Jewish prayers are mostly about daily things - the sliver of a new moon, dew on the grass, the bread and the wine.

Moral certainty can deafen people to any truth other than their own.

And so, as generally happens, those who have most give least, and those with less somehow make shrift to share.

Jewish prayers are mostly about daily things - the sliver of a new moon, dew on the grass, the bread and the wine.

There are always a few who stand up in times of communal madness and have the courage to say that what unites us is greater than what divides us.

'You've got mail!' exclaims the cheery automaton at America Online. The flag on the mailbox icon waves invitingly on my computer screen. For a second, I'm 10 years old again, waiting for the postman's whistle to slice the stillness of an Australian afternoon.

I was a news reporter for 16 years, seven of them a foreign correspondent in the Middle East, Africa and the Balkans. Perhaps the most useful equipment I acquired in that time is a lack of preciousness about the act of writing. A reporter must write. There must be a story. The 'mot juste' unarriving? Tell that to your desk.