Chaim Steinmetz Archives - JNS.org

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Chaim Steinmetz

An artist's rendition of artificial intelligence. Credit: Pixabay.

Can ChatGPT write a better sermon?

If ChatGPT can write a sermon based purely on mimicry, the real question is: Why can’t rabbis write a better sermon than ChatGPT?

Chaim Steinmetz

March 12, 2023

Jethro and Moses, as in Exodus 18, watercolor by painter James Tissot between 1896 and 1900. Credit: Wikimedia Commons.

Even great leaders can miss the obvious

There is greatness even among those with little learning.

Chaim Steinmetz

February 12, 2023

A security guard stands in the empty Hall of Names at the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial Museum in Jerusalem on April 19, 2020. Photo by Yonatan Sindel/Flash90.

The Righteous Among the Nations, then and now

The founding charter of Yad Vashem tasked the new institution with commemorating those "high-minded Gentiles who risked their lives to save Jews" as one of nine founding principles.

Chaim Steinmetz

January 15, 2023

"Abraham and Isaac," oil on canvas, Anthony van Dyck, circa 1617. Credit: National Gallery Prague via Wikimedia Commons.

Abraham the Zionist

Genesis makes it clear that Zionism is central to Abraham’s new religious mission.

Chaim Steinmetz

November 6, 2022

Miniature Torah, part of the National Library of Israel collection. Credit: Courtesy.

The God of the powerless

There is a dark side to a culture that focuses on winners; it changes the way we see the losers in life, the weak and the powerless.

Chaim Steinmetz

September 11, 2022

Holocaust survivors and Israeli soldiers in Herzliya, Oct. 25, 2021. Photo by Tomer Neuberg/Flash90.

Survivor’s guilt and the atonement of the innocent

The ‘Eglah Arufah’ is a way of recognizing that guilt feelings have a profound meaning.

Chaim Steinmetz

September 4, 2022

Miniature Torah, part of the National Library of Israel collection. Credit: Courtesy.

Where fundamentalism fails

Adherence to the letter of the law makes it harder to hear the voice of God.

Chaim Steinmetz

August 28, 2022

Reciting commemorative prayers from the Hebrew Bible. Credit: kaddishinitiative.com.

The power of heroic gratitude

It is in situations of tragedy that gratitude moves from being an ordinary moral obligation to a heroic act of personal transformation.

Chaim Steinmetz

August 22, 2022

Egyptian President Anwar Sadat (left) and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin during a Joint Session of Congress when U.S. President Jimmy Carter announced the results of the Camp David Accords, Sept. 18, 1978. Credit: Warren K. Leffler of U.S. News & World Report, Library of Congress via Wikimedia Commons.

A call for peace, 3,300 years later

Peace is not just another halachic obligation; it is a moral foundation of Judaism.

Chaim Steinmetz

August 4, 2022