we live. So I don't know how that would be if we had a virtually unlimited time.

Auren Hoffman (@auren) (18:44.216) Yeah.

Auren Hoffman (@auren) (18:52.354) Yeah, that's now what do you what about things like even like more, you know, crazy, like uploading our consciousness or something like is that is that a way of like dodging spirituality or

Rabbi David Wolpe (19:06.106) I mean, it depends what the essence of you is. If the essence of you is what you're calling your consciousness and I'll call your soul, if that's actually transferable to another creature, all I would say is that the idea of reincarnation was basically that. Reincarnation was my soul now goes into another creature and that wasn't considered

Auren Hoffman (@auren) (19:15.17) Yeah.

Auren Hoffman (@auren) (19:18.766) Through the cloud.

Auren Hoffman (@auren) (19:27.638) Yep, that's right.

Rabbi David Wolpe (19:36.779) outside the realm of religion. Now in Judaism, people may not know that reincarnation does exist in Judaism. It's not a mainstream belief, but it is certainly in especially mystical Judaism in the Kabbalah. So if that idea can exist inside religious traditions, maybe we get reincarnated into, you know, silicon.

Auren Hoffman (@auren) (19:58.188) Yeah. Interesting. Okay. and you know, there's this idea that we're created in the image of God. if we create something in our own image, like AI, like what obligations do we have as creators? Yeah. Yeah.

Rabbi David Wolpe (20:08.451) Right.

Rabbi David Wolpe (20:14.329) Is it a knockoff image? Is it a second order image of God? I think again, it all, it comes down to internal experience, which is consciousness, which is the nub of so much of this discussion. And whether consciousness is real or primary, the panpsychics thinks that ever think that consciousness is like a constituent, a basic constituent of the world.

And maybe it is, but I think that the obligation that you owe to another creature has to do with the degree of that creature's ability to have internal experience and to in some way participate in the same kind of being that you do. So that's why we have obligations to animals, which have some kind of internal, it may not be our internal experience, but still is real.

And we don't feel the same kind of obligation, for example, to an ant or a stone, because we see that as a much lower order or no order at all. So it depends how we're going to evaluate these AI creatures. And as you know, people are all over the place on this right now. And we just don't know. And I don't even know.

how we could know. I mean, if you have any theories about that, I'd love to hear it. How will you know if an AI has consciousness when it responds, when it can pass the Turing test with no problem and it responds to us just like a person? Yeah.

Auren Hoffman (@auren) (21:49.632) Yeah. Yeah. It's been, it's pass the Turing test a while ago. Yeah. Yeah. It's very interesting. When I take away Mo, I, you know, when I closed the door, I always kind of like, like I wave to it and stuff. I don't know why. Just like, it's just kind of intuitive. And I feel, I feel like there's some, and I write like, please, and thank you to the AIs and stuff.

Rabbi David Wolpe (22:00.28) Yeah. I know.

Rabbi David Wolpe (22:13.74) So you're forcing me to admit something embarrassing, which is most mornings I take the same walk around my neighborhood and there's a Waymo that's always in the same place. And I like unconsciously say good morning to it as though it's waiting for, because it's always got that spinning thing. It's the only car that's actually in motion. And I feel like it's, there's David on his morning walk. And I know it's insane. It's insane, but that's how it feels.

Auren Hoffman (@auren) (22:30.24) Right, right, yeah.

Totally, yeah. I mean, it may know you. It would be great next time if you said, and then it threw a good joke at you or something. It's like, here's my joke of the day,

Rabbi David Wolpe (22:42.935) I know. So that's the question is, at what point does a simulation become the thing? And is there always an unbridgeable gap between the two? And my instinct is there is. I don't think that AI could be conscious the way we are, but that's just my intuition. have no idea if I'm correct.

Auren Hoffman (@auren) (23:10.228) It seems like regular church or regular synagogue attendance has been on the decline in the US for decades. What do think the future is like?

Rabbi David Wolpe (23:23.682) There's a, mean, this is one of those things that I think it's really over determined. There are a lot of reasons for it. Among them is that we live in a very anti-institutional age. And even people who feel religious don't necessarily like religious institutions. So the optimistic part of me, because I like religious institutions, thinks, you know, things wax and wane and that might change.

Auren Hoffman (@auren) (23:35.597) Yep.

Auren Hoffman (@auren) (23:42.051) Yep.

Auren Hoffman (@auren) (23:50.776) Mm-hmm.

