# The fact that the torah is always in Hebrew is powerful At the end of the day in Judaism you can go back to the original text so there is a shared premise. People can still argue about interpretation, of course and that is what most of Judaism is based around but there is the shared textual bedrock. Additionally, it means that regardless of which branch of Judaism you follow and regardless of which language you speak day-to-day, there will be core parts of the service that are invariant for everybody. Contrast this to Christianity where there hasn’t been a single agreed-upon text … ever? At least not since the Latin-Greek Schism. The reformation then exasperated the situation. (What is the status of textualism in Islam?) I suspect this set of shared premises and rituals is important for cultural continuity both through time and across distances. As a consequence, if you want to create a coherent community, you need to establish shared premises and rituals. This cannot be done by being all-including [[Institutions need to differentiate between individuals inside and outside the institution]] or saying “oh yeah just do what you want.” Failure to do this may be why [[Most online communities feel impotent]] and [[Fully open online discussions are low quality because of trust and context]]. ### Related * [[There are lots of Christianity style companies but very few Judaism style ones]] * [[Creating an internet-first community that’s not just a bunch of bullshit in a channel]]