The Game of Hiskafia

MyLife Essay Contest 2015

A. Motivation

Our biggest source of distraction in the contemporary western culture is computer and internet based technologies. We learn in the maamar Basi L’Gani, that we have the power to turn this shtus of kelipa into a force for kedushah. Many Olemish/Litvish approach technology as an ill that can only be dealt with by limiting or rejecting technology. We believe we can apply Chassidus to technology to make it a tool for improving ones talents for dealing with the shtus of the world, rather than something that brings us lower.

B. Chassidic Concepts

In Tanya (end Chapter 8) the Alter Rebbe discusses the approach of the Rambam & Ramban to employ worldly knowledge and “עושה אותן קרדום לחתוך בהן”.  This implies that some elements of kelipah nogah can be used to advance kedusha. That means we should be able to exploit technology to train one’s ability to deal with the shtus of the world. But to do that, we first need to develop discriminating tools and then employ those tools to distinguish shtus from kedusha.

Recently Rabbi Yossi Jacobson gave a class on Basi L’gani where he outlined three measurement gauges that can be utilized to measure if a thought is coming for kedusha or shtus:

1. Is the voice (motivation) telling me that I must have this RIGHT NOW? Kedusha issues have permanence and patience. Klipa-based desires are insistent and do not permit reflection, contemplation and seeking advice or consultation. They demand one to obey the voice of desire immediately. Such desires are good candidates for kelipah and shtus.
2. Is the act or desire something that is going to lead to more strife, less shalom bayis, or more distrust of people in the community?
3. Is this something that is going to leave you or others with more motivation, enthusiasm, and inspiration, or is it something that will drain the life and depress you? If you say or act on the desire what is the likely outcome for oneself and for others?

True, these issues can be dealt with in the framework of essays, lectures, or other formats. However, we feel that the nefesh bahamis best relates to a setting and structure that it can relate to. Therefore, we choose to turn this into a game format. The object of the game is for the participant(s) compete in activities where the object is to install and ingrain thinking that emphasis the three above mentioned discrimination tools. In this way we hope to reach the nefesh behamis of all types (old, young, smart, intellectual, and non-intellectual) which is something hard to do than with an essay (see Alter Rebbe’s introduction to Tanya).

C. Application: Virtual Reality

We are going to outline three different approaches to instantiating the Hiskafia Game. Each one has its advantages and disadvantages. The first format would be to create a virtual reality game. By this we mean a desktop (or web based) game which presents a virtual world (e.g. Second Life). There one can interact with other virtual people (avatars) in a variety of settings (school, work, play, social, etc.). In each setting one will be given a “kedusha” oriented task. Example tasks could be giving a shiur, learning a blatt gemorah, fabrenging, etc. However, there will also be inserted live or virtual characters attempting to disrupt the activity. There will be lots of potential distracting locations and venues that one can explore, all of which are meant to: create strife, distract, and kill enthusiasm for the main task. Scoring will be done only on the basis of positive scores received by ignoring the distractions. Scoring will be computed based on the three metrics that Rabbi Yossi Jacobson suggested.

D. Application: Augmented Reality

One weakness in the above approach is that by creating an artificial world, we are not really directly developing real-world skills. True there might be some leakage in training, but there is also the negative effect of removing the child/adult from the normal world of social interaction.

With the advent of cheap commercial augmented reality tools (Google Glass, and now Microsoft HoloLens) we can create blended reality worlds. In this setting the person would go through normal activities (attending shiur, social gatherings, and perhaps even davening).

What the system would do is insert distractions as synthetic overlays into the real world. These would be animated distractors meant to get the nefesh behamis excited and lose focus. With real-time depth sense mapping, one can use real-time scene analysis to understand what the happening with the player (teaching, learning, eating, etc.) and then insert augmented graphics and sound to be a real pest.

Recent R&D projects that we have been part of has been used to use body-based sensors to determine emotional state, and degree of concentration.  For example, cheap consumer sensors for skin temperature, heart rate, eye tracking, can tell if a person is actually focused on the task or the mind is wandering.

We think this would nicely complement the craze of fitness trackers. But in our case we would use the sensors to provide gentle notifications to students that they are off track. (E.g. “Yossi, are you still with us on Daf 5A of Soteh”?).

The hope is that this sort of closed-loop bio-feedback could be used a few minutes or an hour a day to train students and adults who have focus problems to better deal with the shtus distractors in life.

E. Application: Low-Tech

For very young children, it does not seem prudent to introduce technology distractors. They respond better to real world tactile interaction. For them, we could create colorful picture books with static images of different scenes of real world activities (play, eating, cleaning up, etc.). There would be a base scene, with many stick-on overlays that would contain events and people that either are engaging in “good” or “bad” activities. The child could peel off the sticker, and on the reverse side it would indicate a score that could be tabulated and the child could be rewarded for getting the highest score.

F. Potential Payoff

What has been listed above is a first-cut of an approach to applying technology to dealing with the issue of shtus of technology. We think it still needs a lot of work from real-world educators as well as experiments and measurements to refine and improve it. However, if this can be shown to work, we can see the following payoffs:

1. Educators will have a new tool to deal with students who are increasingly lacking skills for in-depth deep concentrated studies that are key to incorporating the deep lessons in Yiddishkeit.
2. There is a potential for cross-over applications to the non-Jewish world. That is, this issue of technology diminishing concentration is an issue beyond the Jewish world, and hence there is a potential for funding sources and applications to address their issues. This would be another venue for spreading the wellsprings of Chassidus, since it is Chassidus that gives us the tools to identify what is shtus and what is distractions.
3. This could provide Rabbis a new source of parnassah. How? Well chinuch is a limited field. Kashrus supervision, Prison Programs, drug counselling, etc. have been ways to directly bring the wisdom of Torah & provide parnassah for Rabbanim. Creating a tool of this kind will require a great deal of “subject matter expertise” into the sources of shtus and how to train one to with it (push it away with both hands, in the language of Tanya) and this expertise resides with those who learn Chassidus.
4. Ultimately, this is all related to bringing Moshiach, where the world will be looking directly at Yiddim to give them guidance and direction as to what Hashem wants Bamidbar 23:23)