I saw this article a couple weeks back in the Forward, “Torah Games and the Future of Learning” and I think it’s spot on: one because “our” new media environment is saturated by by games and by game-modes of cognition, and two, because there is something so intrinsically game-like about Torah, more especially Talmud, that would lend itself to games and game theory in precisely the way described here. Rabbi Owen Gottlieb, a doctoral candidate at NYU, is a genius for beginning to figure this out.
This remark caught my attention immediately:
Halachic debates, such as those in the Talmud, consider multiple hypothetical scenarios. Game systems are excellent for visualizing and sometimes (in the case of board and card games) making these hypotheticals tangible. A game, as a modeled system, allows a player to consider various situations and outcomes.
This seems an incredibly smart and new way to talk about Jewish thought and culture. Jewish Philosophy, take note!!
