Would you know a real rabbi if you saw one?

I鈥檓 at a doctor鈥檚 office a few weeks ago. As she鈥檚 waiting for my chart to pull up, we make small talk. She asks what I do. I tell her I鈥檓 a rabbi for graduate students. She mentions that although she鈥檚 Catholic, she and her husband would often attend Shabbat services with 91传媒 friends 鈥� and really enjoyed them. 鈥淗ow nice!鈥� I reply.

鈥淎nd we follow this rabbi on social media who gives great advice on parenting and financial planning. Millions of followers. Maybe you know him?鈥�

Financial planning? I raise an eyebrow. 鈥淲ho鈥檚 that?鈥� I ask, intrigued. 鈥淣ot too many rabbis with followings like that 鈥� certainly not me!鈥� She tells me his name.

鈥淗mm, never heard of him.鈥� Now I鈥檓 really curious. I pull out my phone and look him up. Sure enough, millions of views. For an instant, I feel like a loser rabbi. Then I look closer.

鈥淚鈥檓 sorry.鈥�

鈥淲hat? Is he not a good rabbi?鈥�

鈥淲ell, it鈥檚 not that. He鈥檚 a fake rabbi.鈥�

鈥淗e鈥檚 not a real rabbi?鈥�

鈥淗e鈥檚 not a real person. He鈥檚 an AI rabbi.鈥�

My doctor is aghast. 鈥淗ow could you tell??鈥�

鈥淪o, for starters, most rabbis wouldn鈥檛 wear prayer shawls underneath suit jackets. The Hebrew gibberish on the book covers behind him is a dead giveaway. And Orthodox rabbis wouldn鈥檛 light Shabbat candles in their study and then shoot a video afterwards.鈥�

But of course, my well-meaning doctor didn鈥檛 know that. Why would she? He looked the part. He sounded the part, mostly. He had the beard, the gravitas, the confident delivery. He even got the Talmud quote right.

鈥淣ow if only so many people listened to real rabbis!鈥�

As I replayed this benign, somewhat comical exchange in my head, I started to sense that something darker was afoot. Sure enough, a report published last week by the Combat Antisemitism Movement identified at least 12 AI-generated 鈥渞abbis鈥� on Instagram with estimated reach nearing 280 million 鈥� many pushing classic antisemitic conspiracy theories. One account run by scammers based in India, 鈥淩abbi Goldman,鈥� peddles a $9 get-rich-quick handbook to its 1.4 million followers.

If millions of people (assuming not all of them are bots themselves) can be duped into following a rabbi like that, is Judaism doomed?

No 鈥� because Passover provides the antidote.

At the Passover Seder, we read the Haggadah, from the Hebrew root meaning 鈥渢o tell,鈥� and retell the story of the Exodus. We don鈥檛 simply remember the Exodus 鈥� that鈥檚 a different word, zachor, and that is something we do every day and night. But telling a story is not the same thing as remembering.

Remembering can happen alone, in your head, or on a screen. Telling requires a speaker and a listener. It requires sharing, emoting and the presence only a human being can provide.

This is not a technicality. The Talmud says that even a person sitting alone at the Seder table must tell the story to himself. Even when there is no audience, the act of narrating is the mechanism through which the story becomes your own.

Because storytelling, that classic 91传媒 vocation, transmits something even bigger than language itself. It transmits values.

AI can generate a sermon. It can quote Talmud. It may even be good at crafting stories. But it cannot tell those stories.

Data can be transmitted by a machine. A story has to be told by a person.

The Haggadah is Judaism鈥檚 brilliant model for passing down our values, ideals, and beliefs intergenerationally, l鈥檇or vador. To do that, you need to sit around the table with other people and engage in the fundamentally human act of sharing them.

The Seder is one of the oldest continuously practiced rituals in Western civilization. It is a conversation between generations 鈥� messy, slow, with home-cooked food and spilled wine. This simple technology has outlasted every empire that tried to stifle it, and it will outlast our current challenges as well.

Real rabbis like me may not be able to compete with artificial ones on likes, impressions, or the metrics that matter to algorithms. But that鈥檚 okay. As long as we mortals keep showing up to our Seders and telling the Passover story with our whole hearts 鈥� the fake rabbis don鈥檛 stand a chance.

Rabbi Matthew Rosenberg is Executive Vice President and Senior Rabbi at JGO: The 91传媒 Grad Organization (gojgo.org), which provides 91传媒 programming at over 150 graduate school campuses across North America. He previously practiced corporate law and taught at Georgetown University Law Center. He lives in Los Angeles with his family.