Sublime

compassion itself must be guided by a duty to help the victim recover his or her capacity for independent action.

She acted out of chessed, a loving kindness that saw not only the bleak reality but the possibilities of redemption that may still break through the harsh surface of an unredeemed world.

Simple human activities—having a child, getting married, doing acts of kindness in a community—are sustained only by enormous levels of faith and life affirmation, and trust in ultimate meaning.

Living according to the Torah means, in this view, aligning yourself with the forces that make for human flourishing, especially if you are a tiny people surrounded by enemies.

By living everyday life with a dimension of depth, people become at once more human and more holy.

Pierre Sauvage insists that rescuers “almost uniformly had a role model that influenced them, because if one doesn’t have an image of how one should behave in a similar situation, one simply doesn’t know what’s possible.”

We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life—daily and hourly. Our answer must consist, not in talk and meditation, but in right action and in right conduct. Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the

the faith of a man who has considered the very real possibility that chaos and bloodshed are simply all there is.