Rebbe With a Cause

At the end of time, when climate change or an asteroid or the Messiah’s arrival has rendered moot Pharrell Williams, the Affordable Care Act, “Game of Thrones,” Rand Paul, the designated-hitter rule, Vladimir Putin on horseback, and Chipotle’s cilantro-lime rice, there will be two kinds of religious people left on earth: Mormons and Lubavitcher Jews.

There could be some Muslims, and perhaps a Roman Catholic looking for a Latin Mass. Some Pentecostal will be laying hands on somebody, somewhere. And surely there will be plenty of eccentric spiritual individualists, making their own paths or journeys — which they will, have no doubt, refer to as “paths” or “journeys” — from a syncretistic mix of crystal-wearing, aromatherapy, chiropractics and the Tibetan Book of the Dead.