Question: What do you get when a bunch of Jews go to church to celebrate the end of the Ramadan fast known as "Eid al-Fitr?" Answer: Increased understanding and mutual ties of camaraderie. More on this below.

The other night, I suddenly was struck by the paucity of older male family figures who are left to me. My blood line of elders are slipping from this world, and with it, the familial connection to someone who's been through it, and can reflect some wisdom on what they did to navigate life's passages.

In 1941, on a small island 25 miles off the Italian coastline, two political prisoners would pen a secret manifesto that would come to define the next 75 years of European history. Altiero Spinelli and Ernesto Rossi looked in horror at the devastation of World War II, in which authoritarian regimes threatened the entire continent and beyond.

I snuck a couple of hours to watch the game with my kids last night. That's what I really want to write about--the Cleveland Cavaliers game last night. How the Cavs hung in there against the Warriors, fighting their way back to an even series. Of LeBron James, never the most elegant of players, yet a persistent and often unstoppable force of nature.