Rabbi David Wolpe (23:51.756) But the other part of me says, it might be that we are in the process at this point in human history of discovering and expressing a different way of worship and of relation. My concern with that is that religion gives guidelines for behavior, not just for feeling. And that actually really does matter.

And I worry that the decline of one is also part of the decline of the other, that there was more civility in the world when people felt religiously obligated and more sense of communal duty towards one another when people felt religiously obligated. Like in any synagogue or mosque or church in this country, you will find people who regularly feed each other, take care of each other and so on because that's what they're supposed to do.

Auren Hoffman (@auren) (24:50.594) And is there a sense that, you know, cause people do have a longing for community. Like that is a human, every human or almost every human has that longing. and for many humans, it's not being met right now. Now, maybe, maybe the, the churches and synagogues and mosques weren't meeting it. So maybe they weren't doing the right. Maybe they weren't good enough at that, or they were.

Rabbi David Wolpe (24:59.436) Yes.

Rabbi David Wolpe (25:06.177) Right.

Auren Hoffman (@auren) (25:16.108) you know, they weren't inclusive enough or they weren't, they were just, it was just a show or it was just like long and boring or something. They went out of obligation rather than getting more out of it or something.

Rabbi David Wolpe (25:28.107) I think they were good at the community part, but they were not as good at the doing things that would make people want to join in the community part. So here's a problem that exists. I'm sure this exists in companies, but here it exists in synagogues. You have a certain kind of service or program. All the people who support your synagogue and are older like that program.

Auren Hoffman (@auren) (25:57.943) Yes.

Rabbi David Wolpe (25:58.711) All the people who don't give you a penny and are younger but are your future don't like that program. So you have a choice. You can change the way you do the service. Maybe you'll attract some younger people, but you'll drive away the people who support the synagogue and keep it going. Right. Right. So what do you do? You try. Yep.

Auren Hoffman (@auren) (26:04.139) Yes.

Auren Hoffman (@auren) (26:08.311) Yeah.

Auren Hoffman (@auren) (26:13.08) It's like you're selling pawn soap or something and you need to have like a new brand of soap. Now, can't you do both? Could you just sell like the pawns at at nine thirty and the and the better new brand at the other time or something or. Yeah.

Rabbi David Wolpe (26:27.54) That's exactly what a lot of synagogues try. We've done that. We have single services for younger people and then older services. But it's very resource intensive. And it's just hard to do. also, even sometimes, even the architecture of the building that you're in. There are a lot of variables. But the last real difficulty is traditional forms of religion.

Auren Hoffman (@auren) (26:36.247) Yes.

Rabbi David Wolpe (26:56.361) Orthodoxy and Judaism, fundamentalism and other traditions, which are not exactly identical. But in other words, the further you go towards literalism in every religion, the better the religions are doing. I think that a lot of that is because if you have a literal belief that this is what God wants you to do, so you do it. But anything less than God wants you to do it is going to be a really, then you have to sell it.

Auren Hoffman (@auren) (27:16.802) Yep. It's easier.

Rabbi David Wolpe (27:24.008) It's good for you, it's good for the community, it's part of history, it's on and on and on. And all those reasons are intrinsically less powerful than the creator of the universe told you to do it.

Auren Hoffman (@auren) (27:37.228) Is this why you think so many there's so many Protestant men that are converting to Catholicism is that it's just, it's just more prescriptive and, and kind of easier to follow.

Rabbi David Wolpe (27:46.642) I think a belief that it is ultimately rooted in transcendence and not in helping you lead a better life is actually more powerful. think as America, what's important is the pursuit of happiness, but actually if you want to get people to do something, believing that God wants you to do it is I think the best motivator if you really believe it.

Auren Hoffman (@auren) (28:01.582) Mmm.

Rabbi David Wolpe (28:16.029) I had once, let me give you an example that a friend of mine, a Rabbi Joseph Talushkin once gave me, which I think is a beautiful example. He said, I know people who are like severely overweight and they have clogged arteries and their doctor tells them, do not eat this or that because it really could kill you and they still eat it. But if you had said to those same people, it actually isn't kosher, they would never touch it. And that's amazing, and he's right, and that's amazing.

Auren Hoffman (@auren) (28:38.872) Yeah.

Rabbi David Wolpe (28:43.079) It's like certain motivations override everything, you know?

Auren Hoffman (@auren) (28:45.824) Yeah, yeah, yeah. Also, certain things you may have been doing all your life. So maybe easier also to if all of a sudden you told someone you can't eat lobster, they might be a little bit like miffed or something.

