Whatever your relationship is to your sacred tradition in the West, you have some relationship to the Bible if only through the names of the characters.

In Egypt, I loved the perfume of the lotus. A flower would bloom in the pool at dawn, filling the entire garden with a blue musk so powerful it seemed that even the fish and ducks would swoon. By night, the flower might wither but the perfume lasted. Fainter and fainter, but never quite gone. Even many days later, the lotus remained in the garden. Months would pass and a bee would alight near the spot where the lotus had blossomed, and its essence was released again, momentary but undeniable.

Since 1985, I have written about contemporary Jewish practice and the Jewish community.

There's something almost adolescent about Whitman's paean to everything that was and remains good about America.

There's nothing quite like a real . . . train conductor to add color to a quotidian commute

I love many kinds of music: world music, jazz, classical, pop.

Shakespeare in Love... such smart writing of an alternative view of history, and such beautiful acting. Like most Americans, I'm a sucker for the accent.