When you are kind to others, it not only changes you, it changes the world.

You don't have to be religious to have a soul; everybody has one. You don't have to be religious to perfect your soul; I have found saintliness in avowed atheists.

One of the sages of the Talmud taught nearly 200 years ago that God could have created a plant that would grow loaves of bread. Instead He created wheat for us to mill and bake into bread. Why? So that we could be HIs partners in completing the work of creation.

That is why we have to make room in our lives for people who may sometimes disappoint or exasperate us. If we hold our friends to a standard of perfection, or if they do that to us, we will end up far lonelier than we want to be.

Life is like the baseball season, where even the best team loses at least a third of its games, and even the worst team has its days of brilliance. The goal is not to win every game but to win more than you lose, and if you do that often enough, in the end you may find you have won it all.

Only a life of goodness and honesty leaves us feeling spiritually healthy and human.

There is a Jewish notion that holiness is found with other people. To understand what life really is, one has to share it.