The Torah is the foundational text for Jewish law, but the Haggadah is our book of living memory. We are not merely telling a story here. We are being called to a radical act of empathy. Here we are, embarking on an ancient, perennial attempt to give human lives - our lives - dignity.

It was terrible. All of the things we couldn't share. The room was filled with conversations we weren't having.

In truth I was manufacturing a brick wall of shits.

I tried to think about other things. I tried to invent optimistic inventions. But the pessimistic ones were extremely loud.

Isn't it strange how upset people get about a few dozen baseball players taking growth hormones, when we're doing what we're doing to our food animals and feeding them to our children?

Mom said, "His spirit is there," and that made me really angry. I told her, "Dad didn't have a spirit! He had cells!" "His memory is there." "His memory is here," I said, pointing at my head. "Dad had a spirit," she said, like she was rewinding a bit in our conversation. I told her, "He had cells, and now they're on rooftops, and in the river, and in the lungs of millions of people around New York, who breathe him every time they speak!

I think it's very pretty. Can it be pretty if no one thinks it's pretty? I think it's pretty. If you're the only one? That's pretty pretty. And what about the boys? Don't you want them to think you're pretty? I wouldn't want a boy to think I was pretty unless he was the kind of boy who thought I was pretty.