Chaye Sarah: Repetition

 

Chaye Sarah: Repetition

My understanding of large language models, what is popularly called artificial intelligence, is that it is based on the enormous amount of information available on the internet.  All of the communications that can be accessed by computers that are programmed to recognize patterns, and can then reproduce the patterns that have been used most often. The parsha affords an insight into a fundamental flaw in that process.

A large part of the parsha is dedicated to the story of Abraham’s servant identifying Rebecca as the appropriate bride for his master’s son, Isaac. Although preserving anything in writing was difficult and expensive in the era before the invention of printing and paper, so every word counted, the details are reported three times. Once, as the servant’s plan: The young woman who exceeds my request for a drink of water and also waters the camels will be the chosen one.  The second time , the story is related as it transpires. The third time, the servant relates the story to Rebecca’s family.

Each repetition serves a purpose. The first establishes the plan. We can consider the demand that the servant is making: The chosen woman must be kind, ambitious, capable, blind to status, generous. These are excellent qualities, but not the one Abraham demanded: that she be from his family in Haran. In the plan and the record of the events, her family is an afterthought. When the servant retells the story, he does not bestow the gifts until she identifies herself as  Abraham’s great niece, the daughter of Bethuel.  The small, but significant variation is pointed out by Rashi.

The servant’s public statement is only a slight variation from the events as recorded in the text. The statement is what would now be recorded on the internet, which would not have access to the thoughts nor a record of the  events.  Like Lavan and Bethuel, we would only have the stated  version, how it should have been.  That is a fundamental problem in large language models.  They are based upon human statements that contain an element of should. That bias helps explain why Large language model answers sound so appealing. They reflect the way we wish the world worked.

The last repetition  of the story  serves the mission. The servant tells Rebeccas' family, whom, he presumes, control her availability as a bride, about a selection process that was outside of human control. The retelling of the story is necessary so that Lavan hears the details and is rendered powerless to object. Rebecca's family have the hoped-for response:

 

וַיַּ֨עַן לָבָ֤ן וּבְתוּאֵל֙ וַיֹּ֣אמְר֔וּ מֵיְ

 יָצָ֣א הַדָּבָ֑ר לֹ֥א נוּכַ֛ל דַּבֵּ֥ר אֵלֶ֖יךָ רַ֥ע אוֹ־טֽוֹב׃

 

Then Lavan and Betu᾽el answered and said, The thing comes from the Lord: we cannot speak to you bad or good.

I do not know if this realization leads to giving Rebecca, herself, the final say in when and whether she would be brought back to Canaan to be Isaac's bride. Perhaps, once the men recognize their powerlessness in the situation, they are shocked into giving the woman what is rightfully hers: the right of acceptance or rejection.  The servants story seems to have convinced her close male relatives. 

The story emphasizes that Gd can have a role in human actions. We, who read the text accept that it was Divine intervention that brought Rebecca at that moment to the well. 

The haftara, a reflection of the parsha, also makes use of repetition

The haftarah describes the problem of succession for king David. Adoniyahu, David's son by Hagith, assembles a coalition and has rallies to build support. He has announced that he is planning to assume the throne after David dies.  Adoniahu's coalition excludes Shlomo and Nathan the prophet, among others. Nathan informs Bath Sheva, Shlomo's mother, of the plot and offers her advice. He stages how Bath Sheva will reveal Adoniyahu’s plan to David and, immediately thereafter, Nathan will say almost the same. One difference between them is that Bath Sheva invokes Gd as the entity that stands behind David’s oath to make her son, Shlomo, the successor. Nathan emphasizes that the successor should be the king’s decision and currently he is defaulting to circumstances. When David declares that he will make Shlomo his successor, he invokes both of these ideas.

כִּ֡י כַּאֲשֶׁר֩ נִשְׁבַּ֨עְתִּי לָ֜ךְ בַּי

אֱ

יִשְׂרָאֵל֙ לֵאמֹ֔ר כִּֽי־שְׁלֹמֹ֤ה בְנֵךְ֙ יִמְלֹ֣ךְ אַחֲרַ֔י וְה֛וּא יֵשֵׁ֥ב עַל־כִּסְאִ֖י תַּחְתָּ֑י כִּ֛י כֵּ֥ן אֶעֱשֶׂ֖ה הַיּ֥וֹם הַזֶּֽה׃

The oath I swore to you by the ETERNAL, the God of Israel, that your son Solomon should succeed me as king and that he should sit upon my throne in my stead, I will fulfill this very day!”

In both the Torah portion and the haftarah, repetition makes the story more true. This is a first principle of propaganda and we all have a good deal of recent personal experience with it.

I do not understand how Gd interacts with the world, but I know that interaction takes place. The night that I met my wife, Karen, on the 15^th of Av, my friend from elementary school was staying in my apartment. I told him that I had met the woman that I will marry. It was so. Karen went on to research and write the story of my mother in the holocaust, with the miracles that allowed her to survive  - so that my siblings and I were born.

וַיֹּ֣אמְר֔וּ מֵיְ

 יָצָ֣א הַדָּבָ֑ר לֹ֥א נוּכַ֛ל דַּבֵּ֥ר אֵלֶ֖יךָ רַ֥ע אוֹ־טֽוֹב׃

 

 The thing comes from the Lord: we cannot speak to you bad or good.