Just about everybody wants to be good. Criminals claim their innocence. Dictatorships call themselves republics. We all try to justify our actions in one way or another so that we appear to be good. When we are caught in some theft or hypocrisy, however small, guilt and indignation come rushing to the surface like a zillion nanobots. As a politician once advised, when accused, deny everything and demand proof. We are all politicians.

So why is it so hard to be good?

by Rabbi Yisrael Rutman In the past few days, scientists near Geneva, Switzerland have put the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) into operation. Not since the Manhattan Project, which produced the first atom bomb, have the resources of the scientific world been assembled for a hoped-for breakthrough of such magnitude. In this case, though, the wizards
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