In the languages of the old ones wisdom was defined by one word. In Tungus it was Saman, in Tocharian it was Samane, in Prakrit it was Samana and in Sanskrit it was Sramanas.

My father e-mails me a lot. It's an easy way to avoid the awkwardness of calling me long distance - silences, call waiting, the fact that he can catch in the middle of dinner or angry about the past. On the phone, he can't seem to resist telling me his latest thoughts on what I should do with my life. I generally tell him to go to hell. E-mail is safer.

I was born poor, or so my folks said, which is exactly what I wrote to the Mattel corporation when my Barbie doll's neck split open, just three weeks after Chanukah, the appropriate date of her arrival under my Menorah.

It's 8:11a.m. on a Tuesday. School day. For the past eleven years, this particular time of day has meant "get to school." For all the change that we have experienced, different jobs, different schools, different priorities, those powerful moments between 8:00 and 8:30 have always raised the pulse . .