Fifty Years to the Day: Chabad.AI Launches
Fifty years ago today, on 4 Cheshvan 5737, the Rebbe held an unexpected weekday farbrengen. The Rebbe explained that recent advances in technology had broken down barriers that once seemed permanent: a voice in one place could be heard around the world at the very same moment. These developments had a purpose—to bring Torah, and especially Chassidus, to every person, in preparation for Moshiach.
Today, marking that anniversary, the leading Chabad publishers are launching Chabad.AI, a platform that brings together a vast treasury of Chassidus with new tools for learning and research. Where earlier technologies overcame distance, artificial intelligence offers new ways to navigate the seforim themselves: to find sources, understand difficult passages and discover connections across the teachings of the Rebbeim.
The platform’s library contains a vast collection of seforim in their original Hebrew, alongside many English translations and adaptations. At its heart is Daiah, an AI chat built to discuss and elucidate topics in Chassidus and offer Torah perspectives on questions of everyday life. Its responses are accurate and drawn from the authentic teachings of the Rebbeim, with clear explanations and citations that allow learners to consult the original sources. The platform also offers AI features for study and research, helping users locate sources, explore ideas and trace connections across seforim.
Chabad.AI is a joint initiative of the leading Chabad publishing houses: Kehot Publication Society, Vaad Hanachos B’Lahak, Chabad.org, and Sichos In English (SIE), with SIE serving as the managing operator. Behind the platform is a dedicated content, technical and AI team working to make the authentic teachings of the Rebbeim accessible through advanced technology.
Rabbi Yosef B. Friedman, director of Kehot Publication Society, sees the initiative as the next chapter in Kehot’s work.
“Kehot’s mission is to publish the teachings of Chassidus and make them accessible to an ever-wider circle of learners,” he says. “Chabad.AI marks a quantum leap forward in that work, opening new ways for people to explore and deepen their understanding of these teachings.
“There is also something astonishing in the medium itself. Behind all this wonder are silicon chips and electrical circuits—physical matter belonging to what Chassidus calls domem, the inanimate level of creation. The human being, endowed with intellect, can now receive through the inanimate something that deepens his own understanding of Torah. The lowest level of creation becomes a means of reaching higher.”
For Rabbi Chaim Shaul Brook, director of Vaad Hanachos B’Lahak, the platform takes the use of technology in learning a step further.
“Earlier technologies enabled us to hear and see teachings transmitted from afar, as the Rebbe describes in the sicha,” he says. “This technology adds a deeper dimension of understanding: the learner can ask questions, seek clarification and explore connections. It offers another way to help a person understand what he is learning.”
How, then, does the Rebbe’s sicha about the technology of that time speak to the possibilities of AI today?
Rabbi Shmuly Avtzon, director of Sichos In English, who initiated the project, explains: “The Rebbe describes the revelation of Chassidus and the growth of technology as an ongoing, dynamic process. Each generation brings new depths of Chassidus and new discoveries in technology. That means we must always be at the forefront, using every new breakthrough for hafatzas hamaayanos. Fifty years ago, that meant radio and television. Today it includes artificial intelligence, and with Chabad.AI, the wellsprings of Chassidus can reach further than ever before.”
Rabbi Hertzel Pewzner, mashpia at YTTL Morristown and team lead of Chabad.AI, describes what this will mean for learners. “Some initiatives move us forward incrementally, but this is a turning point in hafatzas hamaayanos,” he says. “Thanks to our exceptional team and an extraordinary collaboration of mosdos, the wellsprings of Chassidus are now available in an unprecedented way. So often people have questions, yet lack the opportunity to have them answered. Here, anyone can ask, learn and grow through a personal exchange grounded in the original sources. Even scholars can locate sources in seconds and trace connections that once took hours.”
“Just as the Rebbe foretold and catalyzed all those years ago, the ‘explosion’ of science and technology is becoming ever more symbiotic with the revolutionary ‘explosion’ of Torah’s deepest secrets and the world’s thirst for them,” said Rabbi Zalman Shmotkin, executive director of Chabad.org. “For decades, Chabad.org has been privileged to collaborate closely with our extraordinary partners to share the teachings of Chassidus with the world, and to apply the Rebbe’s unique, holistic, and visionary lens of integrated Divine living on earth. This leap forward for hafotzas ha’maayanos is a natural and powerful expansion of that partnership.”
Rabbi Meir Simcha Kogan, Chabad.org’s director, summed up: “We look forward to enriching the learning and living experiences of our tens of millions of users across the globe, as they are empowered to engage with the wellsprings of Chassidus in ever more personal, interactive, and accessible ways.”
This project has been made possible by the vision and generosity of Reb Eliyahu and Inna Kholodenko and family. For Reb Eliyahu, Chabad.AI grew out of a lesson he learned in business, now applied on a far greater scale:
“The greatest opportunities come from recognizing a fundamental shift before the world fully appreciates its significance. Building a technology-driven business that challenged an established industry taught me that the goal isn’t simply to improve what already exists — it’s about seeing an entirely new future and having the determination to make it a reality.
“Chabad.AI represents precisely such a moment, but on a far greater scale. From the outset, we recognized the extraordinary potential of artificial intelligence to transform how Torah and Chassidus are learned and shared — opening the vast treasures of Torah and the Rebbe’s teachings to every Jew, everywhere, in every language. This is not simply another technological innovation. It is a historic breakthrough in hafatzas hamaayanos.
“The Rebbe taught us that technological advances are part of the Divine preparation for the Geulah. I believe that we are standing at a monumental inflection point in that process. Helping bring Chabad.AI to life is an opportunity to prepare the world for complete spiritual and physical harmony, culminating in a state of Divine awareness and universal peace.”
The launch is in honor of the wedding of Rebecca Kholodenko to Raphael Igelman, taking place today.
Many features are live today, with more to come in the weeks and months ahead. Fifty years after the Rebbe spoke, the invitation is simple: go and see for yourself at Chabad.AI.
Try Chabad.AI
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