A human competes in a Turing test against a robot superimposed on a Jewish man blowing shofar. (Getty Images\/JTA montage)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
I believe there is. Because Rosh Hashanah is, at its essence, a celebration of what makes us truly human.
This is how it works: A judge engages in a conversation with two unknown entities \u2014 a person and a computer. If the computer can fool a human judge into believing it is a human being, the computer has passed the Turing test \u2014 and, according to Turing, has exhibited the ability to \u201cthink.\u201d
Decades ago, chess was considered a singularly human game. Nowadays, your cellphone could beat a grandmaster. At the World A.I. Conference in Shangai in August, Elon Musk said that \u201cthere is a smaller and smaller corner where humans are better than computers in intellectual pursuits and every year it gets smaller and smaller.\u201d Humans, he added, \u201care hopelessly inadequate.\u201d<\/p>\n
As computers move faster, it feels like we are moving slower.<\/p>\n
The entire process of the High Holidays, in contrast, emphasizes the very qualities that only a human could ever hope to project. While the imagery of judgment looms large, it is our capacity to stand in judgment that makes mankind different.<\/p>\n
Brian Christian, in his 2011 book \u201cThe Most Human Human,\u201d reimagined the goal of the Turing test. He entered an international Turing test competition known as the Loebner Prize. Instead of a computer competing to be most human, Christian attempted to see if he could be ranked most human. <\/p>\n
The very notion is fascinating. What would you say to prove your humanity? Of course, typing in \u201cI am not a computer\u201d won\u2019t help all that much, since a computer could just as easily be programmed to do the same.
I think a lot about that angst during Rosh Hashanah. <\/p>\n
As someone for whom anxiety comes naturally, this answer has always resonated. Most of us spend our professional lives aspiring for the sober analysis of computers, but Christian\u2019s experience is a reminder that our angst over our imperfections may be what distinguishes us. As the poet and songwriter Leonard Cohen hauntingly sings, \u201cThere is a crack in everything \u2014 that\u2019s how the light gets in.\u201d
After we pray for awe, we pray for honor. The dignity of honor, the nobility of our distinctiveness, only emerges once we first assert our angst.<\/p>\n
As we humbly pass before God in judgment during the Days of Awe, we assert our very humanity by exercising our capacity for wonder and reverence. The inimitable nature of the human condition does not emerge from celebrating man\u2019s ingenuity, but rather from our inadequacy: \u201cPraise to those who fear you,\u201d we pray, \u201cgood hope to those to seek you, confident speech to those who yearn for you.\u201d <\/p>\n
On Rosh Hashanah, we celebrate humanity by focusing on our capacity to submit, our aspirations to transcend and our yearning to connect. Having a Higher Power that we are reaching toward is precisely what endows our life with such purpose. Computers are measured based on their accomplishments; humanity is measured by our aspirations. <\/p>\n
Buried within the humble inarticulate cry of the shofar is the reminder of man\u2019s distinction. Shofar is a curious vehicle to proclaim God\u2019s kingship. Why not a jazzy sax solo or a somber battalion of trumpets? <\/p>\n
The shofar is distinctive for the same reason as humanity \u2014 it is a cry of inadequacy. You can only blow one note from a shofar. It is a plaintive cry that words can\u2019t capture. On Rosh Hashanah, our visceral aspirations are not cloaked in the poetic prose or creative solos, but in an existential angst that only humanity can express.
Staring into a siddur, reflecting on what\u2019s gone wrong and humbly reaching out to a more transcendent source to help make it right is a moment of humanity no other entity could imitate or replace. We spend most of the year racing to outpace and outsmart the endless march of modernity and technological achievement. On Rosh Hashanah, we remind ourselves that the only way we\u2019ll emerge victorious in the race for our individuality is if we embrace our inadequacy. <\/p>\n
A successful Rosh Hashanah can produce a more tender and humble sense of self during the year. The Hasidic Rebbe of Kotzk famously remarked that \u201cthere is nothing as whole as a broken heart.\u201d <\/p>\n
On Rosh Hashanah, our hopeless inadequacy may be the very source of our hope.<\/p>\n
(Rabbi David Bashevkin is the author of \u201cSin\u00b7a\u00b7gogue: Sin and Failure in Jewish Thought,\u201d recently published by Academic Studies Press.)<\/em><\/p>\n
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