Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text!Length: 17 minutes 53 secondsSynopsis: Last week (1/14/26), I published an article on my Substack titled Rav Kook: First Impressions of a New Chapter in My Learning. This was a surprisingly challenging article to write, but I’m proud of how it turned out, and I’ve received great feedback on it so far. However, I chose to keep most of it behind a paywall, for reasons I explain in the free introduction to the article. Fast forwa...
Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text!
Length: 17 minutes 53 seconds
Synopsis: Last week (1/14/26), I published an article on my Substack titled Rav Kook: First Impressions of a New Chapter in My Learning. This was a surprisingly challenging article to write, but I’m proud of how it turned out, and I’ve received great feedback on it so far. However, I chose to keep most of it behind a paywall, for reasons I explain in the free introduction to the article.
Fast forward to this week. Even though I’m a die-hard ChatGPT guy, I recently learned that I have access to the paid version of Google’s Gemini and other AI tools (thanks, NEJA). I’ve been playing around with different features and have been particularly intrigued by NotebookLM, which, among other uses, allows users to upload documents and generate an AI-created podcast based on them.
I decided to generate a podcast version of my paywalled article on Rav Kook. It was HILARIOUS! If I had to guess, I’d say it was about 70% faithful to the actual article. It altered much of my careful phrasing, changed the order of presentation, introduced its own analogies, and editorialized without making a clear distinction between my own views and its views. It even introduced at least one possibly antizionist sentiment, which I did NOT express! And even though the tone of my article was enthusiastic, the AI went overboard on the dramatization. And let's not talk about the consistently inconsistent mangling of pronunciations and creepy "third party laughter."
Anyway, against my better judgment, I’m going to share this here. (Felt cute; might delete later.) Despite its inaccuracies, it DOES convey the general tenor of the article, and I’m hoping this will make people curious enough to check out the real thing. Plus, I want to hear what people think. If you haven’t yet listened to an AI-generated podcast, you’re in for a laugh.
Will I regret sharing this? Probably. But at least it'll be ENTERTAINING! :D
The Torah content for the month of January is sponsored by Naomi Schwartz in memory of her father, Dovid Yitzchok ben Chaim Yeruchum Fishel z”l, who dedicated his life to learning and teaching Torah to countless students b’simcha. His first yahrtzeit is the 23rd of Teves.
If you've gained from what you've learned here, please consider contributing to my Patreon at www.patreon.com/rabbischneeweiss. Alternatively, if you would like to make a direct contribution to the "Rabbi Schneeweiss Torah Content Fund," my Venmo is @Matt-Schneeweiss, and my Zelle and PayPal are mattschneeweiss at gmail. Even a small contribution goes a long way to covering the costs of my podcasts, and will provide me with the financial freedom to produce even more Torah content for you.
If you would like to sponsor a day's or a week's worth of content, or if you are interested in enlisting my services as a teacher or tutor, you can reach me at rabbischneeweiss at gmail. Thank you to my listeners for listening, thank you to my readers for reading, and thank you to my supporters for supporting my efforts to make Torah ideas available and accessible to everyone.
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