B'chasdei Hashem, over the past almost 20 years, Beis Mevakesh Lev has produced over 13,300 audio shiurim and over 31,000 written posts, unmatched by any one-person website - all completely free of charge. There are no paywalls or anything else. Now we are turning to you for help so we can continue - any amount will help. Even 99 cents! Thank you to my sweetest and most beloved friends!!!:-)!!
alchehrm@gmail.com
---
The late comedian Jackie Mason may or may not have appeared to me in a dream and performed the following monologue about what is going on now in the world. [If he DID come to me in a dream and say the following then it resolves the gemara's question if the dead know what is going on here in this world]:
Eitza tova - Read it in his voice.... It's much funnier that way.
"Can I talk to you? I’m looking at the world, and I’m trying to understand—does anybody know what’s going on? Does anybody have a clue? I go to a newsstand, I look at the headlines, I see things I don’t even recognize!
Now we have a 'Board of Peace.' Did you hear this? A Board of Peace! Trump goes to Davos—which, by the way, is a place where billionaires go to tell you why you can't afford a bagel—and he announces a Board of Peace. Because the UN wasn’t doing enough? The UN is a building where people from 190 countries get together to decide who’s not talking to who! Now we have a Board. You know what a 'Board' is? It’s a group of people who couldn’t get a job individually, so they sit in a circle and agree that they’re all very important!
And have you seen the Artificial Intelligence? This 'AI'? Everybody is talking about the AI. I ask a computer a question, and it answers me in three seconds. A person? You ask a person a question, they have to check their phone, they have to ask their wife, they have to see if they’re 'offended' by the question! The computer doesn't get offended! You can call a computer a 'idiot,' and it says, 'Thank you, would you like me to define that for you?'
"Can I ask you a question? What is with this AI? Everywhere you look, AI! You go to buy a toaster, the toaster has 'AI.' Why? Does a toaster need to have a philosophy? Does it need to wonder if the bread wants to be toasted? I just want a piece of rye bread that doesn't look like it was rescued from a house fire!
But people are afraid! 'The AI is going to take my job!' What job? You’re an accountant! You think a robot wants to sit in a cubicle and figure out why you’re deducting a tuna sandwich as a business expense? A robot has better things to do!
And now, they have 'AI Agents.' Did you hear this? This is the big thing in 2026. An 'Agent.' It’s a computer program that makes decisions for you. It talks to other agents. My agent calls your agent to see if we can have lunch! Since when did I become a movie star? I can’t even get a waiter to bring me a refill on my coffee, but my 'Agent' is negotiating with a refrigerator!
And the names! They call it 'Vera Rubin' or 'Grok.' What is a 'Grok'? It sounds like something you do when you have a piece of brisket stuck in your throat! And this 'Grok' is getting in trouble with the Attorney General of California! Imagine being a computer and having a criminal record! What are they gonna do, put the hard drive in a minimum-security drawer? Give it a screen-saver of a prison cell?
Then you have 'Embodied AI.' This is the latest. The AI is leaving the screen and going into robots. Robots that 'learn by failing.' You know who else learns by failing? My nephew! He’s been 'learning' how to hold a job for fifteen years! He’s a professional learner! But now, a robot is going to be a 'sorting' robot. It’s going to sort your mail. You know what I do with my mail? I throw it in the trash! I don’t need a three-million-dollar machine to tell me I owe the electric company forty dollars!
And they say the AI is going to replace the lawyers and the accountants. This is a tragedy? You tell a lawyer a robot is taking his job, he sues the robot! You tell an accountant, he tries to figure out if he can depreciate himself over five years!
I’m telling you, it’s a sickness. We’re building machines to be more 'human' because we’ve forgotten how to be human ourselves! We have a 'Board of Peace'—which I told you about, it’s a group of people who agree they like sandwiches—and we have AI that can write a symphony, but we can’t find a person who can fix a leaky faucet without charging you the price of a small condo in Florida!
It’s all a bluff! You ask the AI, 'How do I be happy?' and it says, 'According to my data, you should exercise and eat vegetables.' I don’t need a computer for that! My mother told me that in 1942, and she didn't need a cooling fan to do it!
Am I right? Of course I’m right! Who’s gonna tell me I’m wrong? A robot? Let the robot try to get a laugh in the Catskills, then we’ll see who’s 'intelligent'!"
And look at the elections. Everywhere, elections! In Uganda, they have an election where the guy wins for the seventh time. Seventh time! In this country, we can’t even get a guy to stay in a room for seven minutes without a subpoena! But in Uganda, he wins every time. You know why? Because he’s the only one with the keys to the ballot box! It’s a very simple system. If you don't vote for him, you don't eat. In America, if you don't vote for them, they just send you more emails asking for ten dollars!
I’m telling you, the whole world is a tumult. People are moving to the Arctic! Greenland is 'pushing back.' Greenland! Who wants to go to Greenland? It’s a giant ice cube! But people say, 'It’s exclusive! Nobody is there!' So a Jew moves there, and five minutes later, he’s complaining there’s no good deli. 'The ice is nice, but where’s the corned beef? I can't live on frozen moss!'
It’s a sickness! The more we have, the more we need. We have phones that can talk to Mars, but we can't talk to the guy living next door because he’s wearing the wrong political hat. You see a guy in a hat, you think he’s a murderer! He’s just a guy who likes hats!
I’m telling you, if we all just sat down and had a piece of cake—a nice sponge cake, maybe a little coffee—the Board of Peace could go home, the AI could go back to playing chess, and we could finally figure out why a movie ticket costs twenty-five dollars when the actor is already a billionaire!
Am I right? Hello? Does anybody know what I’m talking about?"
