In his latest book, 21 Lessons For The 21st Century, the Israeli intellectual Yuval Harari argues  that most jobs which exist today will disappear within decades. The growth of artificial intelligence, he suggests, will replace humans in more and more jobs. 

New jobs will of course emerge but it will be questionable whether humans perform them better than algorithms. He says the same technology that renders humans useless might also make it possible to feed and support the unemployable masses through some scheme of universal basic income. The real problem will then be how exactly these people occupy their time.

Charedi Judaism has perhaps had the answer to this very question with its focus on Torah study. According to a recent survey by Israel’s Finance Ministry, Charedi participation rate in the labour force is a shocking 51 per cent, despite efforts to boost jobs for them. 

Many Israelis resent Charedim who neither serve in the army or work but perhaps their devotion to study is a model to be replicated in our age of automation. The Jewish ideal of perpetual Torah study, placing learning at the centre of life, may offer an important paradigm for our collective future.

Is the focus on learning to the exclusion of work really a Jewish ideal? Work as an intrinsic value does not seem to have much support from the traditional sources and, although there is, of course, a commandment to rest on the Sabbath, there is no commandment to work. 

One particularly extreme stance is taken by Rabbi Nehorai, where he states in the Talmud: “I would disregard all other crafts and teach my son only Torah” (Kiddushin 4:14). This position is echoed by Shimon Bar Yochai, the second-century sage, active after the destruction of the Second Temple. 

At the end of a twelve-year period which he reputedly spent studying and praying with his son in a cave, they left and, on passing a field in which they saw farmers toiling the land, said, “Imagine people giving up the sacred study of the Torah for worldly matters!”

This shunning of the material world of work is certainly more reminiscent of a Christian aestheticism and the prevailing opinion of the rabbinic sources is for a mixture of work and study. Indeed, unlike much of today’s Charedi community living in Bnei Brak, the rabbis of the Talmud are known to have had a variety of occupations. 

There is nevertheless much debate surrounding the exact emphasis of each. Hillel for example, worried that the excessive focus on material well-being would distract from higher pursuits, cautioned that one who is too engaged with business cannot become wise. Rabban Gamliel, on the other hand, urges a more healthy balance “for the exertion in both of them causes sin to be forgotten”.

The world that Harari considers, however, is clearly well beyond the imaginations of the talmudic sages. There is something in which he foresees that has a remarkable echo in traditional notions of what a messianic era will look like. 

Maimonides, the great 12th-century philosopher, concludes his code of law, the Mishneh Torah, by describing the era of the Messiah as a time of peace, abundance and enlightenment. All luxuries will be readily available and yet esteemed in man’s eyes as the dust; as such, he has it, we will devote ourselves totally to the study of Torah. 

While technology can play an important role in realising the messianic ideal, there is, though, another view entirely which challenges our notion of Torah’s purpose. The opening of the Book of Joshua highlights an important principle that Torah is not merely for studying but is also about right action. As it says: “you shall meditate day and night, that you may observe to do according to all that is written therein; for then you shalt make your ways prosperous, and then you shalt have good success.”

The implication here is that work enables us to truly live and implement the profound truths of Torah and in so doing transform the physical world. In a similar vein the 20th-century French Jewish philosopher Emmanuel Levinas reminds us that the transcendent is never situated in some realm apart from our daily interactions. The workplace is on this basis very much an opportunity for spiritual growth. 

How though can the study of Torah prepare us for an emerging era of hyper-technological advance? As technology enables us to spend ever less time on menial tasks, we will have the ability to be productive as never before. The study of Torah therefore should nurture those parts of ourselves — our creative and compassionate side that no technology can ever touch. Then, through engagement and righteous action in the world, we will become partners with God in the ongoing work of creation.

Simon Eder is the director of the Friends of Louis Jacobs