Since each of us is imperfect by nature—since each of us is incomplete—it is only in community that we begin to find a sense of wholeness, a sense of completion. So not only is it permissible, not only is it required, for us to pray with the Avaryonim—the imperfect ones—we have a desperate need to do so. In praying with them we begin to find the answer to our own imperfection. None of us is whole by ourselves. A spiritual community is one in which we find wholeness, completion with others. What we lack is provided by somebody else. Now I know, this is a positively un-American idea. The John
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