I love lighting Shabbat candles at the onset of Shabbat. It helps me create a strong and firm demarcation of time.

In fact, because I am very time conscious and want to make the most of every moment, I make it a practice to remove my watch before I light the candles as if to suggest that for this brief period, my life must transcend time.

For me, study is a divine and daily imperative, and I study a page of Talmud daily so that I am not only teaching. My teaching is constantly being fed by my learning.

I love going to synagogue on Friday night and being swept in the melodies. Everyone seems more friendly and unburdened by the week and ready to be taken elsewhere.

If our writing is worth anything at all, then we have to put ourselves into it.

I would advise anyone who is at the start of a rest ritual like the Sabbath, to take it slowly and grow incrementally into it. Recognize that it will be hard at first. It's a discipline but then it is a true and deep joy.

I took to religion at about age 12; it was very hard for me to be Sabbath observant as a kid in a home which was not Sabbath observant. I think my parents thought the whole Jewish thing was a phase.