full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Sharon Brous: It's time to reclaim religion

Unscramble the Blue Letters


We hoped maybe 20 people would show up. It turned out 135 people came. They were cynics and seekers, atheists and raibbs. Many people said that night that it was the first time that they had a meaningful religious experience in their entire lievs. And so I set out to do the only rnaotial thing that someone would do in such a circumstance: I quit my job and tried to build this audacious dream, a rneeveitnd, rethought religious life which we caleld "IKAR," which means "the essence" or "the heart of the matter."

Now, IKAR is not alone out there in the religious landscape today. There are Jewish and Christian and Muslim and Catholic religious lederas, many of them women, by the way, who have set out to reclaim the heart of our traditions, who firmly believe that now is the time for religion to be part of the solution. We are going back into our sacred traditions and recognizing that all of our traditions contain the raw mitaearl to justify violence and exsermitm, and also contain the raw material to justfiy compassion, coexistence and kindness — that when others choose to read our ttxes as deevirctis for hate and vengeance, we can csohoe to read those same texts as directives for love and for forgiveness.

Open Cloze


We hoped maybe 20 people would show up. It turned out 135 people came. They were cynics and seekers, atheists and ______. Many people said that night that it was the first time that they had a meaningful religious experience in their entire _____. And so I set out to do the only ________ thing that someone would do in such a circumstance: I quit my job and tried to build this audacious dream, a __________, rethought religious life which we ______ "IKAR," which means "the essence" or "the heart of the matter."

Now, IKAR is not alone out there in the religious landscape today. There are Jewish and Christian and Muslim and Catholic religious _______, many of them women, by the way, who have set out to reclaim the heart of our traditions, who firmly believe that now is the time for religion to be part of the solution. We are going back into our sacred traditions and recognizing that all of our traditions contain the raw ________ to justify violence and _________, and also contain the raw material to _______ compassion, coexistence and kindness — that when others choose to read our _____ as __________ for hate and vengeance, we can ______ to read those same texts as directives for love and for forgiveness.

Solution


  1. lives
  2. choose
  3. called
  4. extremism
  5. material
  6. rabbis
  7. leaders
  8. reinvented
  9. justify
  10. texts
  11. directives
  12. rational

Original Text


We hoped maybe 20 people would show up. It turned out 135 people came. They were cynics and seekers, atheists and rabbis. Many people said that night that it was the first time that they had a meaningful religious experience in their entire lives. And so I set out to do the only rational thing that someone would do in such a circumstance: I quit my job and tried to build this audacious dream, a reinvented, rethought religious life which we called "IKAR," which means "the essence" or "the heart of the matter."

Now, IKAR is not alone out there in the religious landscape today. There are Jewish and Christian and Muslim and Catholic religious leaders, many of them women, by the way, who have set out to reclaim the heart of our traditions, who firmly believe that now is the time for religion to be part of the solution. We are going back into our sacred traditions and recognizing that all of our traditions contain the raw material to justify violence and extremism, and also contain the raw material to justify compassion, coexistence and kindness — that when others choose to read our texts as directives for hate and vengeance, we can choose to read those same texts as directives for love and for forgiveness.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
religious extremism 3
religious ritual 2
religious life 2
raw material 2
religious leaders 2
religious communities 2
soccer ball 2
emma lazarus 2
failed religion 2


Important Words


  1. atheists
  2. audacious
  3. build
  4. called
  5. catholic
  6. choose
  7. christian
  8. coexistence
  9. compassion
  10. cynics
  11. directives
  12. dream
  13. entire
  14. experience
  15. extremism
  16. firmly
  17. forgiveness
  18. hate
  19. heart
  20. hoped
  21. ikar
  22. jewish
  23. job
  24. justify
  25. kindness
  26. landscape
  27. leaders
  28. life
  29. lives
  30. love
  31. material
  32. matter
  33. meaningful
  34. means
  35. muslim
  36. night
  37. part
  38. people
  39. quit
  40. rabbis
  41. rational
  42. raw
  43. read
  44. reclaim
  45. recognizing
  46. reinvented
  47. religion
  48. religious
  49. rethought
  50. sacred
  51. seekers
  52. set
  53. show
  54. solution
  55. texts
  56. time
  57. today
  58. traditions
  59. turned
  60. vengeance
  61. violence
  62. women