My mother spent her life believing that love could be learned.

Not performed. Not endured. Not organized around roles assigned at birth and enforced by silence.

Learned — practiced, repaired, deepened — by any human being willing to do the work.

In 1983, Lori Heyman Gordon, Ph.D., founded PAIRS Foundation with my stepfather, Rabbi Morris Gordon, Ph.D., on that conviction. From a Jewish family’s kitchen-table faith, they built a body of work around one simple belief: every human being carries the same fundamental need to love and be loved with dignity.

My mother and stepfather are both gone now. But something is happening with their work that I do not think either of them fully anticipated — and that I find myself unable to stop thinking about.

Over the past year, more than 200,000 people from 150 countries and territories have downloaded Yodi, our AI-powered relationship coach built on PAIRS relationship skills.

What has captured my attention is where some of that growth is coming from: societies where Islam shapes much of public and family life.

In previous years, we might have seen only a handful of website visitors from places like Lebanon, Jordan, Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, the Palestinian territories, and the United Arab Emirates. Over the past year, that has changed dramatically. Thousands of people from those societies have quietly found their way to PAIRS.

Something has shifted.

And I think it matters.

What They Are Looking For

They do not announce themselves. They do not explain their politics, religion, or views about Israel or Jews. They download Yodi — an AI-powered tool that teaches communication, conflict resolution, and emotional connection skills — and they begin learning.

Privately. Confidentially. Often anonymously.

That anonymity matters. A class requires visibility. An app allows someone in Beirut, Amman, Tehran, Ramallah, or Dubai to begin learning at midnight, without permission, explanation, or exposure.

My mother spent much of her life wondering how to make these skills available to people who would never walk into a workshop. She could not have imagined that Artificial Intelligence accessible on a smartphone might become one answer.

Often, I imagine, it happens at whatever hour the household is still enough for a person to sit with their own longing........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)