There aren’t that many authors who manage to connect the teachings of ancient Jewish scholars to the ongoing political events of today, but philosopher, public intellectual and best-
selling author Micah Goodman has managed to do just that.

 

His latest book, The Eighth Day, he leverages his wisdom surrounding Jewish texts to help us make sense of the horrors of October 7. It’s no surprise then, that he’s the perfect person to introduce visitors of the Museum to these sacred texts in ways that are relevant to today.

 

Goodman’s partnership with the Museum asks the intriguing question, what if you could ask the Rambam pressing moral quandaries of the day and he’d give you an answer in real time? Thanks to cutting-edge technology, Goodman has partnered with the Museum of Tolerance Jerusalem to bring this seemingly impossible idea to fruition.

 

Goodman, the author of what is regarded as the most important book written recently about Jewish philosophy, “Maimonides and the Book That Changed Judaism: Secrets of The Guide for the Perplexed”, is consolidating all the wisdom found in that game-changing book into an AI-fueled platform that will serve as the brains behind a hologram exhibit in the Museum of Tolerance.

 

Goodman and the Museum’s team, however, have quite a challenging task ahead.

 

“Rambam’s philosophy is extremely complicated. About a year ago, the Museum reached out to me and if there’s anything better than reading about the Rambam, it’s meeting
the Rambam himself,” Goodman said.

 

At first, Goodman was skeptical. How can a machine possibly grasp the complicated nuances of one of the most influential Torah scholars of Jewish history?

 

His attitude shifted, though, when he met the MOTJ team who explained how Maimoindes’ vision of dialogue and fostering can be reborn through modern 21st century technology.

 

“I saw how professional the team is. They taught me a lot about the wonders of holograms and AI. I realized that if we put our minds together, it’s possible to bring back Maimonidean wisdom, which we need so much at these times, through this new medium,” he said.

 

While the exhibit is only set to open next year, Goodman is working closely with the Museum to ensure the AI is trained to bring out the best of the Rambam and ensure visitors are exposed to the most relevant of his teachings.

 

“There’s many interpretations of the Rambam. But hopefully what we’re trying to do, and we’re only at the beginning of this, is for the AI to familiarize itself with the most accepted interpretations that could offer effective inspiration for people who are going on a journey toward tolerance.”

 

The goal is for visitors to tap into the Rambam’s transformational ideas to help shed light on the issues of the day. Ideas like Tzelem Elohim, which argues that humans are created in the
image of God and that this is the driving force of our intelligence and ability to reason; and is an excellent conduit for inspiring productive conversation.

 

The Rambam is such a transformational figure because he based his teaching on a wide variety of sources. From Aristotle to Muslim philosophers of the Middle Ages, the revered Jewish thinker demonstrated that truth can come from many places and doesn’t need to be exclusively Jewish -a philosophy that guides the spirit of the Museum.

 

“When we speak about tolerance, is religion a part of the problem or the solution? So it could be part of the problem. People could believe that religious piety is by closing your mind. But Rambam turns that upside down. Religious devotion demands from us to search for the truth because our ability to reason is the divine part within us,” he explained.

 

“In order to get close to God, then, is to search for the truth. So therefore we are commanded by our tradition not to lock our minds inside that tradition.”

 

It seems that the Rambam’s vision is more needed than ever today as Israeli society has become increasingly polarized in the aftermath of the debate surrounding Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyhau’s proposed judicial reforms and the Swords of Iron War.

 

Goodman, though, posits that this polarization is an “optical illusion” and most Israelis have more in common with each other than they think.

 

“While it seems like Israel is divided into two – the nationalists versus liberals – it’s actually divided into three. And where on the far right, you have Israelis who score very highly in nationalism but very lowly in liberalism, which means they feel very connected to the collective. But on the far left, you have the opposite phenomenon: People who score very highly in liberalism, but very lowly in nationalism. They always see nationalism as fascism, as racism,
as a threat to liberalism. So those two groups are homogeneous,” he argues.

 

As such, Goodman believes Israel should find society in the moderate center caught between
these two extremist camps. This group shares the positive qualities of the far Right and Left.

 

“They are simultaneously very nationalistic and very liberal. They are hybrid. They score very highly in nationalism and very highly in liberalism, which means they feel they very much belong to this place, to this nation, to this story, to this country,” he said.

 

“The majority of Israelis are hybrid Israelis. The question is, how do you hold together the tension between nationalism and liberalism, which is the tension between collectivism and individualism?”

 

Leveraging these “hybrid” Israelis falls in the tradition Maimondes himself outlined for the Jewish
people, he asserts.

 

“Maimonides and the role of Maimonides in this journey is that on the one hand, cultivating
tolerance is a liberal value. Being inspired by the greatest Jewish philosopher ever is a Jewish value. Being inspired from a Jewish philosopher to listen to voices that are not necessarily Jewish, that is a hybrid move,” he said.

 

Goodman delves into this idea in his most recent book in Hebrew, The Eighth Day, and he hopes his work with the Museum will further demonstrate to Israelis that it is possible to celebrate our similarities rather than argue about our differences.

 

“I think the connection between my book and what we’re working on in this Museum is the ability to celebrate the hybrid nature of our cultural universe where we are devoted to our collective, to our tradition, to the thinkers who inspire us to expand our minds and to find wisdom wherever it exists even if it’s outside of our tradition,” he said.