Talmud Torah in the Age of AI
Zach Fish, co-founder of Sofer.Ai, clarifies the essence of our most essential Mitzvah, and where that leaves AI
Guest Post by Zach Fish, Part of The Write Way Series
When machines can learn faster, think deeper, and recall more, we’re left with a pressing question: what is the role of the human mind in a world where intelligence can be outsourced?
In some fields, it’s already inefficient for people to solve problems manually when models can explore countless options and deliver polished answers. The human role is shifting from solving problems to using tools effectively. Just like calculators made mental math less essential and shifted the value to knowing how to use the tool, AI is doing the same for many cognitive tasks. The skill is no longer in doing the work by hand, but in guiding the process well.
So what about Torah? If the systems eventually reach the point where they can produce deep insights, should we make the same shift in learning from independent thinkers to tool users?1
One could argue: if the AI can create an understanding in the sugya better than you can, why not use it? Why struggle through a difficult Tosfos and land on a shaky answer when you could just ask your pocket-sized digital “Rabbi” and walk away with something sharper?
Understanding The Essence
But if we understand the essence of the mitzvah of Talmud Torah, that argument falls apart.
Let’s start with the beracha itself:
ברוך אתה ה׳ אלקינו מלך העולם אשר קדשנו במצותיו וצונו לעסוק בדברי תורה
Why la’asok, to engage, and not lilmod, to learn? Lilmod seems like the much more obvious choice for a beracha on limud hatorah.
The Maharal, in his introduction to Tiferes Yisrael, explains that this isn’t just a semantic nuance. La’asok means active involvement. The mitzvah isn’t simply to gain knowledge, but to be actively engaged in learning, and specifically, to speak words of Torah.
And it’s more than that. If the bracha had said lilmod, it would suggest that the mitzvah is only fulfilled when you arrive at the correct understanding. That the goal is to get the right answer. But that’s not how it works, explains the Maharal.
The chidush of la’asok is that the mitzvah is in the effort itself, the process of learning, not just the results. As long as your intentions are sincere and you’re genuinely striving to uncover truth, you’re fulfilling the mitzvah, even if you come to the wrong conclusion!
Outcome or Effort?
This idea that the value lies in the effort, not just the outcome, is echoed by the Chafetz Chaim in his comment on the first Rashi in Bechukosai. At a siyum, we say:
אנו עמלים והם עמלים אנו עמלים ומקבלים שכר והם עמלים ואינם מקבלים שכרWe toil, and they toil—we toil and receive reward; they toil and do not receive reward.
It sounds strange. What does it mean that “they” do not receive reward? There are people out there making plenty of money for the hard work they do, even if it has nothing to do with Torah. So how can we say they don’t receive any reward?
So the Chafetz Chaim explains: in the world of work, people are rewarded for results. If you hire a tailor to make a suit, and he works day and night but doesn’t finish it, you don’t pay him. No one pays for effort without output.
But Torah is different.
In Torah, the reward is for the toil itself. The mitzvah is not to finish the sugya, or to get it right—it’s to immerse yourself in the learning, to struggle sincerely in the pursuit of truth. That’s why anu ameilim u’mekablim sachar, we receive reward simply for the effort, even if we never get to the final answer.
Therefore, I would argue that if our goal is to truly engage in Talmud Torah, outsourcing the thinking to software misses the mark. It may provide answers, but it takes away the very act that defines the mitzvah. We might struggle more than a chatbot that can generate words faster than we can process them, but that’s the point. We’re meant to struggle.
Look Away From AI?
So does that mean AI has no place in learning? Should we make Torah study intentionally harder just to preserve the struggle? And am I a hypocrite for saying all this while also running an AI startup in the Torah space?
Rav Hutner, quoting the Chazon Ish in his foreword to Otzar Meforshei ha-Talmud (Bava Metzia vol. 2), clearly says no (at least to the first question—whether I’m a hypocrite remains an open question).
The Chazon Ish warned that our generation often confuses chipus (searching) with yegi’ah (toil). Pouring effort into endless searching, he says, is a distortion of true amalah shel Torah, the effort the Torah asks of us. Not all effort is created equal - what we need to be doing is grappling with the text, thinking deeply, and trying to understand. Searching alone, even if exhausting, is not the avodah the Torah demands.
This is a key distinction—and it gives us a framework.
AI tools in Torah should never aim to replace human thought. Even if they could, that’s not the point. We don’t want to hand over our learning to machines. The goal is to remove friction where it doesn’t belong and help us invest our energy where it matters most.
Sofer.Ai
That’s why the mission of Sofer.Ai is not to generate Torah, but to make it as accessible as possible. We’re skeptical of the generative space—not just because of technical limitations, but because it misses the point.
