Talmud Torah In the Age of AI

by R. Gil Student

I. AI and Transformation

Artificial intelligence (AI) is changing the world and already beginning to transform the workplace, a process that is widely expected to be dramatic. Will Torah study face the same fate? Some anticipate that AI, once it overcomes its current accuracy problems, will transform how we learn: whether replacing the rebbe (teacher) or chavrusa (study mate), reimagining what a text is and looks like, or offering individualized courses of study based on ability and interests. Perhaps more deeply, some think that not just the form of Torah study but the very goal will change also. Do we need to study texts carefully when we can easily obtain all our answers from AI? Maybe the curriculum should change to more about personal growth and less about textual mastery.

Yet history teaches us that the core of Talmud Torah does not bend so easily to technological disruption. Torah is not simply information to be processed. Advanced Torah learning is itself a spiritual discipline, a form of avodas Hashem. The connection with a rebbe and the yegi’ah and amalah, the effort and toil, are part and parcel of personal growth as a Torah Jew. These are not incidental features of Torah study; they are the essence of it. Without the sweat, the back-and-forth argument, the human relationship and the process of internalizing Torah’s values, the words remain external, unintegrated into one’s mind and heart. No machine can substitute with the process of becoming a part of the chain of Torah transmission throughout the generations.

To understand AI’s place in the future of Torah study, it helps to recall a much earlier and far greater technological disruption: the writing down of the Talmud.

II. The First Great Disruption

For centuries, Torah She-Be’al Peh, the Oral Torah, was transmitted exclusively through memory and speech. Students learned by listening, repeating and reviewing constantly. A Torah scholar was, above all, a living library. Mastery meant knowing vast bodies of material by heart and being able to recall them instantly in debate or judgment. When the Talmud was redacted and committed to writing, this world changed. The act was unprecedented and far more revolutionary than AI is today because it fundamentally altered how Torah was accessed and preserved. What had been stored in the minds of sages could now be stored on parchment.

This shift also affected the halakhic requirements for Torah knowledge. The Sages speak intimidatingly about the prohibition against forgetting the Torah. The Mishnah says: “whoever forgets even one thing of his learning, Scripture considers him as if he is liable for his life” (Avos 3:8). Rav Shneur Zalman of Liadi (19th cen., Russia) discusses this prohibition at length, expanding on the details (Shulchan Arukh Ha-Rav, Hilkhos Talmud Torah 2:4-8). However, his contemporary, Rav Chaim Volozhiner, argues that this is no longer applicable. This prohibition was for a time when the continuity and very existence of the Oral Torah required people memorizing and retaining their learning. A failure to remember posed a danger to the tradition itself. Nowadays, with the material preserved in writing, forgetting a detail no longer carries the same consequence, since it can be recovered from the text (Keser Rosh, no. 67).

The emphasis of learning also shifted, to a degree, from memorization to textual and abstract analysis. Scholars still value broad knowledge, but the primary skill has become understanding and interpreting texts, rather than holding every line in memory. A good memory is still held in esteem but more as a curiosity than a requirement. The change lessening the value of memorization did not diminish Torah study; it enriched it.

III. AI as the Next Step

Seen against this backdrop, AI is not an existential threat but a continuation of the same trajectory. Just as the written Talmud shifted the center of gravity from memory to analysis, and just as digital search tools made it easier to locate sources, AI will enable certain tasks that previously were unavailable to the average student. It will not, and cannot, change the process of learning itself.

The ways in which AI can serve as a tool in Torah study are still being discovered as the AI revolution begins. Here are at least three important ways AI can be used in learning:

1) Source Discovery and Mapping – Imagine an app with which you take a picture of a text and AI instantly locates relevant sources across texts, commentaries and codes, tracing where they are cited in Talmud and later literature, and identifying modern texts, articles and responsa on the same topic. This allows a learner to see not only the origin of an idea but also its development and application over centuries.

2) Topic Summarization – AI can produce concise overviews of any sugya or halakhic topic, linking directly to the primary sources for deeper study. A student attempting to review and digest a large topic can quickly obtain an organized view of the relevant material he has learned.

3) Historical Context – AI can provide background on the era, geography and culture referenced in a source, helping clarify difficult passages that assume familiarity with ancient realities. This will particularly enhance the study of Aggadata (non-legal narratives) but also help students understand Talmudic, medieval and early modern texts about economic and social activity.

Tools like these offer exciting opportunities to enhance the learning of students and scholars who have already mastered the basic textual skills necessary for learning. They will not replace classical Torah learning but supplement it.

IV. Breadth of Knowledge in the AI Era

With AI able to find and retrieve almost any text in seconds, one might conclude that broad knowledge will become obsolete. But just as in the post-redaction period, breadth will remain indispensable. The student needs to learn and master the entire Torah in order to internalize it, to allow it shape his thinking and worldview. Doing so allows you to recognize patterns, draw connections and respond instinctively through a Torah lens.

AI retrieval mirrors the historical shift: it reduces the practical necessity of memorizing every detail, but it raises the bar for broad knowledge, deep reasoning and analysis. A related discussion appears in the Talmud about the relative value of perfect recall versus penetrating analysis. The Gemara (Horayos 14a) describes a debate whether the great yeshiva in Pumbedisa should choose Rabbah or Rav Yosef as its rosh yeshiva. Rav Yosef had a phenomenal memory and knew all Tannaitic literature by heart. He was a “Sinai.” Rabbah did not have a similarly encyclopedic knowledge but was a brilliant analyst, an “oker harim” (uprooter of mountains). Who is a more appropriate choice for rosh yeshiva? Rav Yosef, the Sinai, was selected but he declined and Rabbah took the position. Twenty two years later, after Rabbah’s death, Rav Yosef assumed the position.

Rav Shlomo Kluger explains that this conclusion reflects the time before the Oral Torah was written, when a Sinai’s memory was indispensable. Once the texts were committed to writing, the advantage shifted toward the oker harim (marginal note to Pri Megadim, Orach Chaim, Eishel Avraham 136). In our day, with Google, Bar Ilan and digitized Jewish libraries, this argument becomes even stronger: analytical skill may be more critical than encyclopedic memory. Still, as Rashi notes (Horayos 14a s.v. u-mar), an oker harim must also possess some Sinai, i.e. familiarity with all the sources, even if not instant recall. The novice analyst is no substitute for the seasoned scholar. A sound analytical thinker must know the entire Torah to internalize the concepts and attitudes.

V. The Unchanging Core

In the end, AI will be an additional tool, not a new method. The essential elements of Torah study will remain. Technology can help us find the material and arrange it neatly on our desks, but only human effort can turn it into wisdom and holiness. Evidence of this minimal impact can be found in the growth in popularity of Daf Yomi textual study and even memory retention skills, which took place at the same time that the Internet grew and a variety of websites and apps for Torah study became available. There is a draw to classical Torah learning that supersedes the availability of technology, even as technological aids are used to assist with and supplement the classical study of Torah texts with a rebbe or chavrusa.

While the printing press, the Internet and now AI have had great impacts on Jewish society and Torah learning, the greatest transformation in Torah study already happened some 1,500 years ago when the Talmud was written down. Every other development since has been a smaller step in the same direction. AI is no different. It will accelerate research, open up new connections and make some kinds of work easier. But the heart of Talmud Torah remains exactly where it has always been: in the discipline and hard work of those who choose to engage in this sacred act of worship. AI will enhance the hard-earned learning obtained through yegi’ah and amalah, supplementing our classical learning with new tools.