Rabbi David Wolpe (28:50.387) Right, that's true too. Yep, that's probably true. As somebody who's never had a lobster in his life, it wouldn't be hard for me, but yeah.

Auren Hoffman (@auren) (29:01.258) Yeah, yeah, exactly. And what I mean, when you think of, you know, there are a lot of people bemoaning the fact that the fertility rate is down in most countries and pretty much every country in the world. I'm not even sure if it is correlated to religiosity or not, because even in the most religious countries, often the birth rate is down.

Rabbi David Wolpe (29:13.385) Yes. Right.

Rabbi David Wolpe (29:25.182) So here's a really interesting thing, I think. I was just watching, was a, you you go on YouTube and you end up watching stuff that you didn't know you had any interest in. There was a thing about the fertility rate in Japan. And so I was watching that. And they said, you know, in all these developed countries, Japan happens to be the model for what happens because it's been happening for 30 years, but all these developed countries, the one country that's a developed country where that isn't true is Israel.

Auren Hoffman (@auren) (29:34.958) I do it all the time.

Yes.

Auren Hoffman (@auren) (29:52.685) Yep.

Rabbi David Wolpe (29:53.444) And in Israel, it's not only that the birth rate of the ultra-Orthodox is high, we would expect that, but even if the secular, like the Tel Aviv Israeli who's as secular as any European, the birth rate is higher. And there, I think it's because there's a sense of collective meaning and future that's important. And so if you think you're having a child for yourself, one is okay, two is fine.

But if you think you're having a child for the collective future, then you're more likely to have, I think, a bigger family.

Auren Hoffman (@auren) (30:28.438) Yeah. Well, it's also like, if you think of the upwardly mobile person in Israel, they live in Tel Aviv. so wherever they are, they live somewhere near their family within a couple hours drive of their family. You know, the upwardly mobile person in Europe or in the U S could be, you know, thousands of miles away from their family. And it just may be more difficult to do that.

Rabbi David Wolpe (30:34.366) Yeah. Right.

Rabbi David Wolpe (30:40.468) That is also a good point. Good point.

Rabbi David Wolpe (30:52.562) That is true, because if you have family around or community around that raises kids communally, obviously takes a huge burden off the parents. Yeah.

Auren Hoffman (@auren) (31:01.132) Yeah. But one of the things about Japan, I think a lot of people know about is, 30 years ago, they were the lowest birth rate. you know, basically, or in, in the world right now, they're like, they're like approaching the middle. So they're actually been flat on birth rate for like the last 20 something years. so they're about 1.3 TFR. and, know, South Korea is now 0.7 TFR. So they're almost like.

Rabbi David Wolpe (31:15.528) Really? Interesting.

Rabbi David Wolpe (31:20.904) Right, that's what it said. Yep.

Rabbi David Wolpe (31:27.731) Right.

Auren Hoffman (@auren) (31:29.176) Twice as good in terms of, well, good is relative, but if you believe having kids is good, they're almost twice as good as South Korea. They're better than Italy, Spain, like they're, so their birth rate is actually like above many, many European countries now. Correct. Yes.

Rabbi David Wolpe (31:41.915) is stable, but it's not replacement rate and they live a long time, which paces a huge economic burden on the generation above you.

Auren Hoffman (@auren) (31:50.648) That's true. That's a very true. That's a good. That's a very good point. Now you, one of things you're best known for is having these like public debates with prominent atheists, like atheists like Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris. What's your goal of like engaging with them?

Rabbi David Wolpe (32:07.699) So my goal, I mean, I haven't done it in a while. My goal, especially when the new atheist movement was at its height, although I still, right. My goal was honestly, I mean, this sounds ridiculous. I wanted to show people who assumed that in order that you had to be stupid or foolish and have no good arguments to be a believer, that in fact you could marshal some very sound arguments and that faith throughout its history,

Auren Hoffman (@auren) (32:14.444) Yeah, and that was like 20 years ago when it was really at its height, right?

Rabbi David Wolpe (32:37.255) has engaged in these kinds of questions and has something to say to these questions. And I was not doing it with the intention of persuading people to believe. I was doing it with the intention of giving them more respect for the intellectual respectability of belief.

Auren Hoffman (@auren) (32:53.29) Interesting. And how do you think that went?

