I saw my barely 5-foot-6-inch father as being a full 6-foot-7-inches tall.

In his youth he was a trooper in the U.S. Fifth Cavalry. Serving along with Apache scouts, he galloped forward in an attack in a great cavalry charge in the Mexican state of Chihuahua during the 1916 Punitive Expedition under the command of General John J. "Black Jack" Pershing.

Strangely, at his funeral there was a bare mention in the eulogy of that part of my father’s years.

He was lauded as an exceptionally loving husband, father and grandfather. His communal loyalties and activities were praised. Everything the rabbi said was true, but I was remembering the tales of that one aspect of his life that shone so very brightly in my memory.

The Canadian philosopher Marshall McLuhan gave a modernist interpretation of one of the most important truths of human existence: that perception is reality.

The ancient Greeks had a view of their gods as being importantly real; we now view their theological concepts as myth.

When Agrippinna begged Nero to deify her, to make her into a god, she saw that as a reality. The bizarre animal-headed gods and goddess of the Egyptians were real to them.

In our time, we of the Western world value ourselves as monotheists. Yet, the variants of views of God range through the subtle and the obscure to the dynamic.

Pacifist faiths gently sing the praises of a peace-loving deity. The self-immolating and suicide bombing believers of other religious groups clearly have a very different vision of God.

There are those who believe that what God wants of humans is faithful acceptance. There are others who emphasize a good deed rather than a creed.

Judaism daily revels in the unity of God that emphasizes the unity of all of God’s creatures. It trumpets with pride the simple poetic formula offered by the prophet Micah: “It hath been told thee, O man, what is good, and what the LORD doth require of thee: only to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God."