Sublime

“Why are we preserving this institution in the first place? What is so essential about it, and are there new institutions that could do a better job at the same goal?”

when people are focused on the purpose behind a minyan, rather than the continuation of the minyan as an institution, then that minyan has a better chance of furthering its underlying goals.

People are neither isolated individuals nor mere parts of a greater whole. They are persons-in-community.”

The pastor somehow needs to take a fifty-person church with few resources, in a denomination of depleted assets, and speed things up to create a five-thousand-member church. Her first step is to make it relevant to fast people living in a compressed present, seeking the good of multiple lifetimes. Retention with these fast-paced people is won by gi

a dream of an intensive, passionate Torah environment for laypeople.

face, make sure the venue is a restaurant or other well-lit public place. Check in with a girlfriend before you go. Tell her where you’ll be and what time you’re planning to arrive.

This sea change isn’t as complete as it may yet become. The large temporal frameworks of our lives remain fairly firm. We still work comparatively standard hours or go to school from morning till afternoon, fall through spring. But to the degree that electronics take over our activities and our interactions, personal time becomes more fungible.

Dunham, as you might guess, is not much given to religious impulses, but she is quietly fascinated by Karr’s faith, her association with this guy “Jesus.” So Dunham asks: “What’s it like to be a person who thinks and cares about Jesus and has religion in your life but hangs out with the New York literati?” Karr tries to defuse some mistaken impress