I want to tell you something, from one busy mind to another. This is about AI, but even more it is about a certain kind of brain, the kind that never quite fit the room it was put in, and about what happens when that brain finally meets a tool that can keep up with it.
In school, kids with ADHD sit at the bottom of the food chain, not catching on, not keeping up, because the system was never mut'am, suited, to their brain. I know, because I was one of them. I was the girl they called lazy, the one who was not using her brain, who would surely do fine if she only tried a little harder. My French teacher told my parents that nothing would ever come of me, and that they should think about moving me to a school for children with special needs.
I almost did not make it into tenth grade, because I failed every one of my physics tests and had to sit them again over the summer. I gave up my free Sundays and dragged myself, with tears and heartache, to a math tutor, because without math I could not study psychology, and psychology was what I wanted more than anything in the world. Somehow, with a forty in math, I still got my bagrut, because a ninety in history pulled me back up. And that ninety was pure ADHD. I poured myself into an end project on Eichmann, and my father, a"h, arranged for me to meet Isser Harel, the former head of the Mossad who had run the operation to capture Eichmann, at his home in Savyon. (I suspect my father had a little of that four-letter word in him too. But now I am getting distracted, which is rather the point.)
Because the whole time, my head was full. At home I would crawl under the desk in my bedroom and build a little hut out of a blanket that hung down over the side, and inside it my mind was going a mile a minute, one thought running into the next, faster than I could catch. In class I stared out of the window. I drew beautiful scribbles. I designed my own kallah dress. I dreamed up a game we could play at recess, and then we actually played it. I wrote a whole program for Hashalshelet, the camp where I was a counselor. But nearly not all of it came out. Most of it stayed inside, with nowhere to go.
Now I watch those same people with AI, and suddenly we are at the top. I do not mean that in a condescending way, but you see them producing amazing things, and everyone around them is saying, "I don't know how you do this." AI answers to that brain. You can run and play with it, and it keeps up with you.
The ADHD mind has a hundred tabs open at once, all those ideas that never had a kli to bring them out into the world. AI is that kli. It takes what was swirling and gives it a form.
And I can tell you exactly what that looks like, because it is my life now. This magazine you are holding in your hands, or reading online, Chibur, started as a picture in one friend's head. The two of us made it, and within four weeks it was going out into homes. Recipes that lived only in my hands, never written down and never measured, now come out measured, illustrated, and cute, each one carrying my own personal touch. Cards I designed for the couples in my practice moved from an idea I could not quite pin down into something I can hold. None of these were made by AI. They were already there, waiting, and finally had a way out. HaShem gave me the spark and the tool both.
And here is the part that fascinates me: working with AI demands exactly the traits that come with the package. You have to be open, flexible, curious, and not a perfectionist at all, because AI will never do precisely what you want, and you cannot sweat the very small stuff. That is me: I get an idea, I go for it, and b'seder, it is not perfect. It is why I only ever sewed Purim costumes, you cut by eye, and it does not matter. That loose brake ADHD people have is exactly what this tool asks for. If your brakes are too tight, if you need everything just so, you will never make the next click, never open the next page, never ask AI for one more idea.
So this is what I see: a kli that lets a certain kind of brain fly. The same brain they once told me I was wasting. I do not think this is true for every person with ADHD, but I have seen it in so many. ADHD is a superpower, and AI may be the exact cape we needed in order to fly.
Chani Marzel gave me the language for it. I am not the source of the light. I am a tzinor, a channel it flows through, and the light is HaShem's. AI never gave me that light. It only helped keep the channel open.
And in the end, all of it comes from HaShem. Every idea, every thought, even a kind word, is a spark of the neshama itself. We are created b'tzelem Elokim, in the image of God, and the One whose image we carry is the Creator. To make something, to bring an idea into the world, is not a talent that only some of us were given. It is the tzelem itself, alive in us. A spark like that is meant to give light, not to be kept shut away. When it stays locked inside, nothing moves and nothing flows. But when you let it out into the world, you make space, and HaShem fills the space again.
So this is for everyone, ADHD or not. If you have an idea, a thought, even one small kind word, do not be afraid to let it out. Do not be afraid to become empty. HaShem is waiting to fill you back up. He is only waiting for you to let it out first.
The dishes, and the laundry? A story for another time. For now, from this last page, I only want to say thank you. Chibur is not mine, and it does not belong only to the two of us who made it. It is yours, a place to let your own light out into the world, and it is a gift to share it with you.
We are already deep inside the next issue, for Chanukah, be'ezras HaShem. So this is not a goodbye. It is only an until next time.
And as one year flows into the next, this is my bracha for all of us: that the channels stay open. That the flow HaShem wants to send into this world always finds a clear tzinor to pass through, and that each of us finds the courage to let our own light out, so there is always room for Him to send more. A good year, a bright year, a flowing year, to you and to everyone you love.