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Dear Matzav Inbox,

There is a disturbing trend I’ve noticed recently.

Every time AI comes up, people get defensive. “It’s not as good as humans.” “It can’t replace me.” That reaction is understandable, but it avoids the real issue.

Be honest instead.

You’re not going to lose your job because AI suddenly becomes perfect. You’re going to lose your job if you don’t take AI seriously.

For example:

AI may not replace entire professions, but it will make each role far more efficient. That alone changes everything. A company that once needed two full-time bookkeepers may now need only one. The work still exists, but fewer people are required to do it. The second person is out.

The same applies to copywriters, analysts, designers, customer support, paralegals, and many others. The roles remain, but the headcount shrinks.

This is not a new phenomenon. Before Excel, QuickBooks, and similar tools, bookkeeping departments required large staffs. Tasks were manual, slow, and repetitive. Those tools did not eliminate bookkeeping, but they reduced the number of people needed and raised expectations for speed and accuracy. The people who adapted stayed. The ones who did not were replaced.

AI is the same shift, just faster and broader.

Don’t focus on whether AI is “as good” as a human. That is the wrong question. The real question is whether AI will shrink the job market in your field.  In many cases, the answer is already yes.

That is why this moment requires honesty. Not fear. Not denial.

If your work is mostly executing standard tasks, you are exposed.

The way forward is to move up the value chain.

Build skills that AI cannot easily replace. Judgment. Strategy. Decision-making. Accountability.

A bookkeeper should not remain only a recorder of transactions. Learn financial analysis. Understand cash flow strategy. Advise on budgeting, forecasting, and growth. Move toward a CFO-type role where you are guiding decisions, not just tracking numbers.

A copywriter should not remain only a writer of text. Learn positioning. Understand customer psychology. Build campaigns. Take responsibility for outcomes like conversion and revenue.

A designer should not remain only a creator of visuals. Learn brand strategy. Understand user behavior. Design with a clear objective tied to results.

An analyst should not remain only a generator of reports. Interpret data. Draw conclusions. Recommend action. Influence decisions.

The pattern is the same across fields. Move from doing the task to delivering a strategic outcome.

Another important point:

Be honest with your clients.

If you are using AI to assist your work, it changes the economics. Tasks that once took hours now take minutes. That gap will not stay hidden. If you quietly pocket the difference while charging the same rates, someone else will offer similar output faster and cheaper, and you will lose your clients.

Adjust your pricing to reflect the time needed to deliver the results.

Honesty and transparency will always come out on top in the long run.

Stop denying the changes. Stop being defensive. Accept the new reality and adapt.

Concerned About Your Parnassah

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President Donald Trump said Thursday that Iran must agree to terms to halt ongoing U.S. and Israeli military attacks or risk further bombardment, signaling that Washington is prepared to escalate if negotiations fail.

“They now have the chance, that is Iran, to permanently abandon their nuclear ambitions and to join a new path forward,” Trump said during a Cabinet meeting at the White House. “We’ll see if they want to do it. If they don’t, we’re their worst nightmare. In the meantime, we’ll just keep blowing them away.”

His remarks came shortly after a senior Iranian official told Reuters that the U.S. framework to bring an end to nearly a month of hostilities is “one-sided and unfair,” even as diplomatic contacts between the sides remain ongoing.

Trump said that Iranian representatives are engaged in discussions with the United States and portrayed them as eager for an agreement, an assessment that officials in Tehran have rejected.

At the same time, he referred to Iranian negotiators as “great negotiators” and said his goal is to reach a deal that would ensure the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz while curbing Iran’s military capabilities.

Still, Trump indicated uncertainty about whether an agreement will be reached. “I don’t know if we’ll be able to do that,” he said of the prospects for a deal. I don’t know if we’re willing to do that.”

{Matzav.com}

The Shatz-Ashdod Rebbe, who serves as head of the Shatz Badatz and the international SKS kashrus organization, is urging the chareidi public to think carefully before traveling through Sinai, citing troubling experiences of harassment at Sharm el-Sheikh airport and the Taba border crossing.

Speaking from personal experience, the Rebbe—who has traveled extensively around the world for over four decades, including in many Muslim countries—described the airport in Sharm el-Sheikh as an especially difficult environment for religious Jews. According to his account, Egyptian security personnel show no tolerance for visible religious practices or even brief moments set aside for prayer.

