A family recipe, a childhood memory, a Depression-era handout
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A cancer diagnosis, a positive pregnancy test, one last Sabbath dinner together
The reality of impermanence is hard to bear. Sometimes I try to shut it out; like everyone, I have my ways. But, paradoxically, I feel more alive, more grounded, when I acknowledge that I can’t know anything about the future. Anything. Tomorrow is a secret the world knows how to keep.
If a man would follow, today, the teachings of the Old Testament, he would be a criminal. If he would follow the teachings of the New, he would be insane. Robert G. Ingersoll
If a man would follow, today, the teachings of the Old Testament, he would be a criminal. If he would follow the teachings of the New, he would be insane.
Robert G. Ingersoll
On one level mystics and pluralists from different faiths have more in common with each other than they do with fundamentalists of their own religion. Sometimes I feel like I belong to two peoples: the Jewish people and a pluralistic people drawn from all faiths.
Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, cofounder of the Palestinian militant organization Hamas, was assassinated on Monday by the Israeli military.
Back then, we carried brown paper supermarket bags filled with trash down the dark apartment-house steps to the incinerator, pulled a handle, dumped the bag onto a metal lip, and let go.
Some lucky people look like Brad Pitt or Sarah Jessica Parker. It is my fate to resemble Osama bin Laden.
My father used to tuck me in at night. It was a ritual I looked forward to throughout my childhood and even into adolescence, when my father became slightly repulsive to me — what with the errant hairs protruding from his nose and ears, and the smacking noise he made while eating.
There’s more to waiting tables than you might think. It takes courage, for one thing. You walk up to a table, and everyone turns to look at you, as if you’re about to deliver the opening line of a play. You have to look happy all the time too.
The phone rings during dinner. The break in the silence is a relief, but I don’t move. In fact, I pretend I don’t even hear it. I’m fifteen and angry at my father for making me stay home again on a Friday night. He pretends not to hear the phone either.