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My dad used to sit me on his knee and read from the Bible to us. We were a praying family. Ours was a family of love and a family of prayer.

I remember how my mother would bring us to chapel on Sundays... and my father used to wait outside. One of the things that I picked up from my father and my mother was the sense that religion often gets in the way of God. For me, at least, it got in the way.

I was raised in a reform synagogue. I think we all bring with us a sense of when hard things happen to us, we find ourselves asking questions of why are these things happening to me at this time in my life. I think in that sense, there's a certain resonance that I carry. It's more of a spiritual resonance as opposed to particularly of Judaism.

Jewish prayers are mostly about daily things - the sliver of a new moon, dew on the grass, the bread and the wine.

For me, the Lord has opened the windows of heaven and showered blessings upon my family beyond my ability to express.

Praying privately in churches, I began to discover that heaven was my true home and also that it was here and now, woven into this life.

I remember my father, who was 'somebody' in the synagogue, bringing home with him one of the poor men who waited outside to be chosen to share the Passover meal. These patriarchal manners I remember well, although there was about them an air of bourgeois benevolence which was somewhat comic.

In my prayers every day, which are a combination of Hebrew prayers and Shakespeare and Sondheim lyrics and things people have said to me that I've written down and shoved in my pocket, I also say the name of every person I've ever known who's passed on.

I remember my mother's prayers and they have always followed me. They have clung to me all my life.

My father's Jewish, so my world is Jewish whenever I go home.