The Resurrection of All Lost Things: Ray Kurzweil and the 13th Article of Faith

(essay)

The author with his sister Susie and father 1964

Preface

This piece began with a lost scarf. It ended, somehow, with the brilliant futurist and inventor, Ray Kurzweil and the Jewish belief in the resurrection of the dead.

What connects these seemingly disparate things is a question I’ve carried quietly for much of my life: Is what we’ve lost ever truly gone? The grief of losing my sister Susie and my father is something I’ve lived with for years—but so is the irrational, fragile hope that I might see them again. Not just in memory, but somehow, in some form.

What follows is an excerpt from my book Suspended by No String, along with a few new reflections that extend beyond the printed page.

I offer it here as both meditation and wondering—a small act of faith, knit together with fragments of memory, science, and longing.

From Suspended by No String:

Not long ago, I lost a favorite scarf of mine. When I found it, in a locker at the Santa Monica YMCA, I held it in my hands for a moment. I was surprised by how happy I was. I wondered then if my outsize joy at finding the scarf was a stand-in for the joy I would feel if I were holding Susie or my dad again. Of course, there’s no real comparison, but whenever I’ve found something that I’d assumed was gone forever—even if it was just a scarf, a set of keys, or a wallet—I got a jolt of excitement that was much more powerful than what I was prepared for.

Only in a world full of improbability—our world, in fact—could I, a person who daily relies upon facts and science, maintain the belief that I will see my father and my sister again in some form and in some fashion.

This belief, called T’chiyat HaMeitim (the revival of the dead), is an idea that is both central to the Jewish faith and widely unfamiliar. Moses Maimonides—physician, philosopher, and renowned Jewish thinker of the Middle Ages—listed belief in the revival of the dead as the final article in his famous Thirteen Articles of Faith. They are as follows:

1. Belief in the existence of the Creator, who is perfect in every way and is the primary cause of all that exists.

2. Belief in God’s absolute and unparalleled unity.

3. Belief in God’s non-corporeality—the fact that He will not be affected by physical occurrences.

4. Belief in God’s eternity.

5. Belief in the imperative to worship God exclusively.

6. Belief in prophecy as God’s way of communicating with humans.

7. Belief in the primacy of the prophecy of Moses.

8. Belief in the divine origin of the Torah.

9. Belief in the immutability of the Torah.

10. Belief in God’s omniscience and providence.

11. Belief in divine reward and retribution.

12. Belief in the arrival of the Messiah and the messianic era.

13. Belief in the resurrection of the dead.

I don’t understand aeronautics, hydraulics, or refrigeration, but still, I have faith that my flight will arrive safely at its destination, my elevator won’t fall down the shaft, and my frozen peas will stay frozen. If I were to amplify this idea of faith without understanding a thousand times, seeing Susie and my dad once again becomes that much more plausible.

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And now, a few thoughts not found in the book:

There is another person who believes—earnestly, even defiantly—that he will see his father again. His name is Ray Kurzweil, and though his vision differs from mine, its emotional core is surprisingly familiar.

Kurzweil, the famed inventor and futurist, believes that advances in biotechnology, artificial intelligence, and nanotechnology will one day allow us to reconstruct those we’ve lost—not symbolically, but actually. He has meticulously archived recordings, photos, writings, and DNA samples from his father, convinced that with enough time and data, he can bring him back.

His is a belief in a form of t’chiyat ha-meitim, too. It is not rooted in Maimonides, but in Moore’s Law.

And yet, I can’t dismiss it. Not entirely.

Because the question isn’t really whether this happens through “scientific” means or by “miracle.” That distinction may be far thinner than we imagine. If one accepts, as I do, that everything in this world is being constantly willed into existence by God—if existence itself is not self-sustaining but contingent—then everything is a miracle. Science included. The human mind that imagines science, the fingers that type its formulas, the eyes that scan the code, the very language we use to think at all—none of it arises by accident. It is endowed. Sustained.

Of course, I understand that not everyone accepts this idea. And that’s fair. If your worldview has been shaped primarily by what you’ve learned in classrooms, read in the news, or absorbed through popular culture, then belief in resurrection may seem outlandish. But my answer to that skepticism is simple: consider the birth of a child.

We know the biology. We know the process. Sperm meets ovum. Cells divide. Nine months pass. But suddenly—there is a new being. Eyes that have never seen. Hands that have never touched. A voice, a laugh, a soul that somehow wasn’t there… and now is.

We’ve grown used to it. We call it normal. But the frequency of a thing has nothing to do with its lack of wonder. A billion births do not make the emergence of consciousness less miraculous.

And so, if a child can be born, why can’t something be reborn?

Ray Kurzweil is not just a man of code and machines. He is soulful. Imaginative. Creative. And perhaps above all, he loves powerfully. One of his earliest inventions was a voice-recognition reading machine for the blind—the first of its kind. Not for profit. For access. For dignity.

I don’t know whether his vision of resurrection will come to pass. But I do believe that his longing—to see his father again—is holy.

As is mine.

We both want to recover what was once in our grasp.
We both search for the echo that still calls out.
We both believe, in our own ways, that love is not erased.

And maybe that’s the first step toward the resurrection of all lost things.

“Peter Himmelman's songs and music have been my source of inspiration in the past two decades. Suspended by No String now takes us to the magical world of poetry and, with merciless honesty, transforms, elevates, and cuts deeply into every mundane bastion of reality. Warmly recommended!” —Judea Pearl, Turing Prize winner, author of The Book Of Why, and Professor of Computer Science at UCLA

ORDER AT THIS LINK: Suspended By No String: A Songwriter’s Refections On Faith, Aliveness, and Wonder