Rabbi Asher Brander
What do Cal Ripken Jr. and Aharon Hakohein (the High Priest) have in common?
Probably nothing - except in the mind of American Jews who have a penchant of connecting the sublime to the ridiculous.
Aharon receives the mitzvah to light the Menorah everyday. In its summary statement, the Torah states (Numbers, 8:3) "Aharon did so; he lit the lamps, just as God commanded." Since the working assumption is that Aharon, the model spiritual persona, follows (God's) orders, why is this necessary? Rashi further confounds by stating this verse indicates Aharon's virtue -- that he did not change. It would seem counterintuitive to praise Aharon for not altering a basic ritual.
If the Torah wants to praise Aharon, is it short of material? After all, is this not the same Aharon who reveled in his younger brother's ascendancy; the great pursuer of peace beloved by all of the Jewish people; the man willing to sacrifice his spiritual destiny for klal yisrael. For all of Aharon's extraordinary accomplishments, the Torah seems to elevate the fairly ordinary.
Unless of course, that is the point.
A famous midrash(1) poses a fascinating, almost childlike question. What is the most significant verse ...   more »

Israel's construction in eastern Jerusalem could imperil peace efforts with the Palestinians, Condoleezza Rice said.
The U.S. secretary of state, who on Saturday began her sixth trouble-shooting visit to Jerusalem and Ramallah this year, signaled that the Bush administration is monitoring Israeli housing projects on land where Palestinians want to build a state.
"I am very concerned that at a time when we need to build confidence between the parties, the continued building and the settlement activity has the potential to harm the negotiations going forward," Rice told reporters before meeting her Israeli counterpart, Tzipi Livni, on Sunday.
Israel has made clear that it reserves the right to build in eastern Jerusalem and West Bank settlement blocs, areas it plans to keep under any future peace deal with the Palestinians.
Rice also had strong words about Israel's circumspection in scaling back security measures in West Bank areas where the Palestinian Authority is trying to impose law and order.
"I understand the security considerations as well as anybody, but the obligation was undertaken to improve the lives of Palestinians and we are going to have to work very hard if we are going to make that true in a broader sense," ...   more »

By Stan Goodenough
The terrorist-supporting Damascus regime of Bashar el-Assad Saturday clarified its priorities for being willing to sit down and talk - albeit indirectly - with Israel.
It's not a state of peace and normalization Syria wants, said Syrian Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister Faisal al-Mikdad. It's the Israeli Golan Heights.
And the Syrians are willing to go to war to grab them.
"[W]e will defend our [sic] land at any time."
In fact, the Golan Heights were part of the Ottoman province of Palestine that was originally set aside for the creation of a Jewish homeland.
Great Britain gave the plateau to the French Mandate of Syria and it was controlled by an independent Syria for just 20 years before the IDF took control of the land in 1967 – in response to Syrian aggression and terrorism.
Despite the fact that Israel has held the heights for more than twice as long as Syria, Damascus insists it is the rightful owner.
The Israelis "should know that the Golan Heights belong to us and that they should not be raising their children in the Golan, since this is not their place. They will not enjoy their lives there," al-Mikdad warned....   more »

The Bible – Hebrew Scriptures (“Old” Testament) and the New Testament – is the most widely-read, most published, most venerated book of all time.
With translations of the complete Bible in nearly 440 languages, one of the two testaments translated into 1,168 additional languages, and portions of the text in 848 additional languages, we can say that today partial or full translations of the Bible exist in a total of 2,454 languages.
Certainly in the so-called Western world, Bibles are readily available and most professing English-language Christian homes boast a number of copies of up to 50 modern English versions. We have Bibles in our bookshelves, beside our beds, on the coffee table, in some cases even in our kitchens and bathrooms.
Odd then, that with so many Bibles around, great masses of Christians appear oblivious to the central place that the Land of Israel and the People of Israel hold in Scripture.
In 1993, not long after I came to live in Jerusalem, I bought myself a New King James Version, unmarked, smelling of ink, its gilded page-edges stuck together.
My intention was to read it through from cover to cover with one simple (as it were) question in ...   more »