Recently, while listening to a conversation between Jonathan Haidt and Rabbi Angela Buchdahl, a thought struck me.

Haidt suggested that Jews were unusually well prepared for one of history’s great technological revolutions: the printing press. When printed books suddenly democratized knowledge in early modern Europe, Jewish communities already lived inside a culture built around intense reading, discussion, and textual debate.

For generations, Jews had developed a civilization centered on books—studied aloud, argued over in pairs, and internalized through repetition. When the information revolution of print arrived, Jews were ready.

Which made me wonder: what does Jewish tradition have to say about the technological revolution we are living through now—the age of the internet, computers, and artificial intelligence?

Over the past few years, many educators have begun sounding the alarm that something fundamental may be changing in how students read. In 2024 in the Atlantic, journalist Rose Horowitch captured the concern when she described what literature professors are witnessing:

“Nicholas Dames has taught Literature Humanities, Columbia University’s required great-books course, since 1998… Over the past decade, students have become overwhelmed by the reading… Many students no longer arrive at college—even at highly selective, elite colleges—prepared to read books.”

The worry is not merely that students read less. It is that the very capacity for sustained, careful reading—the intellectual muscle that serious learning requires—may be weakening.

Yet in one corner of the world, a very different educational culture persists.

This year, I had the pleasure of finishing Halakhic Man by Joseph B. Soloveitchik with a student. We read the entire work together—footnotes and all. Slowly. Carefully. Page by page.

The setting was our gap-year yeshiva in Israel, where much of the learning happens in chavruta, paired study. Reading together forced us to pause, question, challenge, and sometimes simply sit with a difficult idea until it made sense. What might seem overwhelming to read alone becomes manageable—and even exhilarating and fun—when studied together.

In fact, I have the privilege of reading extensively with students throughout the year. Some of that happens in chavruta. Some of it happens in the classroom. Among the courses I teach is one on twentieth-century Jewish thought. We read substantial works—long essays, chapters, sometimes entire books.

Not summaries. Not excerpts.

When students engage texts this way, something remarkable happens. The act of reading becomes social and intellectual at the same time. Ideas bounce between partners, arguments develop across the room, and texts written decades or centuries ago suddenly feel alive.

This environment has a name in Jewish life: the beit midrash, the house of study.

For centuries the beit midrash has served as the epicenter of Jewish intellectual life. Students sit surrounded by towering shelves of Talmud, halakhic literature, Tanakh, philosophy, and commentary. The room buzzes with debate. No one studies silently for long. Someone is always arguing with a partner, asking a question, or flipping back three pages to check a line.

The beit midrash is, in many ways, the opposite of the way we tend to consume information today. It rewards patience over speed, conversation over scrolling, and depth over distraction.

But the genius of Jewish tradition is that the beit midrash is not confined to a building.

Once a year, the entire Jewish people recreate it at home.

The Passover seder is, in essence, a family beit midrash.

The Passover seder is, in essence, a family beit midrash.

Around the seder table, families gather not merely to eat symbolic foods but to read and analyze a text: the Haggadah. The evening revolves around questions, interpretation, and storytelling. Children challenge parents; parents challenge the text. Songs, customs, and commentary animate the discussion.

Rabbi Soloveitchik emphasized in several writings that the seder is structured like an act of Torah study. Even the line “Baruch HaMakom, Baruch Hu, Baruch SheNatan Torah Le’Amo Yisrael” echoes the blessing recited daily before Torah learning.

The structure of the Haggadah itself reflects the rabbinic method of midrash, close textual interpretation. The rabbis did not instruct us simply to retell the Exodus story. Instead, they required us to study a short biblical passage in Deuteronomy 26 beginning with the words “Arami oved avi” and to unpack it line by line.

The seder, in other words, is not merely storytelling.

It is Torah study around the dinner table – a mini-beit midrash.

The symbolic foods and wine serve as props in a pedagogical drama designed to provoke questions and sustain conversation.

At a moment when loneliness is widespread, and people increasingly experience the world through their phones, the seder performs a quiet miracle. It brings families and friends back to the table for several hours of reading, discussion, and shared learning.

The beit midrash teaches something our technological moment desperately needs: how to think with texts rather than merely consume information.

The beit midrash teaches something our technological moment desperately needs: how to think with texts rather than merely consume information.

Students read slowly, argue with partners, question assumptions, and return again and again to the same lines until they yield meaning. In a culture increasingly shaped by algorithms and summaries, the beit midrash insists on something older and harder—sustained attention and shared interpretation.

Jonathan Haidt argues that Jews historically adapted well to the revolution of print because they had already built a culture around deep engagement with texts. If that insight is correct, then perhaps Jewish tradition offers something equally valuable for the age of artificial intelligence.

The beit midrash reminds us what real learning looks like; the seder teaches us how to build a learning community around a table.

Both cultivate habits that no algorithm can replace: attention, interpretation, argument, and shared meaning.

Long before the age of artificial intelligence, Jewish tradition built institutions designed to train human intelligence.

Long before the age of artificial intelligence, Jewish tradition built institutions designed to train human intelligence.

And once a year, on Passover night, we recreate one of them at home—reminding ourselves that even in an era of artificial intelligence, the roots of our wisdom lie not in algorithms, but in the practice of learning together—somewhere between the Haggadah, a good question, and a bowl of grandmother’s matzah ball soup.

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)