Jamie’s family is our family. Mine and yours. There is nothing special or different about Jamie’s family. A family of four trying to make ends meet. A mother and father involved enough but also understandably busy with work, keeping a roof over their children’s heads and staying ahead of piling bills.

We live in a materialistic society where we are told to feel like we never have enough. There is always a new iPhone we can get or trending purse we should buy or some shoes we must have in our closet. If we want to be happy, we need to purchase that shiny new thing – or else we risk not fitting in, not being liked, not being popular. All of this is confirmed by social media influencers, whom we mindlessly worship and strive to be like.

Against this avalanche of artificiality, do humans stand a chance?

Instead of giving you glib answers, I hope to kick off a conversation. This subject is so consequential it merits a series of essays from expert voices to help us grasp a revolution like no other.

Our aim will be to explore not just the dangers but the potential promise of AI.

America’s secularization was an immense social transformation. Has it left us better off? People are unhappier than they’ve ever been and the country is in an epidemic of loneliness. It’s not just secularism that’s to blame, but those without religious affiliation in particular rank lower on key metrics of well-being. They feel less connected to others, less spiritually at peace and they experience less awe and gratitude regularly.

Something about a recent episode of the far-right influencer Candace Owens’ podcast felt eerily familiar. Owens was railing against Ukraine — calling it corrupt, a globalist puppet state, an undeserving drain on American resources.

Her talking points felt awfully familiar: accusations of a small nation wielding outsized influence, and the West being manipulated into supporting an unjust cause. So did her moral absolutism, the sense she conveyed that Ukraine wasn’t simply a country at war, but rather the emblem of larger, sinister forces in the world.

In other words, it sounded like the way a lot of people have come to speak about Israel.

I’m always bracing the people in my life against my belief they will find the thing I love most in the world boring. I expect it, actually. Never mind that they’ve been coming to my shows since my freshman showcase in undergrad, never mind that they still come to my shows willingly and enthusiastically long after we’ve left the nest of university behind. Never mind that they usually remark that they liked the music and the chance the slow down.

Never mind that I myself usually zone out a bit at shows and I still go to them.

Never mind that we all agree, when asked, that a bit of boredom is good for the soul.

When Aaron lifts his hands toward the people to bless them, we are not surprised that this rather mundane act occurred as choreography for the spiritual moment. However, is it necessary? The Likutei Moaharan teaches that from here we know that the essence of blessing is in our hands. We say a blessing, but unless we act in the world, with our hands, toward others the way we wish our blessings to be actualized, our blessings are useless words.

Divine worship requires profound sanctity. The term shemini (eighth) signifies a realm beyond the natural order, introducing a supernatural dimension to the spiritual event of the consecration reported on in this reading. The fatal incident resulting underscores the necessity of adhering strictly to divine commandments, highlighting that even well-intentioned deviations can lead to dire consequences.

If an item of wood, leather, or cloth becomes impure, it is able to be re-purified through immersion in water and the passage of time. If the inside of an earthen vessel becomes impure, there is no method of recourse. The vessel cannot become pure again, and must be smashed.

On the one hand, we could learn from this that there is a system for addressing situations where irreparable damage has occurred. On the other hand, we could ask why the Torah permits earthenware vessels at all?

With both Tehran and Gaza in mind, we turn to two of Israel’s leading journalists: Nadav Eyal, senior analyst at Yediot Achronot, and Amit Segal, senior political analyst at Channel 12 – to understand Israel’s standing on these two critical fronts.

In this episode of the 18Forty Podcast, we talk to bestselling author Susan Cain about her bittersweet relationship with her mother, an Orthodox Jew and daughter of a prominent rabbi.

Sam Harris speaks with Douglas Murray about Douglas’s new book, On Democracies and Death Cults: Israel and the Future of Civilization. They discuss Douglas’s recent experience on Joe Rogan’s podcast, the need for experts, conspiracy theories, the origins and aims of Hamas, the moral asymmetries between Israel and Hamas, what makes jihadism a uniquely dangerous ideology, Hamas’s attack on the Nova music festival, Douglas’s associations with Trump and Trumpism, Elon Musk and X, antisemitism on the Right, and other topics.