The purpose of the Seder to my mind is to inspire conversations with your family about the human drama and hopefully transmit values to the next generation. I've always felt like this could be better.
It's not an accident that both my sister and I are writers. Our parents created an accidental Petri dish. My family has great storytellers and I grew up in a very funny conversational house and didn't have television. This small family farm was a bubble world that didn't have much to do with reality.
When you look at a family if you have a family that never interacts with each other never has strong conversation with each other never has disagreements nine times out of ten you have a very cold family and they're not going to be at the end they're not going to be close.
I grew up in a family where the women were just nuts. They didn't stand around in cardigans making polite conversation while they chopped tomatoes.
I come from an Italian family. One of the greatest and most profound expressions we would ever use in conversations or arguments was a slamming door. The slamming door was our punctuation mark.
Some of the most important conversations I've ever had occurred at my family's dinner table.
In thinking about religion and society in the 21st century we should broaden the conversation about faith from doctrinal debates to the larger question of how it might inspire us to strengthen the bonds of belonging that redeem us from our solitude helping us to construct together a gracious and generous social order.
Ask those who love Him with a sincere love and they will tell you that they find no greater or prompter relief amid the troubles of their life than in loving conversation with their Divine Friend.
You may never learn the names of any of the people you talk to in a dog park even after many many hours spent there with them and many hours of conversation. But if - knock on wood - anything should ever happen to your dog these nameless non-strangers will rally sympathize offer to help and hold your hand. I know this from experience.
Talking with you is sort of the conversational equivalent of an out of body experience.