Join Rabbi Jeff Sultar for Lunch and Learn
Shabbat, Feb. 11, 12:00 PM at Harvard Hillel (Pot Luck: Bring a non-meat dish to share)
Also on Zoom: https://hebrewseniorlife.zoom.us/my/rabbijim
While a golem — an artificially-made human being — may never have physically existed, the legend has lived on in the imaginations of people for thousands of years. And it’s a legend and a metaphor with serious ethical and halachic implications. We’ll explore the evolution of thinking about the golem in Jewish tradition, and even different ‘recipes’ for making one. Then we’ll consider how questions about the nature and rights of a golem — such as “Does a golem count in a minyan?” and “If you kill a golem are you guilty of murder?” — have direct bearing on challenges we face today, such as artificial intelligence, robotics, computer science, genetic engineering, bioethics, and even the legal category of regarding corporations as “artificial persons.”