Chabad of Manhasset

Dear Friend

This morning, my three-year-old, Mussy, and my one-and-a-half-year-old, Mendel, came down with me to the basement while I was working on the computer.

They were playing behind me when they discovered an old keyboard and mouse sitting off to the side.

They had no idea what they were.

“Just buttons,” I told them. “You can play with them.”

That was apparently all the permission they needed. They were thrilled, banging away at the keyboard, clicking the mouse, and keeping themselves happily occupied while I worked.

Meanwhile, on my computer, I had an AI assistant called Claude doing a fairly large job for me. For those who are less technologically inclined, imagine a computer assistant that can actually move around the screen, open programs, click buttons, and do work on your behalf. It even has its own little on-screen mouse cursor, separate from mine.

So Claude was doing its thing, I was doing mine, and all was well.

Until suddenly something strange happened.

A message popped up asking whether I wanted to allow access to the computer’s “terminal” — basically a powerful behind-the-scenes part of the computer that you generally don’t want something wandering into unless you know exactly what it’s doing.

I thought, “Absolutely not. I’m clicking no.”

Except before I could click anything…the mouse clicked “No” by itself.

Interesting.

I figured Claude must have realized it shouldn’t be going there and backed itself out.

Then things got stranger.

A browser window opened.

Then another window.

Random things started appearing.

Letters and numbers were being typed.

I’m staring at the screen thinking, “What is Claude doing? Did it completely lose its mind?”

Then I noticed something even more unsettling.

This wasn’t Claude’s little AI mouse moving around.

It was my mouse.

And when I tried moving it, whoever else was controlling it seemed to be fighting me for control.

At this point, my mind went to the obvious conclusion:

I had been hacked.

I had no idea how this mysterious hacker had gotten into my computer, and I certainly didn’t know how to get him out. So I did the one thing I could think of quickly: I locked the computer.

Now the password screen was up. Surely the hacker couldn’t get any further without my password.

I watched.

The hacker immediately began trying passwords.

Random numbers.

More random numbers.

And then, horrifyingly, the first two digits of my actual password appeared.

Now I was really nervous.

Does this hacker somehow know my password?

Then the computer apparently became suspicious too, because it brought up one of those security tests designed to make sure you’re a human being and not a robot.

And whoever was controlling my computer started frantically entering all sorts of nonsense.

“Aha,” I thought. “It must be some kind of robot.”

Meanwhile, behind me, Mussy and Mendel were still happily smashing away at their keyboard and mouse.

And Mussy kept calling me.

“Tatty!”

“Tatty!”

“Tatty!”

“Mussy,” I said, barely turning around, “I’m very busy right now. Give me a few minutes. I have to figure something out.”

“Tatty! Tatty!”

Finally, I turned around.

And I started laughing.

The old keyboard and mouse were Bluetooth devices.

At some point while the kids were playing with them, they had connected themselves to my computer.

There was no hacker.

There was no rogue robot.

There was no mysterious person who somehow knew the beginning of my password.

There was just Mussy and Mendel, happily pressing buttons behind me.

And the funniest part was this:

While I was frantically trying to figure out the problem, I kept telling Mussy, “Not now, Tatty is busy.”

But the answer to my entire problem was the little girl standing behind me calling,

“Tatty! Tatty!”

I wonder if we do something similar with G-d.

We know what matters. We know family matters. We know Shabbos matters. We know putting on tefillin matters. We know making time to daven, study, and connect with G-d matters.

But life gets very busy.

“G-d, not now. I need to make a living.”

“Not now. I have too much going on.”

“Once things settle down, once I get through this problem, once life becomes a little easier — then I’ll have more time for You.”

Perhaps G-d is saying:

I’m not another thing competing for your attention.

I’m the One you’re looking for.

The livelihood you’re worried about comes from G-d. The strength you need comes from G-d. The blessing you’re working so hard to create comes from G-d.

Of course we have to work. We have responsibilities. Judaism certainly doesn’t tell us to ignore the realities of life.

But we can become so consumed with trying to control everything on the screen that we fail to turn around and notice Who has been calling us all along.

Sometimes the answer isn’t waiting until everything else is taken care of so that we can finally make room for G-d.

Sometimes making room for G-d is precisely how we remember Who is taking care of everything else.

Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Levi Paltiel

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