by Dina Coopersmith
Strengthening the life force of the nascent, fragile nation.
Most of the Passover mitzvot revolve around food. In fact, besides the telling of the story of leaving Egypt, all other commandments are eating-oriented: matzah, maror, the four cups of wine, vegetable dipped in salt water, leaning while eating, etc.
As much as we Jews tend to focus on food on the holidays, there are always other characteristics of the holiday that are more important: shofar on Rosh Hashana, building a sukkah and the four species on Sukkot, lighting the menorah on Chanukah, hearing the megillah and giving charity on Purim, etc. And yet, on Passover, the first holiday in the Jewish calendar, food takes center stage on Seder night.
What is the nature of food and its connection to Passover?
FOOD - THE LIFE-GIVING FORCE
Before eating you may feel weak, indicating a diminishing of life force and energy. Then, as you eat, your strength is restored and the life force is immediately infused into you.
God is the only Giver of life; He holds the key to life and we essentially have no power over His constant giving. Therefore we can deduce that eating most powerfully ...   more »

Video Played a Role in Israeli Raid
By Robin Wright
A video taken inside a secret Syrian facility last summer convinced the Israeli government and the Bush administration that North Korea was helping to construct a reactor similar to one that produces plutonium for North Korea's nuclear arsenal, according to senior U.S. officials who said it would be shared with lawmakers today.
The officials said the video of the remote site, code-named Al Kibar by the Syrians, shows North Koreans inside. It played a pivotal role in Israel's decision to bomb the facility late at night last Sept. 6, a move that was publicly denounced by Damascus but not by Washington.
Sources familiar with the video say it also shows that the Syrian reactor core's design is the same as that of the North Korean reactor at Yongbyon, including a virtually identical configuration and number of holes for fuel rods. It shows "remarkable resemblances inside and out to Yongbyon," a U.S. intelligence official said. A nuclear weapons specialist called the video "very, very damning."
Nuclear weapons analysts and U.S. officials predicted that CIA Director Michael V. Hayden's planned disclosures to Capitol Hill could complicate U.S. efforts to improve relations with ...   more »

By Yoav Stern and Shahar Ilan, Haaretz Correspondents   
Tags: Israel, Golan Heights, Syria  
Officials following contacts between Israel and Syria say significant U.S. involvement will probably be necessary for negotiations to move ahead, and that Syria is still demanding such involvement.
Both Israeli and foreign experts on Syria told Haaretz Wednesday that a change in the American position was not on the horizon, and that no details on the Israeli position had been included in Wednesday's Syrian media reports on Israel's willingness to withdraw from the Golan Heights.  
yrian Foreign Minister Walid Moallem said Wednesday that if Israel were serious about making peace with Syria and withdrawing from the Golan, there was nothing to prevent the renewal of negotiations. But he added that Syria was not prepared for talks with Israel that would hurt the Palestinian negotiating track.
Speaking at a news conference in Tehran with his Iranian counterpart Manouchehr Mottaki, Moallem said the Syrian position was that Israel had to withdraw to the lines of June 4, 1967, not the international boundary. His statements were carried by the official Syrian news agency SANA.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is expected to arrive in Damascus over the ...   more »