What does Hillel's teaching “where there are no people, strive to be a person” mean today?
By Rabbi Shalom Landau.
Rabbi Landau teaches that Hillel's words, “Bimakom she'ein anashim, hishtadel lihiyos ish,” in a place where there are no true people, strive to be one, speak directly to a world of machines. He applies them this way: “In a world full of copies, become an original. In a world where machines can imitate intelligence, become someone with wisdom. In a world where AI can produce answers, become the person who asks questions nobody else thought to ask.”
Being a person, in his teaching, is not about knowing more facts. It means seeing where others don't see, and having courage, judgment, responsibility and heart, the things a machine can only imitate.
He warns that “the people AI replaces are the ones who stopped becoming human.” Hillel's call is to do the opposite: where others become copy-and-paste people, strive to be a real person.
Related concepts: Personaldevelopment · Purpose
In A Soul at Peace: Where There Are No People
Going deeper: Rabbi Landau's teaching, level by level
Surface claim
Where there are no true people, strive to be one: in a world of copies, become an original.
What may be behind it
In A Soul at Peace, Rabbi Landau writes that a machine imitates the soul's garments, thought, speech and action, but has no heart, no choice and no responsibility.
Deepest human truth
The people AI replaces are the ones who stopped becoming human.
More questions from this teaching
More answers: Technology, Noise, and Human Identity · All questions · Questions about Rabbi Landau and Rivnitz