Over history, mankind has moved away from authority and towards the individual. But what is the religion of the individual? Some say it is humanism -—the belief that all things are defined by the human mind. Accordingly, the canon goes, if human intellect will reign, all good will follow.

It confuses me, because I thought our generation had rejected this worship of the human mind in the turmoil of the sixties. Yet it lives on in so many incarnation. Inside many of the Rebbe's teachings is a working-through of the conflict of humanism and religion, with a conclusion I can only call "post-humanism." In other words, not stepping backwards to reject where we've come until now, but going beyond, into a mode by which our planet can sustain a future.