Timing is everything. So what better time than during this season of reflection, repentance and renewal to reconsider the scarcity of time that characterizes so many of our lives? Indeed, so much in our tradition demands our attention to time. As the renowned Jewish thinker, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, wrote: "Jewish ritual may be characterized as the art of significant...

The recent controversy over the proposed construction of an Islamic center and mosque in Lower Manhattan has raised unsettling questions about religious freedom, sensitivity to the victims of Sept. 11, Islamaphobia, political demagoguery and the limits of accommodation by the majority society to minorities. Some commentators have acknowledged the legal right of the mosque's sponsors to build their center, but...