Rabbi David Wolpe (32:57.234) So, I mean, look, most of the people who came to the debates were people who were atheists and wanted to see the believer get trounced. And so if you look, for example, most of the comments on the debate will be, you know, exactly that. But I've had many letters over the years and emails from people who will say something like, I'm not a believer, but

I thought that you made good points and I appreciated the fact that you did it. And so I think in the end, it was more productive than not. weirdly, with Christopher and with Sam, I became friends with them and really I gained a lot out of it. And I certainly think it was an interesting experience for me. So I'm glad I did it and I think it was a good thing to do. And I hope it was good for the people who watched.

Auren Hoffman (@auren) (33:53.39) It's interesting because when that new atheist movement, which was kind of like, let's say 2003 to 2006, it was a very brief time when it was super popular. Um, like it was super popular for a very brief time. And then it just kind of faded. Um, like no one really talks about it anymore. There's none of the university, a bestselling book talking about that today. Like, why do you think it was like such a quick.

Rabbi David Wolpe (34:05.127) Right.

Rabbi David Wolpe (34:16.676) It's It's true. Yeah.

Auren Hoffman (@auren) (34:22.008) kind of, and even people like, even like it was, it was even trendy to say you're an atheist. Now people who are, they may not believe almost are, they're almost like say they're agnostic. They don't say they're atheist anymore. Yeah.

Rabbi David Wolpe (34:22.509) I think

Rabbi David Wolpe (34:33.436) I think so much of it was a reaction to 9-11 and to the idea that extreme fundamentalism was a danger to Western society because all, right, and Hitchens too, felt like he was defending the West. And so I think that was a big part of it. I don't, why it faded so fast though, I don't know. I'm not sure.

Auren Hoffman (@auren) (34:37.037) Yeah.

Auren Hoffman (@auren) (34:44.13) Hmm. Yeah, certainly the Sam Harris part was that for sure. Right. Yeah. Yeah.

Auren Hoffman (@auren) (35:01.664) Yeah, really, it was very much of a fad. And yeah, it's really interesting. Would you ever like in your own kind of course, do you ever like pray that technology will fail?

Rabbi David Wolpe (35:04.402) It was.

Rabbi David Wolpe (35:16.338) I mean, I admit that I really, there's a big piece of me that hopes that AGI is never achieved, that non-human things never actually get consciousness for all the reasons, I mean, for all the reasons that run from the Eliezer Yudkowsky, they're gonna destroy us to the religion, like this really is a tremendous challenge to a religious worldview.

Auren Hoffman (@auren) (35:27.128) Yeah.

Rabbi David Wolpe (35:45.207) So in that sense, yes, but I also do know that if we can work out the ability to retain our humanness and increase technology, that you look at every indices of human longevity and so on and so on. And it all starts like with a hockey stick with the beginning of the industrial revolution. And as somebody,

I've had both a brain tumor and lymphoma and my life was saved by medical both times by advanced medical technology. So I'm not going to be the Luddite who says, you know, I wish technology would fail when I know that I wouldn't be here if it did.

Auren Hoffman (@auren) (36:18.198) Yeah, it's amazing.

Auren Hoffman (@auren) (36:27.842) No, very soon. mean, I'm really already AI can train a model on your sermons, your books, your teachings. it could answer questions in video that looks like you, your voice, right? I mean, that we're basically there already. I mean, someone could have a meeting with you and probably get the same anecdotes. just, could probably do this almost very soon. Like I could just do this podcast with an AI and get almost the same thing. Maybe not like.

Rabbi David Wolpe (36:34.129) Mm-hmm.

Rabbi David Wolpe (36:39.247) my God. Yeah.

Auren Hoffman (@auren) (36:54.754) quite as good, it's getting there, right? Like the same anecdotes you probably have given some time and some of the same kind of jokes, right? I how do you think about that? How do you process that as a religious leader?

Rabbi David Wolpe (37:06.64) Is this time for me to tell you that actually it's not me who's answering these questions right now? That would be great. Exactly. That would be hilarious. I find that deep. I find it deeply unnerving. And I wonder. But I will also say like I have a lot of faith in the human ability.

Auren Hoffman (@auren) (37:10.318) Totally. That would be awesome. That would be so awesome if you're like, take off the mask. Like, yeah, this is actually an AI the whole time. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, that's coming, right?

