Shabbat Sermon: Loving Our Neighbor with Rabbi Wes Gardenswartz

Several months ago my wife Shira shared that she was concerned that I was not getting enough protein or fiber in my diet. Her concerns were valid. I am basically a vegetarian, so I am a bit protein-challenged. And I had no idea what fiber is, or how to get enough of it.

So Shira connected me to a new AI best friend: ChatGPT’s Nutrition Tracking Assistant. Every day I would log everything I ate, everything I drank, and all my daily exercise, and this omniscient source of knowledge would tell me all I needed to know—and would suggest helpful tweaks for how to get more protein and fiber.

It was all going just fine. I was logging every day, ChatGPT was responding with helpful suggestions, and I was eating healthier. Then we went on a family vacation withour adult children and our granddaughter, who was sixteen months old at the time. One night we volunteered to put our granddaughter to bed so that our adult children could go out together for dinner.

By the time we had finished the evening ritual—feeding her, bathing her, changing her, giving her one last bottle, and finally getting her to sleep—we were completely wiped out. We had no idea how we had once apparently had the energy to raise our own children. And we were far too tired to cook or eat dinner ourselves.

So I did the next best thing. I had my two favorite foods: scotch and potato chips. Then I went straight to sleep.

The next morning I had to log what I had eaten, and for a moment I faced a moral dilemma. Should I lie to ChatGPT? Should I report that I had eaten four ounces of cooked salmon, one cup of roasted broccoli, and one cup of blueberries for dessert? I was tempted. But then I remembered: garbage in, garbage out. So I told the brutal truth. I had two scotches and two bowls of potato chips, and then I went to sleep.

I was surprised by what happened next. I had kind of been expecting a reprimand. After all, there is not all that much protein or fiber in scotch and potato chips—even in two helpings of scotch and potato chips.

But to my surprise, ChatGPT could not have been more lovely, more gentle, more understanding. I will never forget what she wrote in response. She said that I had had a “human evening.” I am not sure what other kind of evening I could have had. But I will take it.

This was a human evening. Chat GPT added: There was nothing to recover from. Nothing to apologize for. Just begin logging the new day.

ChatGPT’s kind response left me with a question not about nutrition but about love. When we think someone we care about is on the wrong track, what does love demand from us? Should we love our neighbor the way my ChatGPT loved me? Should we be as positive, as gentle, as affirming, and as reluctant to offer critique?