A society in which there are high levels of voluntary activity will simply be a better, happier place than one where there are not.

Happiness is not made by what we own. It is what we share.

The first of the request prayers in the daily Amidah is a fractal. It replicates in miniature the structure of the Amidah as a whole.

We do not always appreciate the role the Queen has played in one of the most significant changes in the past 60 years: the transformation of Britain into a multi-ethnic, multi-faith society. No one does interfaith better than the Royal family, and it starts with the Queen herself.

Anti-Semitism is best understood as a virus. It has no logic. Jews were hated because they were rich and because they were poor; because they were capitalists and because they were communists; because they held tenaciously to an ancient faith and because they were rootless cosmopolitans, believing nothing. Hate needs no logic. It is a sickness of the soul.

God's forgiveness allows us to be honest with ourselves. We recognize our imperfections, admit our failures, and plead to God for clemency.

Religiosity turns out to be the best indicator of civic involvement: it's more accurate than education, age, income, gender or race.