Rabbi David Wolpe (37:35.962) to recreate our mission. So I think we'll find new things to do that mean something to us. I really hope that that's so, even though I do see dangers, obviously, in AI, like everybody does, because the incentives for safety are not nearly as strong as the incentives for development. And that worries me. But I think maybe, maybe it'll be like,

Yes, it's possible. I I have in my pocket a machine that could beat Magnus Carlsen at chess, but I still would rather watch Magnus Carlsen. I flew all the way to Dubai to see him in the World Chess Championship years ago against Nepo. It was very cool because I thought he might be, he is arguably the greatest player ever, maybe the greatest player ever. And he or Kasparov or Fischer, I think.

Auren Hoffman (@auren) (38:10.766) Yeah, it's crazy.

Auren Hoffman (@auren) (38:18.608) you did? was that cool?

Auren Hoffman (@auren) (38:29.996) Yeah, I think it's Carlson. Yeah. Yeah.

Rabbi David Wolpe (38:31.919) And here it was, I have a chance to actually watch him. I want to see him before, that's not possible. So I went there and it was great to do, even though I knew that, as I said, I had something in my pocket that could probably beat him and now could certainly beat him.

Auren Hoffman (@auren) (38:37.1) Yeah, that's so cool.

Auren Hoffman (@auren) (38:45.42) Well, I mean, but like I can still I can drive faster than the fastest marathon runner and you know, it's like, you know, anyone can. Yeah.

Rabbi David Wolpe (38:49.591) Right. Exactly. So I hope that human Endeavor will still have its special magic for humans.

Auren Hoffman (@auren) (38:57.71) Okay, interesting. Now you're also in, you know, opine a lot and think a lot about like different like, you know, there's been all this stuff about different anti-Semitism on campus, Harvard, Columbia, all this stuff, like, what are your thoughts about it?

Rabbi David Wolpe (39:14.073) I have a lot of thoughts about it, but I will, I'll restrict myself to this. First of all, is, look, antisemitism is an ancient and protean hatred. By protean, I just mean people can hate Jews for anything. You know, they can hate them for being capitalist or communist or weak and stateless or strong and stateful. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. So I hope that people will realize though, that it is always,

Auren Hoffman (@auren) (39:29.026) Yeah, sometimes the same side of the coin. It's like they got both sides. You know, they're weak. They're too weak and they're too strong or something, right? That's a good. Yeah.

Rabbi David Wolpe (39:42.124) a prelude to other kinds of destruction. Like it starts with the Jews, it never ends with the Jews. Never, never, never, never. It didn't in the Spanish Inquisition, it didn't with Nazi Germany, it's always bad for a society. And we see it now on the right, on the left, and Jihadism. There are sort of three strands of antisemitism. And I think that it cannot be cured by Jews.

It has to be, I mean, there are many, many, many more non-Jews than Jews. We're like 2 % of the American population and 0.2 % of the world. If non-Jews don't stand up against antisemitism, we're in terrible trouble. So I hope that we will get more of a recognition among the non-Jewish community that this is a real threat.

Auren Hoffman (@auren) (40:31.906) Okay, a couple closing questions. What is a conspiracy theory that you believe?

Rabbi David Wolpe (40:37.903) What's a conspiracy theory that I believe? Boy, I'm really not very conspiratorial minded, but I would say that I think there is a conspiracy to argue that Oswald was not the sole assassin. How's that?

Auren Hoffman (@auren) (41:00.451) you think there's a conspiracy of the conspiracy. Yeah.

Rabbi David Wolpe (41:03.567) Right, exactly. An anti-conspiracy conspiracy. Yeah, think that, well, let me put it that I think that a lot of people who have common interests in, I'll use this as a conspiracy theory. I think a lot of people who have common interests in undermining the values of the West conspire with one another despite the fact that they have disagreements in their basic values, which is how you get queers for Hamas. That's a conspiracy that

Auren Hoffman (@auren) (41:27.832) Yeah.

Rabbi David Wolpe (41:32.214) wants to undermine the West, and it's a dangerous one.

Auren Hoffman (@auren) (41:35.49) Yeah, okay, that's a good one. Last question we ask all of our guests, what conventional wisdom or advice do you think is generally bad advice?

Rabbi David Wolpe (41:45.55) I am not the only person to say this, but I think that it's important to telling young people to just follow their dream. I think you should tell them to follow their gifts. And if they follow their gifts, that is what they're good at. They will discover in fact, that opens the door to their dreams. That their dream is very abstract, but their gifts are very concrete. And you might think what you want is to be X or Y or Z.

Auren Hoffman (@auren) (41:53.314) Okay.

Rabbi David Wolpe (42:12.962) but you discover in the process of actually working out your gifts that it gives you tremendous joy and satisfaction.

