Clear, crisp, and compelling. . . . Mitzvah Girls is a thoughtful look at the world of Jewish girls who grow up in 21st-century America, but don't really.

It doesn't have to be somber to be sacred.

There is a marvelous story of a man who once stood before God, his heart breaking from the pain and injustice in the world. "Dear God." he cried out, "look at all the suffering, the anguish and distress in your world. Why don't you send help?" God responded,"I did send help. I sent you." When we tell our children that story, we must tell them that each one of them was sent to help repair the broken world-and that it is not the task of an instant or of a year, but of a lifetime.

Prayer is not a monologue. It speaks to God and to the community. In the last analysis, religion is not what goes on inside a soul. It is what goes on in the world, between people, between us and God. To trap faith in a monologue, and pretend that it resides solely inside the self, undermines the true interchange of all belief.

Clear, crisp, and compelling. . . . Mitzvah Girls is a thoughtful look at the world of Jewish girls who grow up in 21st-century America, but don't really.

Part of the reason that America is born in the world is to demonstrate an openness and a goodness and a compassion that is all too absent. It's part of the reason that I feel every day so blessed that I and so many Jews have found this wonderful haven, and I hope that we can spread that message and that people who come here will find it as inspiring as I think all of us do.

Faith is not knowledge of what the mystery of the universe is, but the conviction that there is a mystery, and that it is greater than us.