For the John Templeton Foundation, I wrote about the intriguing intersection of modern science and ancient Jewish teachings.
In May of 2017 an audience of more than a hundred gathered at Boston’s Congregation B’nai Shalom to hear Google executive Jeremy Wertheimer talk about the ways that artificial intelligence is transforming the human experience. As part of his talk, Wertheimer linked contemporary debates about who bears the blame if a self-driving car causes an injury, with a millenia-old Talmudic discussion of a surprisingly similar circumstance: if someone has an ox that gores a person or another animal, when should it be viewed as an accident and under what circumstances does the owner bear the blame? The Talmud’s advice: gather witnesses to determine whether the ox in question had a history of violence that would make the goring foreseeable.
The discussion was sponsored by Scientists in Synagogues, a series of events sponsored by Sinai and Synapses, an organization dedicated to helping Jewish clergy, scientists, and laity explore the ways that science and Jewish thought can mutually inform one another. The first round of ten Scientists in Synagogues grants were awarded in 2016, and applications for a second round of 12 grants — to be awarded to fund events like the Boston lecture — are being accepted until March 15, 2018.