A good example of this is our Maishiv feature, the “AI Shoel U’Maishiv” on Sofer.Ai. We could have built it to use Torah texts and advanced models to answer questions that aren’t directly addressed, reasoning through the material on their own. Instead, we designed it to return only direct quotes from the sources you provide. The model’s role is simply to recognize your question and help surface relevant sources.
It’s not a chatbot meant to replace your chavrusah or your rebbi—it’s a smart search, built to assist your learning, not replace it. Its goal is simple: reduce your chipus, so you can focus on your yegi’ah.
I believe this is how both builders and users should approach tools in the world of Torah. In everyday life, we may be heading toward a paradigm shift—where people are no longer the ones grinding through problems, but instead guiding the tools that do. But that shift shouldn’t carry over into the beis medrash.
Soul Searching
And to close: even if AI could offer brilliant insights, it would still be missing the most essential ingredient—the soul of the learner.
Rav Kook writes in Orot HaTorah (2:1) that when a person learns Torah, they bring it from potential into reality through the unique qualities of their own soul. Every person connects to Torah in their own way, which means every act of learning is different. The light that emerges when Torah connects to one soul is fundamentally different from the light it brings through another.
And this is why we say l’hagdil Torah, to expand the Torah. Through our learning, we’re not just understanding Torah, we’re revealing new dimensions of it. In a real sense, we’re making the Torah bigger.
Each person adds something. With every piece they learn, a unique aspect of Torah is brought into the world. And if they don’t learn it, it’s not just a missed opportunity—it’s a loss. That part of Torah simply never appears.
And no machine, no matter how powerful, can replace that.
About the Author
Zach Fish is the co-founder of Sofer.Ai, an AI company on a mission to make Torah more accessible. Go to www.Sofer.Ai and start transcribing your shiurim today.
I’m not addressing the halachic question of whether AI models can pasken, for that, see Rav Netanel Wiederblank’s article here, where he outlines 10 compelling reasons why this would be problematic. My focus here is narrower: how we, as individuals, approach the mitzvah of Talmud Torah itself. And specifically, how should we think about using AI tools in a way that helps us fulfill this mitzvah.
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I’m enjoying the discussion so far—there’s one angle I haven’t seen mentioned.
Styles of Torah learning never develop in a vacuum. Outside forces keep nudging us. The focus on “yeshivish” masechtos and the deep-dive iyun common in many yeshivos grew, at least partly, as a response to the Haskalah: we had to show that our brilliance matched the best of the secular world.
These pivots aren’t new. The printing press, writing down Torah she-be’al peh, and publishing the Shulchan Aruch all reshaped how we learn.
So where does that leave us? I’m not sure. Like Zach, I want us to keep thinking for ourselves—but we may be standing at the edge of another shift that will reshape Talmud Torah once again.
One last thought: my rebbe, Rav Moshe Stav, once said he has never seen someone studying on a screen and singing along. Torah is called a shirah—a song. Whatever tools we use, let’s ask: does the way I learn make me want to sing?
YK Zach -- great article. I think its important to point out a distinction the Maharal makes in the beginning of Tiferes Yisrael. He says that when a person is learning themselves, Hashem appreciates the effort and is willing to overlook mistakes (even fairly heretical ones). But that changes when a person begins teaching Torah (and it seems like this would apply when sharing one's learning with others, as well) - there, effort alone is not enough, the standard is much more outcome-oriented; the material must be objectively correct. So while effort is a central element of talmud Torah, i think its going to too far to say that its the definition of the mitzvah.
I think your quote from Rav Kook at the end illustrates this. I don't understand what it would mean to be 'revealing new dimensions' in Torah if a person struggled through a sugya for an hour and came away with the basic understanding - what new dimension was revealed solely through the effort? Ella, the expectation seems to be that every person has some novel insight they have the capability to uncover - but that's an outcome focus, not an effort focus.
In general, I appreciated the methodology employed of addressing the question by stepping back and asking about the essential goal of talmud Torah. A different answer to that question, which yields a slightly different answer to the AI question, i think might be provided by Rav Hirsch and the Rav in Halachic Man. I think both see the goal of talmud torah to be molding the person learning, teaching him to see life/process experiences through a specific lens. The process of learning is both the way to uncover that lens (outcome focus) and also important for training oneself to adopt that lens (process focus), which is then reinforced by going out and doing the mitzvos about which one is learning when possible. For example, Shabbos is meant to reinforce a specific perspective on our role in the world. We discover what that is through learning, and teach ourselves to use that lens both by keeping Shabbos and by learning more about Shabbos. I think this is a bit more practically oriented than a pure effort focus or the idea from Rav Kook about the soul of the learner revealing new frontiers in Torah.
Relatedly, I think this is something which is going to have to shift in general education as well. When AI can do your homework faster, better, and easier than you can, i think teachers are going to really have to justify why its important for a student to personally know the material they're teaching - for example, literature or poetry as something that can serve as a mental model to process personal experiences.