“At the airport in Sharm, it’s forbidden to stand even for a minute for Shemoneh Esrei, and forget about putting on tefillin,” the Rebbe said. He recounted an incident in which three security officers approached a yeshiva student who had begun to daven Maariv, shouting at him until he fled to the restroom to avoid being detained. The Rebbe added that security staff insist on the removal of a yarmulke during inspection and strictly prohibit photography in the area. “Anyone who doesn’t absolutely need to go through this experience should avoid it,” he warned.

Similar reports have emerged regarding the land crossing at Taba Border Crossing, where travelers have described deliberate mistreatment of official documents. Testimony obtained by a Hebrew-language outlet detailed an incident in which an Egyptian official forcefully handled a traveler’s passport, tearing a page in half and forcing the individual to later obtain a replacement passport in Israel.

According to reports, officials at Israel’s Interior Ministry are familiar with such cases. In the incident described, the traveler was immediately asked upon arrival whether the damage occurred at the Taba crossing, suggesting a recurring pattern. Observers say this may reflect a quiet but consistent form of harassment directed at Israeli citizens, despite the longstanding peace agreement and steady tourism between the countries.

Dear Matzav Inbox,

It’s that time again.

The carts are full. The aisles are jammed. The conversations revolve around menus, meats, wines, and which brand of this year’s overpriced everything is “worth it.” Homes are being turned upside down in a frenzy of cleaning, kashering, and preparation for zman cheiruseinu.

And in the middle of all this noise, something is being buried.

Not the chometz. Our conscience.

Because while we are obsessing over every crumb, there are people among us who are drowning financially.

Not hypothetically. Not in some faraway community. Right here. In our shuls. In our neighborhoods. Sitting next to us, nodding politely, saying “Gut Yom Tov” as if everything is fine.

It isn’t.

But they won’t tell you that.

They won’t show up at your local distribution. They won’t sign up for assistance. They won’t let their name be whispered in the right ears. They still have too much dignity for that.

And we, if we’re being honest, are relying on that.

We hide behind the comforting fiction that “the organizations are taking care of it.” That “no one falls through the cracks.” That “there are funds, drives, and campaigns.”

Let’s stop pretending.

There are cracks. Wide ones. And people are disappearing into them quietly, respectfully, and completely unnoticed.

Because they don’t scream.

And we don’t look.

We have built a system that responds beautifully—to those who ask. But what about those who don’t? What about the family that will cut corners on food, on clothing, on basic dignity, just to avoid becoming “a case”?

Do they not count because they suffer silently?

Or is it just more convenient that way?

We pride ourselves on being a community of chesed. We tell ourselves that we take care of our own.

Do we?

Or do we take care of the ones who make it easy for us to take care of them?

Because real chesed is not reactive. It is not a response to a flyer, a campaign, or a publicized need.

Real chesed is uncomfortable. It requires noticing. It requires asking. It requires stepping into spaces we would rather not enter, because doing so shatters the illusion that everything around us is fine.

And maybe that’s the real problem.

It’s easier to scrub a kitchen for hours than to confront the possibility that someone you know—someone you respect—is quietly breaking under the weight of Yom Tov.

It’s easier to check lettuce three times than to check on a neighbor or friend once.

We search our homes with candles and flashlights, hunting down the smallest trace of chometz.

But we somehow miss the most obvious thing of all: people who are struggling to make Pesach with even the most basic sense of dignity.

What exactly are we so busy removing, if not the very sensitivity that Pesach is supposed to awaken?

We speak about cheirus. About freedom. About what it means to leave Mitzrayim.

Tell me: What kind of freedom is it when a family sits at their Seder table with forced smiles, knowing that no one thought of them, knowing that they have growing credit card debt?

What kind of redemption is that?

We didn’t forget them.

That would be too innocent.

We chose not to see them.

And until we are willing to admit that—to let it bother us, to let it disrupt us, to let it cost us something—then all the cleaning, all the preparations, all the talk of zman cheiruseinu is just noise.

Because a community that prides itself on seeing every crumb, but refuses to see its own people, has missed the point entirely.

This Pesach, the question isn’t whether we got rid of our chometz.

The question is whether we got rid of our blindness.

L. G.

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