Seeking Good Conversation

An Orthodox rabbi calls me Sunday afternoon. "I'm watching Analyze This on channel 5. I met somebody last night who's a gay ex-Mormon. Very nice guy. He really liked me a lot. He's going to UCLA and is studying to be a psychiatrist.

"There's a commercial now. We have something in common. I'm dying for lack of an intellectual person to talk to. Sometimes the best person is ex-religious. When you're ex-religious, religion still has a formative impact on your life. Sometimes the best person to talk to is someone who knows what religion is but he got turned off to it by all the idiots and wanted to be more rational.

"You go to Bnai David. I don't care if someone is Modern Orthodox or Reform either. I just need intellectual people. You know Sam Harris? I prefer him to Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens. I saw all three of them at the library."