This book is dedicated to Sherwin T. Wine, without whom it could not have been written. But it could just as easily have been dedicated to my mother, Judy Capel, with whom I began having a fascinating conversation on many of these issues not long after I was born. Her encouragement of and curiosity about my work have been an inspiration.
Tom Ferrick gave me the chance to follow him in this wonderful career, and Dr. Joe Gerstein has made my path infinitely easier and more meaningful. Siwatu Moore has been a true friend, and an enormous moral support. Irit Feldman has been something of a muse.
My agent, Robert Guinsler, has shepherded me through the writing process and been a real mensch, as has my very talented editor David Highfill.
And I have been continually inspired and instructed by my community members and students at Harvard, by many of the star Humanist leaders across the country and beyond, and by many others I’ve been fortunate to know: student and alumni leaders John Figdor, Dan Robinson, Lewis Ward, Amanda Shapiro, Kelly Bodwin, Andrew Maher, Greta Friar, Dave Rand, Brendan Randall, Peter Blake, Sebastian Velez, Jason Miller, Hann-Shuin Yew, and many more; board members Mike Felsen, Tom Larkin, Tony Proctor, and Marcia Flynn; advisers Jim Anathan, Woody Kaplan, Steve Pinker, and E. O. Wilson; volunteer leaders Rekha Vemireddy, Bob Mack, John Silva, and Jenni Acosta; research asssistants Alissa Ford, Garga Chatterjee, Sarah Chandonnet, Andrea Runyan, and Jackie Lewandowski; Maureen George; Steve Rade, Fred Edwords, Jende Huang, and the United Coalition of Reason; Roy Speckhardt, Dave Niose, and the American Humanist Association; Bonnie Cousens and Miriam Jerris at the Society for Humanistic Judaism; August Brunsman and Hemant Mehta of the Secular Student Alliance; Rabbi Sivan Maas, Professor Yakov Malkin, Felice Posner Malkin, and all my wonderful colleagues at Tmura in Jerusalem; Ambassador John Loeb; Lou Appignani; and Marilyn Rowens.
I’d like to thank the Pivnick and Posen families, who steadfastly supported my education and that of many others on this path; my family—Jon Epstein, Emily Klein, Ruth Seymour, Ruth Behar, the Gordons, the Van Grovers, and Shoshana Levin and family at Kibbutz Ga’ash; Sally Quinn, Jonathan Haidt, Ralph Williams, Rebecca Goldstein, Eboo Patel, R. Lanier Anderson, Michael Ignatieff, Sir Salman Rushdie, Joss Whedon, Greg Graf-fin, Rep. Pete Stark, Bret Anthony Johnston, Diana Eck, Scott Brewer, Tom Clark, Debra Dawson, my fellow Harvard chaplains, Rev. Professor Peter Gomes, all the SMART Recovery facilitators doing important and unsung work; Duncan Crary, Marc Bernstein at the New York Society for Ethical Culture; my former band mates, Sugar Pill; Rachel Tronstein, Ron Luhur, Chris Farah, all the Boston Frisbee organizers and players; Julie Sheinman and the alums of the Stuyvesant High School Speech and Debate Team; and Machar, the Washington Congregation for Secular Humanistic Judaism—including its rabbi, my dear friend Ben Biber, executive director Roz Seidenstein, and former Sunday school teacher Elizabeth Karcher, for inspiring the “Ten Commandments” section.