Shavuot arrives each year with a radical proposition: that wisdom is not simply acquired, but encountered. The holiday commemorates revelation at Sinai, not as an abstract historical event, but as a model for how human beings engage with sacred knowledge. Torah, in the Jewish tradition, is not information to be downloaded. It is a covenantal relationship. That distinction feels increasingly urgent in the age of artificial intelligence (AI).

Nechama Leibowitz z”l, in Studies in Shemot, notes that the preparation at Sinai was not merely logistical. It was spiritual and psychological. The external acts of washing and waiting reflected an inner process: revelation demands attentiveness. Torah cannot simply be consumed; it requires presence, discipline, and humility. Sinai was not a spectacle for passive observers. It was a covenantal encounter that required the people themselves to participate. (Nechama Leibowitz, Studies in Shemot/Exodus, commentary to Exodus 19.) That insight lands differently in 2026 than it did decades ago.

We now live in a world saturated with information and distraction. Information is abundant; attention is scarce. We can........

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