As long as I get to spend it with you, one blink of an eye in the vastness is enough for me.

But, safe in New York, my great-grandfather looked up and smiled at his son and said the immortal words: “The only sin would be to pretend.”

The ideas that “everything happens for a reason” or that certain things are “meant to be” are often offered as reassurances. But, to me, they are not as astounding or awe-inspiring as the idea that, in all this chaos, somehow you are you.

It’s not always easy to start something from scratch, though. It can feel a little contrived, a little ridiculous. You can lose that sense of inclusion in a community, being part of a legacy. Without going full Tevye, there is something deeply reassuring about performing the specific steps, the exact motions, that your grandparents performed, and

So much of ritual is the retelling of stories. A philosophy requires more than just a list of things to believe in. These tenets must be illustrated in a way that moves you, draws you in. My mother’s vivid, careful telling and retelling of the family sagas, origins, heartbreaks, and triumphs were part of an ancient tradition, older than the written

which is but saying in other words that he is wiser today than he was yesterday. —ALEXANDER POPE

I don’t think that faith is a requirement to see a world full of provable miracles and profound meaning. I also don’t think lack of faith means you must give up your most beloved rituals. There is a way to honor your traditions and your ancestors without feeling you are just going through the motions.

That only leaves the question of who the “he” is here. Maybe the “God of Spinoza,” the one Einstein once described as “reveal[ing] himself in the orderly harmony of what exists.” In other words, the God of the physical laws of the universe, a kind of literary—but not literal—personification, along the lines of Mother Nature. I have always loved

That only leaves the question of who the “he” is here. Maybe the “God of Spinoza,” the one Einstein once described as “reveal[ing] himself in the orderly harmony of what exists.” In other words, the God of the physical laws of the universe, a kind of literary—but not literal—personification, along the lines of Mother Nature. I have always loved