When I was in second grade, my teacher made us pray that the law would change so that a day at school could once again begin with a prayer. I was 7, but even at that age, I knew there was something nonsensical about praying to be allowed to pray.

This was at a public school outside Philadelphia in the 1960s, not that long after the Supreme Court ruled that prayer in public schools violated the Constitution. In our predominantly Catholic neighborhood, my family, with its three kids, seemed to me to be abnormally small. There were 30 students or more in that class, and I was probably the only Jewish kid. I bowed my head to my desk and mouthed the words the teacher asked us to recite.

She also asked us to bring Bibles to class. I don’t know why—maybe to ascertain who among us had one at hom

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