Welcome back to the Fifth Question Podcast — I’m your host, Rabbi Daniel Levine.In this episode, I sit down with Professor Mike Wirth (Queens University of Charlotte): artist, educator, and futurist. We start with a deceptively simple question—what is a futurist?—and end up in a wide-ranging conversation on Jewish futurism, story-space, Chassidic imagination, and what it means to “shape the future” by being fully present.Mike shares how Jewish time itself is a kind of futurist technology: Shabbat as a “time tunnel,” holidays that loop us back into ancestral memory, and the ritual language that always points forward—toward where we’re headed. From there, we explore how art can become a portal into Torah: inhabiting biblical narratives as lived worlds, and turning characters into avatars for communal creativity.Then we pivot to the modern world: AI and art. Mike breaks down the difference between art vs. design, why intention matters, and how AI can function as an ethical tool for ideation without replacing human authorship. We talk about what changes when you don’t know something was written by AI until after it moves you—and what that reveals about value, authenticity, and experience.Finally, we dive into Jewish framing: telos (“to what end?”) as a futurist discipline, the Golem of Prague as an AI parable, and a mystical counter-image: the Sar Torah—an “oracle” model for outsourced knowledge that raises a timeless question about what we gain…and what we risk losing.If you’re interested in modern Jewish thought, creativity, Jewish storytelling, education, futurism, AI, and the boundary between meaning and mechanism, this one is for you.Chapters / Key MomentsWhat a “futurist” actually isJewish futurism: time, ritual, and responsibilityTorah as immersive story-space (Noach, avatars, and imagination)Martin Buber and revaluing Chassidic spiritualityAI, authorship, and the difference between art vs. designTelos: “to what end?” and the ethics of shaping futuresThe Golem of Prague, truth, and the kill-switch problemNFTs, value, and why markets love storiesFollow / SubscribeIf you enjoyed this conversation, subscribe for more long-form interviews on Jewish ideas, culture, and the questions underneath the questions.#FifthQuestion #futurism #ai #MikeWirth #aiandfaith #aiandart #judaism #religion #chatgpt
