Between Augmented Reality and False Imagination, Rabbi Ben Zion Nordman
Like every great force in the world, technology and imagination are neutral tools. The responsibility for how to use them is ours, and ours alone.
Imagine a widowed woman, heartbroken, standing in a small field with her two orphaned daughters. She tries to plow, but the law forbids her. She tries to harvest, but is forced to leave a large part of the crop for the poor and the priests. In her distress, she sells the field and buys two sheep to make a living from the wool, but then Aaron the priest comes and takes the first shearing and the firstborn animals. The widow cries, her daughters scream, and there is no savior.
In this heartbreaking story, which appears in the Midrash, Korach used in our weekly Torah portion. He gathered the people and, with tearful eyes, described to them a cruel reality in which Moses and Aaron exploit the weak under the guise of religion and commandments. But there was one flaw in this fascinating story, it never happened. There was no widow, no sheep, and no field. Korach was a master of “fake news,” of consciousness manipulation. He took one of the most wondrous powers God gave human beings, the power of imagination, and used it to engineer a virtual reality of injustice, to arouse jealousy, anger, and division. He used imagination to shrink the truth, until the earth opened its mouth and swallowed him and his followers, a symbolic punishment for a person who abuses the powers of creation, drowning in his own illusions and detached from reality.
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This week, we had the privilege of working at the elementary school "Madaim veYahadut" on an innovative and moving pioneering project, the establishment of a new technological imagination laboratory, which we are currently developing and which is intended to serve all residents of the city and the region. In a word, this is a chamber of wonders based on immersive, experiential and interactive technology. In this space, the physical boundaries disappear. The teacher and the student dive together into the subject being studied, the students can physically feel that they are standing in the middle of a snowstorm, in pouring rain, or on the surface of Mars. We are now working so that, beyond sight and hearing, the sense of touch will also be part of the experience. This laboratory will be a tremendous breakthrough for special education students, children on the autism spectrum, and even as a therapeutic tool for combat trauma survivors.
Jewish thinkers explain that the power of imagination is the space where our intellect and soul seem to grow wings. Every human invention, every scientific breakthrough, was born first in imagination. Imagination allows us to see the invisible, solve complex problems, and repair reality. All this is conditioned on it being guided by values and truth, then imagination becomes a tool of positive moral progress.
It can be said that the "imagination laboratory" being established these days is a certain rectification of Korach's sin. Korach used imagination to divide, to generate ego and jealousy through false appearances. By contrast, our imagination laboratory uses technology to connect, between teacher and student, to connect a person to nature, to awaken empathy for the weak and heal wounds. We do not use imagination to escape reality, but to deepen it, explore it, and improve it.
Like every great force in the world, technology and imagination are neutral tools. The responsibility for how to use them is ours, and ours alone. May we always merit using them to build, advance, and connect, and thereby merit joyful and blessed action.
