Rabbi Nachman Kahana
Parashat Ve’Ata Te’Tzaveh 5768
I am writing this week’s divrei Torah in the lobby of a magnificent hotel on the shores of the Dead Sea, that ancient area of Sodom and Amora and its three sister towns, which were destroyed by HaShem because of their debased ways. (These five cities are not unique. An acquaintance of mine, on his return from a visit to San Fransisco, remarked that if God does not destroy San Francisco, He owes an apology to Sodom and Amora.)
Now, despite its bad track record, or perhaps because of it, this area was chosen by the Ariel Institutions of Yerushalayim for its bi-annual rabbinic conference. For four days, the lowest point on the planet (the Dead Sea) was launched into orbit of keddusha (holiness) by the presence of over 200 of Israel’s leading rabbis in a conference dealing with the Shoah (Holocaust).
It is a constant source of amazement to me how Hashem interlocks the practical plans of Man with His spiritual agenda: 1- The Jewish nation; 2- This week’s parasha; 3- The place which was designated for the conference; and 4- The Shoah, all meshed together in synchronization.
As I gaze at ...   more »

                                                      
 
  By Gerald A. Honigman
     Somebody finally orchestrated justice for a deliberate mass murderer of civilian men, women, and children the other day. Among his numerous other exploits, some four hundred of the latter were killed, maimed, and wounded in an Argentine Jewish Community Center in 1994. 
     Imad Mughniyeh, a chief honcho in Hizbullah, now gets to indulge in the pleasures of his own personal seventy-two virgins awaiting him in Muslim Paradise after being blown apart in Damascus. Israel is blamed as his dispatcher. 
     Hizbullah’s #1, Hassan Nasrallah, rallied thousands of supporters at Mughniyeh’s funeral in Beirut and warned that Jews everywhere (like in Buenos Aires earlier), as well as the Jew of the Nations, would pay dearly. 
     For Nasrallah--as well as the vast majority of his Arab brethren--Jews are still expected to play their age-old, subjugated, dhimmi role. Dhimmis were not allowed to defend themselves if attacked by a Muslim. They could just beg for mercy. Dhimmis could not bring charges against Muslims, had to pay a "protection tax," etc. and so forth. 
      So, no great surprise that when Israel refuses to act like the Muslim East’s or the Christian West’s proverbial ...   more »

By Zafrir Rinat and Eli Ashkenazi, Haaretz Correspondents, Haaretz Service and AP    
Friday's earthquake shook open a large hole on the Temple Mount plaza, near the Dome of the Rock.
Al-Aqsa mosque officials belonging to the Islamic Movement's Northern Branch covered the hole with wooden planks following afternoon prayers.
The officials, who also said the quake caused cracks in several local residential buildings, said the hole was a meter deep, two meters long and meter and a half wide.
The Islamic Movement blamed Israel for the hole, saying Israel is digging tunnels in the area that undermine the stability in the area of the Al-Aqsa mosque. The organization urged Islamic states to take action to stop Israeli excavations in the area.
Epicenter northeast of Lebanese city of Tyre
A Tel Aviv resident, living on the second floor, said: "We felt the earth move. The bed was rocking, the doors were moving, and the chandeliers were swinging."
In the West Bank, An old house fell onto the main road in Kofin village west of Nablus, blocking it but not hurting anyone.
The earthquake also shook Lebanon and Syria.
Residents in some areas of Beirut left their apartments and went into ...   more »

By EHUD ZION WALDOKS  
  The tens of thousands of dead fish discovered early Saturday morning in the Tiberias marina and suspected to have been poisoned do not pose any threat to the purity of the water in the Kinneret, Water Authority spokesman Uri Shor told The Jerusalem Post on Saturday night.
The Kinneret.
"We took samples from both the fish and the water and sent them to the lab. There is no threat to the water," he said. The Kinneret is the largest single source of Israel's drinking water.
The Agriculture and Health ministries warned the public on Saturday afternoon not to eat fish bought from unregulated sources in the marina or from elsewhere in the Kinneret.
All fishing in the area was suspended. Teams that examined fish in other markets such as Nazareth did not find any poisoned specimens.
Media reports suggested that fishermen may have used poison to increase their haul. "The fishermen can put an end to it [the poisoned fish] and the fact that they don't is very serious. They can end it easily," Shor told the Post.
Several dead fish from the Kinneret were being analyzed by research labs and test results were ...   more »

If a series of reports in The Jerusalem Post this week is accurate, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is aware of and possibly even directing clandestine talks on the future of Jerusalem.
The back-channel talks, according to these same reports, are looking at ways to divide Jerusalem between Jews and Arabs in a way that the city could be the capital of both the State of Israel and the nascent State of Palestine.
Such dual-track negotiations have been used before, notably leading up to the 1978 Camp David Agreement and resulting in the 1993 Oslo Accords.
Veteran diplomats, at least some who have been involved in trying to find a solution to the century-long Arab-Jewish conflict, believe that because of the strong, in fact intractable positions both sides hold on the so-called core issues - final borders of Israel and “Palestinian,” sovereignty in Jerusalem, the “Palestinian” refugees “right of return,” the allocation of water resources - solutions are unattainable through open talks.
The reasoning is that the constituents on both sides - the Israeli and Palestinian public - will not allow their representatives to go too far down the road towards compromising on these issues before they pull the plug on ...   more »

The Israeli government has been hammered with a succession of reports in the local press this week charging that it is secretly negotiating over the future of Jerusalem with leaders in the terrorist Palestine Liberation Organization.
According to investigations carried out by journalists at The Jerusalem Post, the back channel discussions are taking place in tandem with the official talks that have been spurred along under pressure from the United States.
While the official talks are said to be making little progress, the secret discussions are dealing with the de facto division of Jerusalem, with Arab claims to property on both eastern and western sides of the city being put forward.
PLO/PA official Hatem Abdel Qader was quoted in the Post Wednesday as saying that the question of Jerusalem is both "on the table and under the table."
Jerusalem is Israel's 3,000-year-old capital which, after nearly two millennia under gentile rule, was restored to Jewish control by the Six Day War, 40 years ago last year, in what was seen by most Jews and many millions of Christians as a miraculous answer to unbroken centuries of prayer.
During the first decades after 1967, Israeli leaders repeatedly vowed that Jerusalem would ...   more »

By Lina Sinjab  
The bombing took most Syrians by surprise, including the government
It took the Syrian authorities nearly a full day to issue a statement condemning the killing of leading Hezbollah member Imad Mughniyeh in Damascus on Tuesday night.
When it appeared, the statement made no clear accusation of who was behind the car bomb.
The assassination is being taken very seriously and has triggered alarm in Syria, a country that usually keeps a tight hold the security situation.
Hezbollah is a strong ally of Syria and analysts believe the assassination of one of its top members is meant as a message to both Syria and Iran, Hezbollah's other main backer. "This means that the war on Iran has become a reality more than ever before. It is a dangerous security penetration in Syria," says analyst Sami Mubayyed.
Militant guests
The mood in the street is shock. Car bombs are not usual in Syria, a country that is widely viewed as safe by its inhabitants.
Nevertheless, says analyst Dr Firas Shihab, everything appears to be carrying on as normal. 
"Maybe this is because people have confidence in the security services or maybe because they were waiting to know ...   more »