This is Torahslop and you are completely unprepared

Here’s what you can do with AI, right now.

Stop what you’re doing and watch this sixty second video. (Note: None of the content in this post has been fact-checked.)

This is the sort of video that used to take weeks or months to make, and either a very dedicated individual or a team funded by a foundation.

But I made this with Claude with almost no intervention. And it cost me less than $5.

Any idea in any format

You already know that AI is a good translator of languages. It can tackle even thorny medieval Hebrew with little difficulty.

You also know that AI is a good translator of styles. You can move from terse to verbose, cryptic to explanatory, angry to joyous. You can tell it exactly what to assume about the reader’s existing knowledge and it will adjust to match.

And of course you know that AI is a good translator of genres. As I’ve written, AI can make a sermon out of just about anything. It can turn my daily to-do list into an Aramaic poem (does this count as procrastination? yes). It can write legal opinions. It can write midrash.

Deep Research will change Jewish law

But AI is also a terrific translator between formats—and because so much Jewish information is conveyed through readings, essays, and lectures, this opens a world of possibilities. You don’t need to stick to text. Pick the medium in which you’d like to receive get your information and AI will provide.

What I want to do in this post is show you some examples of what you can do right now, with examples that I’ve produced in the last two weeks. Scroll to the end if you want technical details on how I did it. I’m not going to spend much time talking about the ethics of this; that will come in another post.

Note: I spent almost no time refining any of these. Most of these are first or second drafts.

Historical explainers

Shabbetai Tzvi was a 17th century false messiah. His story is fascinating. You could reader Gershom Scholem’s thousand-page history, or you could watch this video. (Cost: $3.56)

And here’s one on Meir Kahane, a 20th century extremist rabbi who was influential in both America and Israel. (Cost: $1.37)

Daf Yomi shorts

Every day, Jews around the world study one page of Talmud, finishing the entire corpus in around 7 years. Each page is very dense. You could listen to read it yourself, listen to a podcast…or watch a video on YouTube/TikTok. I’ve made nine of these so far. Here are the first two. ( (average cost per video: $1.28)

The mathematics of the Hebrew calendar, four ways

The Hebrew calendar is complicated, but not that complicated. You could calculate it yourself with a pencil and paper if someone showed you how.

Here’s a tool that does just that. (Cost: Included in Claude subscription; otherwise would have been $17 in API calls)

Alternatively, you could watch this incredibly clear explainer. (Cost: $4.97, or around 30¢ per minute)

Here is a comic book with the calculations woven in, in the style of a detective noir story (cost: $7.28). I think it’s less successful.

The Moon Number

8.87MB ∙ PDF file

Download

Download

Lastly, here is a song to help you remember. (Note: I spent the most time on this and the most money ($7.67) but ultimately found it to be the least satisfying and creepiest product. )

Rupture and Reconstruction, explainer & brain rot editions

“Rupture and Reconstruction” is a landmark article by Haym Soloveitchik published in the journal Tradition in 1994. To create this video explanation, I uploaded a PDF of the essay and asked Claude to spend the last few minutes surveying the essay’s reception history (which I did not provide). (Cost: $4.57, or around 38¢ per minute)

And for “fun,” here’s a brainrot version I made a couple of years ago. (Cost: free, I think?)

The Eruv, explained two ways

The eruv is an important part of modern urban Jewish life. Here’s an explanation of how they work. (Cost: $8.50, or around 61¢ per minute)

And here’s a song about it (cost: 78¢). Note: Like the calendar song I don’t love it and it sounds “sloppy,” but it’s interesting and catchy.

Infographics about Shabbat

I’ve always wanted an updated version of the Where’s Waldo-esque book on Shabbat law. Here’s a quick attempt.

Can I reuse this content?

Yes, of course.

What does this mean? Is this ethical? What’s the line between “clever adaptation” and “slop?”

I will save that for another post. For now, I just want you to see what is now possible. It is an earthquake.

How I did this

The trick is connecting a frontier model (I used Opus 5.5) to OpenRouter. This allows the frontier model (the supervisor of the operation) to choose the best and most cost-effective models from among all the major providers. Give your frontier model an OpenRouter API key, tell it the kind of video you want, and let it do its thing.

How easy is this? It’s easy enough that you don’t even need to understand the previous paragraph to do it. Just paste it into a frontier AI model (currently Opus 5.5 or Fable 5.1 on Anthropic; GPT-6 Astra or GPT-5.6 Sol on OpenAI) and tell it to guide you.

All of the work was coordinated through Claude Max at the $100/month subscription level.