I've come late to the event. Finally watching Inglorious Basterds has convinced me however, that Quentin Tarantino is actually not so much a connoisseur of violence as he is a master of deceit.
Violence in a movie robs the audience of its imagination. Here is what...

I can explain all the plastic surgery, dyed hair, Botoxed lips and skin and obsession with youth that characterizes my city. In fact, I can sum it up in one word, the most beautiful word in the English language. Autumn.

You see, there is no autumn in LA. Yes,...

Pirsumei nisah, publicize the miracle. That is the command to put the Hanukkah menorah in the window. It is not enough to have light you should be moved to let others see the light. That is the same logic that mandates that we begin with one light and add another...

Yes, highly successful people have habits -- seven apparently -- and the bookshelves offer you advice based on the words of everyone from Napoleon to Moses. But there are some books that really can change your life. They are not written to the demands of the bestseller list. They are...

Once in my life I worked on a political campaign and once in my life met someone who called himself a "goop scooper." My candidate and I were touring a chicken processing factory. As chicken carcasses acrobatically clung to the rotating belt that dropped them in a vat, the man...

A book by one John Wilkins in 1641 tells the following story: a slave was sent by his master with a letter and a basket of figs. Along the way the slave ate some of the figs. Upon receipt of the letter and what remained of the fruit, the man...

In today's New York Times, Sam Harris writes that he would have the president withdraw the nomination of Francis Collins as director of the National Institute of Health because Collins' does not accept the "scientific understanding of human nature."

I could write this column about the...

In 2003 I suffered a grand mal seizure followed by the diagnosis of a brain tumor. After a 10 hour MRI assisted brain surgery and a year on anti-seizure medication, life calmed down. In 2006 I was diagnosed with Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma and had months of chemotherapy. Now after two years...

New York Times columnist Roger Cohen visited my synagogue Thursday. All day long the sparks flew and the cultures clashed.
In the weeks preceding his visit, Cohen had written two columns for the NY Times in which he wrote of Iran as a more flexible state that...

Isaac and Oedipus

The story of an eight year old murdering his father and father's co-worker, whatever the final legal disposition, has evoked a raft of comments. Legal, sociological and psychological experts have added their insights to this profoundly disturbing story. There is a religious dimension that should...

Consider this remarkable passage from historian John Lucaks' autobiography, A Thread of Years:

"Of the many differences between the movie Titanic and history, one in particular is telling. In the movie, as the ship is sinking the first-class passengers (all third-class human beings) scramble to climb into the small number...

Religion boasts some strange practices; in our world among the strangest is the Jewish practice of dwelling in makeshift huts for a week during the festival of sukkot, beginning Monday night. The usual explanation is that it recalls the wandering through the desert after the liberation from Egypt. The Israelites...

"Self-deception, set to music" those were the words with which Sam Harris ended his diatribe against religion in The LA Times in March of 2007. I read it shortly after completing a course of chemotherapy for lymphoma. The experience of illness, the warmth of community and intimacy with God that...