Trust, Hidden Rules, and Protecting What Matters

Kosher Food for Thought: Trust, Hidden Rules, and Protecting What Matters

In this week’s Torah portion, Chukat-Balak (Numbers 19–25), we encounter one of the Torah’s most mysterious laws: the red heifer. God commands the Israelites to use the ashes of a perfect red cow, mixed with water, to purify people who have come into contact with death. Strangely, the very people preparing this purifying mixture become impure themselves. The Sages call this a chok, a divine decree that goes beyond simple human logic. Rashi explains that nations of the world and even our own impulses mock it because it doesn’t fit neat categories of clean and unclean. Yet it works within God’s system. The portion also shows human efforts to control events, complaints in the desert, or King Balak hiring the prophet Balaam to curse Israel, only for God to turn those plans upside down into blessings. The message is clear: we must act responsibly while accepting that some things are ultimately in God’s hands.

This tension feels very relevant to recent tech headlines. Just weeks ago, reports highlighted how AI tools are speeding up cyberattacks by helping criminals find weaknesses in software faster than before. A notable example involved the company Vercel, whose systems were breached through a third-party AI productivity tool called Context.ai. An employee had given this tool broad access to their work account (via something called OAuth permissions). Attackers used that trust to slip inside and reach sensitive information. The Trump administration’s new Executive Order on AI from early June emphasizes voluntary safety checks for powerful AI models before they are widely released, precisely because these systems can discover and chain vulnerabilities at high speed. 

From a Torah perspective, this mirrors the red heifer’s lesson about limits to human understanding. Rambam (Maimonides) taught that such chukim train us in intellectual humility, we follow divine wisdom even when we can’t fully explain every detail. In the same way, advanced AI systems are like complex “black boxes.” We benefit from them, but we cannot perfectly predict or control their behavior, training data, or side effects. Giving an external AI tool full access to your systems is like assuming something is pure without proper checks. The parsha warns against over-reliance on human cleverness (Balaam’s skills or our own “move fast” tech culture). Instead, it calls for careful boundaries, much like modern security ideas such as “zero-trust” to never fully trust any part of the system, even if it seems safe, and verify everything.

The Haftarah from Micah reinforces the practical takeaway: God does not want empty rituals or power plays. “He has told you, O mortal, what is good… to do justice, to love goodness, and to walk modestly with your God” (Micah 6:8). In our tech-filled world, this means building systems with real accountability, clear records of what AI does, careful limits on permissions, and honest assessment of risks from outside suppliers. We balance diligent effort (hishtadlut) with faith, protecting communities from both physical and digital harm.

Good Shabbos!