WATCH: Here's what AI can't do

Most people don’t know this about me, but years ago, I started coaching to learn how to watch my words. I wanted to be careful, to avoid causing harm.

Let me tell you a story that changed how I see regret, shame, and what makes us human.

Years back, I tried to help a friend, a young man who was struggling. I got involved, thinking I could fix things for him and a girl he hoped to marry. But my words backfired. What I said led the girl’s family to question the match. She started having doubts about the relationship, and the boy was devastated. “I thought I was going to marry her,” he told me. “Why did you get involved? You ruined my chance.” I was crushed, carrying that guilt for years, praying constantly for a way to make it right, for some kind of tikkun - a repair for the pain I caused.

I tried to fix it. I reached out to the girl’s parents, but nothing worked. They said, “It’s not about you. She just didn’t want him.” Still, the weight stayed with me.

Fast forward six years. I’m giving a Zoom class from my house. Afterward, my wife, who sells silver jewelry, mentions a woman who came to a sale at our home. This woman was selling essential oils, quietly sitting on our couch, barely noticed. Later, she told my wife something astonishing: “I’m the girl your husband tried to help marry that boy.” I’d never met her, but there she was, in my house, saying, “Tell your husband it had nothing to do with what he said. I just didn’t want the boy.”

A one-in-a-million chance. The girl I thought I’d hurt was in my home, clearing my conscience. It wasn’t my fault. That moment taught me something profound about regret and shame: they’re not just burdens. They’re what make us human.

Why didn’t God create robots? With AI tracking my phone, cutting out the need for a cameraman, you might wonder: will AI make humans obsolete? Will it do everything better? No. What makes us unique is our mistakes. Our regret. Our ability to say “sorry” and mean it. Unlike AI, we can feel, reflect, and rebuild.

When Moses went to receive the Torah, the angels protested: “You’re not worthy!” But Moses argued, “God wants the Torah for humans—people who struggle, who get angry, who gossip, who fail.” That’s why the broken tablets, shattered after our sin, were placed beside the whole ones. God loves our growth, our effort to become more real.

My rabbi believed humans, made in God’s image, can recreate themselves. Like God, alone before creation, we need solitude to reflect, to reinvent, to purify, like a newborn, starting fresh.

AI can’t cry, repent, or push to become someone new. Only we can. That journey, falling, trying, growing, is what makes you irreplaceable. So embrace your mistakes. They’re not your end. They’re your beginning.