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Ideally, Nothing Should Be Embraced By A Consumer Firmly, Nothing Should Command A Commitment Till Death Do Us Part, No Needs Should Be Seen As Fully Satisfied, No Desires Considered Ultimate. There Ought To Be A Proviso 'until Further Notice' Attached To Any Oath Of Loyalty And Any Commitment. It Is But The Volatility, The In-built Temporality Of All Engagements That Truly Counts; It Counts More Than The Commitment Itself, Which Is Anyway Not Allowed To Outlast The Time Necessary For Consuming The Object Of Desire (or, Rather, The Time Sufficient For The Desirability Of That Object To Wane).

A Whole World Is Taken To The Grave With The Dead Person; Each One Of Us Is Unique And Unrepeatable.

Once We Realize That The Strangers Are Here Forever And Won't Go Away, Then, Like Husband And Wife In The Old-style Marriage, We Would Try To Find A Way Of Living Together Peacefully And With Mutual Benefit. The Sooner We Understand That In A Globalized World The Diasporic Nature Of Cohabitation Is Never Likely To End, That It Will Always Be With Us, I Believe Such Modus Vivendi Will Be Found.

Jews Are No Longer Pressed And Obliged To Fight, Hide Or Deny Their Jewishness. What For? No One Actually Requires Today To Abandon The Idiosyncrasy Of Some Other Culture Or Ethnic Tradition. The Great Achievement Of This Last Period Is That We Have Been Slowly, Sometimes Reluctantly, Yet Steadily, Learning The Art Of Living With Differences.

In Montreal, Where I Taught In 1970, I Met Many People. The Only Ones Who Said To Me They Were Canadians, Were Jews. All The Rest Were Scotts, Irish, English, French, Swedes.