We are biological creatures. We are born, we live, we die. There is no transcendent purpose to existence. At best we are creatures of reason, and by using reason we can cure ourselves of emotional excess. Purged of both hope and fear, we find courage in the face of helplessness, insignificance and uncertainty.

Cyberspace can't compensate for real space. We benefit from chatting to people face to face.

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

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.

Peace can be agreed around the conference table, but unless it grows in ordinary hearts and minds, it does not last. It may not even begin

The Jewish festival of freedom is the oldest continuously observed religious ritual in the world. Across the centuries, Passover has never lost its power to inspire the imagination of successive generations of Jews with its annually re-enacted drama of slavery and liberation.

The royals - all of them, especially Prince Philip and Prince Charles - have done outstanding work with the faith communities.