Auren Hoffman (@auren) (42:20.686) And do you have a sense, I mean do think people have a good sense of what their gifts are?

Rabbi David Wolpe (42:26.136) Some do and some don't. I think it varies. Like I knew I was very lopsided as a student. I was always words. I was books and letters and speeches and words. And I always loved that more than anything else, even more than music, more than anything. Other students, I think, have to try a variety of things to discover what they're good at. And by the way, sometimes they're lucky enough to have mentors or friends who will say to them, you know?

Auren Hoffman (@auren) (42:27.437) Yeah.

Auren Hoffman (@auren) (42:41.048) Yeah.

Rabbi David Wolpe (42:54.456) You're good at this. Like when I was in high school, there was a kid who kept beating me at chess. That was how I became a chess player. But then when I met really good chess players, I said to myself, you are not gifted at this game. You will be a fine tournament chess player. And I was a fine tournament chess player, but not even close. But that was a good experience.

Auren Hoffman (@auren) (42:59.382) huh.

Auren Hoffman (@auren) (43:16.918) Yeah, it's very hard to know, also should you, you know, lean into your strengths or should you work on your weaknesses? You know,

Rabbi David Wolpe (43:24.671) I'm of the lean into your strengths. I would rather see somebody who is outstanding at X than okay at X and mediocre at Y. I really, mean, now obviously like any general rule, there are always exceptions, but as a rule.

Auren Hoffman (@auren) (43:26.807) Yeah.

Auren Hoffman (@auren) (43:40.908) Yeah, if it's debilitating, if you're, you know, a heroin addict and you're about to die, you should probably quit heroin or something. Yeah. Yeah.

Rabbi David Wolpe (43:45.461) Right, yes. Probably right. But as a rule, think, you know, leaning into your strengths is a really good thing. And the one other thing that I would say is that the most important quality to lead a good life is courage. Because without courage, and it can be, I'm talking emotional courage, like, you know, without courage, you're a slave. And I think that that's that and it's also a muscle.

Auren Hoffman (@auren) (44:12.418) And how does one develop courage and how does one and, and, know, and you can be, you can be courageous in one area and not courageous in another, right? I mean, you certain social situations, you might be okay being disliked and other ones you might really need to follow the herd, right?

Rabbi David Wolpe (44:15.253) It's a muscle you can work on. Do things you're afraid of.

Right.

Rabbi David Wolpe (44:28.447) It's true, but the great thing about it is when you do something courageous and you realize you survive, it helps you the next time. It is kind of like a muscle. Nobody's courageous in everything, but when you do some things that take some courage, it really does help for you to know that the next time you'll be okay. As I once told my daughter when there was a big blow up at the scene, it doesn't matter what it was, and I said to her, you see, I'm okay.

Auren Hoffman (@auren) (44:35.754) Yes. Yep.

Rabbi David Wolpe (44:55.7) I said, and I told her that Churchill said after the Boer War, it's exhilarating to be shot at without result.

Auren Hoffman (@auren) (45:02.685) Well, one of the things I mean, in the courage world is that, um, there are many things that people are, they think they need courage for it because they're afraid of, but often the consequences in any scenario are quite low. And so you actually really don't need that much courage if you're like rational about it, you know, in some ways, like what's a, if you, know, you give a speech that bombs, like it tells you that bombs are

Rabbi David Wolpe (45:18.262) Yes.

Rabbi David Wolpe (45:22.668) I think that's

Auren Hoffman (@auren) (45:28.844) You ask a girl out and she says no, or something like that. It really, in some ways, like you think you need a lot of courage, but you actually don't. But then there are other cases where you really do need courage because the consequences are, and there, there could be speaking out or something or in an institution or some other type of thing where you could lose your job. could worse, you know, you could be ostracized from your community. Or you hurt people that care about you, right. Which is often courage telling people the truth about things. Right.

Rabbi David Wolpe (45:41.737) are hard.

Rabbi David Wolpe (45:51.71) or you hurt people that care about you, which is also true. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Me too. Thank you so much.

Auren Hoffman (@auren) (45:59.702) That's very interesting. All right. Well, this has been amazing. I really enjoyed this conversation. Thank you, David Wolpe for joining World of DaaS. I follow you at ri-bi-woltby on X. I definitely encourage our listeners to get you there. This has been a ton of fun.

Rabbi David Wolpe (46:12.813) Thank you. Thanks. Take care.