Introducing RabbAI, the first AI Torah learning Coach

The era of personalised learning is here

The Jewish world has a problem.

Not enough people can or will teach Torah correctly, emphasising skills, understanding, and personal autonomy and sovereignty. Moreover, there isn't a roadmap or a vehicle to building one's understanding from the basics of the aleph-bet to the rarified heights of Talmudic discourse. In a generation that thirsts for high-quality, personal attention and education, we fail to answer this need at scale.

Educational theorist Benjamin Bloom pioneered a type of education called "teaching for mastery". In this paradigm, he proposed paying more attention to the individual student's attainment and progress on a developing ladder of skills and understanding. Instead of rushing all students through arbitrary grade levels at the same pace regardless of their actual achievement, Bloom proposed teaching students to achieve mastery at one level before moving on to the next. 

Bloom also made another shocking revelation that has become an unsolvable problem. Bloom observed that students who were tutored in one-to-one environments achieved two standard deviations better than the control group. The insoluble problem became applying this method at scale—there are far more teachers than students, and the dream of personally tutoring each pupil seemed out of reach. 

AI has solved Bloom’s problem

With the advent of AI in the form of LLMs (large language models) such as OpenAI's GPT4 and Anthropic's Claude, Bloom's problem is a thing of the past. We are now able to fine-tune the AI be the ultimate Torah coach, encouraging and helping each and every learner along their personal, unique Torah journey.

Our vision is that each person would work through a pre-developed set of skill-mastery markers with the help and coaching of the AI. Instead of being limited to the skills and time of a particular teacher or rebbe, each person gets a skilled, knowledgeable, and infinitely patient personal tutor. This brings Bloom's vision of personal tutors for all to fruition, coaching each individual along their personal journey to mastery.

What’s more, this new technology enables us to truly fulfil the words of our Sages:

‘But his delight is in the Torah of the Lord’ - Rebbi said: A person only learns Torah from the place that his heart desires, as it is said: 'But his delight is in the Torah of the Lord.'

For the first time, we can now offer personal Torah coaches to the entire Jewish world, offering them the ability to walk down their own unique path of Jewish development.

The purpose is not to replace human teachers and relationships

We believe that the affective side of Torah learning is as important as the skills and knowledge side. It would, however, significantly augment the ability of a given teacher or school to differentiate for each pupil's skill level without a complete overhaul of the education system or the expense of hiring personal tutors for each student.

Further, it would allow for people who perhaps have missed the opportunity to learn in a Jewish school—adults who have lately come to their tradition, or converts, for example—to have a tutor who was able to teach them the basics whilst still honouring their intelligence and development in other domains of their lives, a tough mark for any human teacher to meet. Additionally, older students are often reticent to publicly acknowledge deficiency in an area of knowledge, and offering them the ability to interact this way in the privacy of their own home creates another opportunity to connect. 

What's more, these models are now able to interact through direct speech as opposed to typing, so students with learning disabilities for whom spelling and typing are difficult can benefit from this technology.

A Torah coach helps you own your Jewish practice

One of the most pervasive and pernicious lies the Orthodox world perpetuates is that all a ‘good Jew’ needs to do is to ask their Rabbi. This is simply not true.

The Magen Avraham¹ writes that even if one did something at the instruction of their rabbi, they are still liable if it was a mistake. This would mean that they would need to bring a Korban, not the rabbi who made the mistake. The Rabbi who made the mistake might also be culpable if he made an egregious error, but the person who did the action will be ultimately held responsible.

Having a personal Torah coach at your fingertips can help you to understand why you’re doing what you’re doing, and how it fits into the broader context.

Ultimately, it is up to us to decide how to act, based on the decision provided by the expert if we can’t learn ourselves. And this is—or should be—one of the roles of a good rabbi. A guide who helps you to understand your decision and to make it yourself.

Margaret Heffernan describes willful blindness as something that you should have known and could have known but still managed not to know. Digging your head in the sand does not absolve you of wrongdoing. In fact, it makes the crime more egregious, as you willfully act to subvert the correct legal process.

The Radach² writes that if one could have been expected to have learnt and didn't learn, and as a result violated a commandment, it is almost as if he wilfully violated the Torah. If you could have been expected to know but didn't know, you're culpable. The Rambam³ says something similar about one who murders but didn't know that murder was wrong by a ben-Noach.

Now we have a powerful tool for taking back our personal sovereignty and fulfilling our responsibility—RabbAI!

How can RabbAI help me?

RabbAI’s uses and skills are as broad as your imagination. To give you a taste of what it can do, here are a few examples:

1. You want to understand why mixed dancing is bad:

2. You’re a fifteen-year-old Yeshiva student, and you want help understanding a sugyah that you’re learning in school:

   

   

   

3. You’re an adult student and want help devising a plan to learn the basic concepts of Torah:

   

   

This is just a taste of what RabbAI can do. Want to try it out? Click below: