God is erratic, sometimes vindictive, sometimes merciful. The people I was taught were heroes - Jacob or Moses or David - were ambivalent figures, or worse. But that messiness was joyful, and challenging. I loved having a Bible that I could argue with.

I feel like there's lot of people who know finance and economics better than I do. There are lots of people who are better storytellers than I am. But the space that I occupy of storytelling about finance and economics is - more people want it than can do it.

Here was a period where I was particularly attacked, and in untrue ways, some people online said some things that were not true about me - but it was very hurtful. And there was like, a period of time that it was very panicky, I was very upset. And my son at the time was, I guess seven, eight months old, and I would wake up early with him and let my wife sleep.

Changing the way we talk is not political correctness run amok. It reflects an admirable willingness to acknowledge others who once were barely visible to the dominant culture, and to recognize that something that may seem innocent to you may be painful to others.

I think I did 97 pitch meetings, and even at the 97th meeting, there were questions I was getting that I hadn't had in the - you know, any of the 96 preceding ones.

The Bible is forbidding when you start to read it. The language is odd. The stories start and stop herkily-jerkily. The characters behave in inexplicable ways. It takes a little bit of time to get into the rhythm of the book. I found reading the first 15 chapters of Genesis very very difficult. Once I got past there, I loved reading, and found it very easy. When you get used to the Bible, it becomes thrilling to read (like any great book - I just had exactly the same experience with the Odyssey).

I know I would have learned a huge amount had I read the bible with my rabbi. But I also would have missed a huge amount, and I would have been guided down the narrow paths where the rabbi led me, not the paths that I chose for myself.