Why did God create mankind? Because God likes stories.

We have lots of heroes today - sportsmen, supermodels, media personalities. They come, they have their 15 minutes of fame, and they go. But the influence of good teachers stays with us. They are the people who really shape our lives.

The Hebrew Bible contains multiple provisions to ensure that no one would go hungry. The corners of the field, forgotten sheaves of grain, gleanings that drop from the hands of the gleaner, and small clusters of grapes left on the vine were to be given to the poor.

Find people not to envy but to admire. Do not the profitable but the admirable deed. Live by ideals.

As the political leaders of Europe meet to save the euro and European Union, so should religious leaders.

God is back and Europe as a whole still doesn't get it. It is our biggest single collective cultural and intellectual blind spot.

Whole communities are growing up without fathers or male role models. Bringing up a family in the best of circumstances is not easy. To try to do it by placing the entire burden on women - 91% of single-parent families in Britain are headed by the mother, according to census data - is practically absurd and morally indefensible.