CD: Speaking about the character of an out-to-lunch God, do you ever worry that your work might cross a line into material that’s not appropriate for comedy?

SR: I don’t think that any of my pieces about God are controversial. If they offend people, obviously that’s not at all my intent. The only reason I write about God is because he has the highest stakes job. And because he’s a universal icon.

I could write about a senator, you know a senator is pretty powerful. I could write about a dictator and I guess that’s even a little bit more powerful than the senator. But the most powerful person is God, so why wouldn’t you write about him?

CD: So that kind of begs the question, what is your own relationship to God and spirituality?

SR: Ever since I went to Hebrew school and read the Old Testament, I’ve been really interested in religion and interested in the character of God in particular. When I first read the Torah, I was twelve years old and I couldn’t believe how irrational and crazy God was. I mean, the first time he speaks to Abraham he asks him to cut off part of his penis. And then to cut of parts of all his male servants’ penises. Abraham is ninety-nine years old and he has no choice but to do this crazy thing.

I think God is a pretty wacky character. He’s constantly destroying the Earth with floods or fires, but he also bargains with Abraham about whether or not he’s going to go through with his acts of destruction. He tells Abraham he’s got to murder his own son and then sends an angel to call it off at the last second. He’s just testing to make sure that Abraham loves him. I mean that’s such a needy, passive-aggressive vulnerable thing to do, to test Abraham to see if he would kill his son for you. So I always thought he was a fascinating, fascinating character.