Hitch Vs. the Rabbi

Things I learned from Rabbi David Wolpe's charming write up of his traveling road show/debate with Christopher Hitchens:

• Although he's agressively atheistic, Hitchens, who was in his 30s when he learned his mother was Jewish (which, according to Judaism, makes him a Jew), has a seder every year. (Wolpe's salami on wry: "I can't help think how chic it would be to say, "Oh yes, last year I had seder at the Hitchenses' ."" Right on, Rabbi. It's even chic-er--and, given Hitchens' reputation, shikkur-er--than saying, "Oh yes, last year I had seder at the Obamas's.")
• Hitchens is quicker with the withering comebacks, but the Rabbi is a whole lot wiser.
• Hitchens has cancer. That being the case, he might want to start praying--you know, just to hedge his bets.  ("Give him some chicken soup," advises the little Yiddish-accented woman in an old Borscht Belt joke to a doctor attending a gent on his death bed. "Madam, it wouldn't help," says the doctor, exasperated, after she repeats it several times. "It vouldn't hoit," is her sage response. Same thing with prayer, Hitch.)