Parshat Bamidbar / Shavuot / Parshat Naso*
2-9 Sivan 5767 / May 18-26, 2007
Bamidbar Haftarah - Hoshea 2:1-22
Naso Haftarah - Shoftim 13:2-25 

                                         Yom HaMeyuchas     
The forty-sixth day of the Omer, the Sefirah-Count, is called Yom HaMeyuchas, the Day of Distinction.  It is the Second Day of Sivan, the day before the beginning of the Shloshet Yemei Hagbalah, the Three Days of Restraint that Moshe commanded the Jewish People to observe; restraint in approach to Mt. Sinai and restraint from marital intimacy.  The purpose of the latter was so that the entire Jewish People would certainly be pure and full participants on the Day that HaShem would give the Torah to them, that cataclysmic event that occurred on the Sixth Day of Sivan, according to one Tannaitic opinion, or the Seventh Day (only for this first Shavuot), according to Rav Yosi. The question arises, “What is so distinguished about this Day that entitles it to such a special name? Several answers come to mind: 1.  There is, in fact, nothing special about the Day.  It is only that CHAZAL, the Sages, in their great sensitivity were concerned even for the feelings of inanimate objects, and even ...   more »

By Rabbi Mayer Waxman -When the Jews in the wilderness told God “Naaseh v’nishmah” – We will do [what the Torah commands] and we will obey its lessons – they took it upon themselves to study and adhere to the Torah’s every dictate. This act of communal acceptance was, as Rashi’s commentary teaches us: k’ish echad b’layv echad – as one person with one heart and should have prompted us to view every Jew as an equal receiver in that holiest of inheritances from that day on. When it comes to inclusion of some Jews, though, it seems we’re still working on it. If the Torah that unifies and differentiates Jews from the rest of the world is an intellectually profound legacy, a resource to be studied in depth toward infinitely deepening levels of comprehension, what regard is there for those with limited intellectual capacity? How do we view the obligations of those within our people with developmental disabilities – these “special” Jews within the special nation?There are differing levels of analytical capability among people with disabilities just as there are among all people. Every Jew, no matter his or her ability to comprehend the Torah’s complexities, shares a place ...   more »

Etgar Lefkovits
In a highly unusual move, the Chief Rabbinate will consider on Thursday whether a long-planned Christian women's conference in Jerusalem organized by the Knesset's Christian Allies Caucus violates Jewish law.
The two day-conference, which is set to start on Sunday, has drawn the wrath of an Orthodox city councilwoman who is seeking to have it banned by the Rabbinate.
The councilor, Mina Fenton of the National Religious Party, is a prominent anti-missionary activist who has long tried to have the cross-party parliamentary lobby dismantled for working with Christian supporters of Israel, something she views as an anathema.
Last month, she teamed up with Lev Le'ahim, an anti-missionary group, and persuaded a three-member Rabbinate panel to declare that the conference was in violation of Jewish law due to allegations that groups taking part in the event were involved in Christian missionary activity.
That decision, which was taken without the knowledge of the chief rabbis, will be reviewed in Thursday afternoon's meeting, after protests by the chairman of the Knesset's Christian Allies Caucus, MK Benny Elon (National Union-National Religious Party), who was not present at the earlier meeting, officials said.
Elon, a modern Orthodox rabbi who has spearheaded Israel's relationship ...   more »

State Department spokesman urges restraint on all sides, but praises Jewish state for 'great restraint' in recent days and says it has right to respond to rocket attacks from Hamas. President Bush expresses his concern over Gaza violence
The United States said on Thursday that Israel had the right to defend itself against rocket attacks from the Palestinian terror group Hamas and praised the Jewish state for "great restraint" in recent days.  
Israeli air strikes on Thursday destroyed a Hamas security headquarters and a car carrying one of the group's top commanders. Israel had threatened a "severe" response to cross-border rocket attacks that have persisted despite a troop and settler pullout from Gaza in 2005.  
Gaza Violence  
Hamas members killed in IDF strikes / Ynet reporters   
IAF strikes a number of targets across Gaza Strip. Bodyguard of senior Interior Ministry official killed; commander of rocket manufacturing team critically hurt. Earlier, Hamas member killed on attack on group's headquarters   
US President George W Bush said during a press conference with British Prime Minister Tony Blair at the White House that he was concerned over the violence in Gaza. Blair said that the situation was very dangerous. ...   more »

A Palestinian from the Gaza Strip who works for the humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders has been arrested for allegedly plotting to assassinate Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) revealed Thursday.
Mazab Bashir, 25, from Deir el-Balah began working with Doctors Without Borders five years ago.
On April 19, he confessed during a Shin Bet interrogation that for months, he had been collecting intelligence on senior Israeli officials - including Olmert and a number of Knesset members.
Bashir met with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine in September 2006, and said that the assassination was meant to avenge the deaths of Palestinian civilians
Bashir also underwent arms training with the PFLP, and was picked to carry out the planned assassination.
He told the Shin Bet that he had collected information on the Internet to use to target MKs, but then realized that the MKs in question did not live in Jerusalem, the only Israeli city to which his permit granted him access.
According to the officials, after he realized that the security surrounding Olmert was impenetrable, Bashir decided in December 2006 to kill David Be'eri, head of the Elad organization, a group involved in ...   more »

By Shahar Ilan and Barak Ravid, Haaretz Correspondents and News Agencies  
The United States praised Israel on Thursday for showing "great restraint" in the face of new rocket attacks from the Palestinian group Hamas but added that Israel also has a right to defend itself.
Israel Air Force strikes on Thursday destroyed a Hamas security headquarters and a car carrying one of the group's top commanders. Israel had threatened a "severe" response to cross-border rocket attacks that have persisted despite a troop and settler pullout from Gaza in 2005.
State Department spokesman Sean McCormack urged restraint on all sides but said Israel had the right to respond to rocket attacks from Hamas, which he blamed for the latest upsurge in Palestinian violence. 
"Israel has the right to defend itself and it has exercised great restraint in the face of these rocket attacks," McCormack told reporters.
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice spoke earlier to Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas as well as Prime Minister Ehud Olmert about the latest violence.
"She wanted to talk to them directly and see how they saw the situation," said McCormack. "We certainly want to see a reduction or an end to the violence ...   more »

By MUNIR AHMAD
 
(AP) Head of All Pakistan Minorities Alliance Shahbaz Bhatti, left, shows a threatening letter which...
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 ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) - Christians in a Pakistani town beset by pro-Taliban militants sought government protection Wednesday, the eve of a deadline for them to convert to Islam or face violence.
About 500 Pakistani Christians in Charsadda, a town in the North West Frontier Province bordering Afghanistan, received letters earlier this month telling them to close their churches and convert by Thursday or be the target of "bomb explosions."
Several Christians, a tiny minority in the predominantly Muslim country, have fled town and others are living in fear, community leaders said.
Some complained that police were not taking the threat seriously.
"Police say someone is joking with us by writing these letters," Chaudhry Salim, a Charsadda Christian leader, said during a news conference in Islamabad. "They have deployed only two policemen at our churches ... this is the kind of security we are getting now."
Shahbaz Bhatti, a prominent Christian leader and head of the All Pakistan Minorities Alliance, ...   more »

By Joe Kovacs
Bibles could be wrapped with a warning label if authorities classify it as 'indecent'
Hundreds of citizens are urging a media watchdog to classify the Bible as "indecent" due to the high amount of sex and violence throughout the Scriptures, and could force the Good Book to be sealed in plastic with a warning label.
The Television and Entertainment Licensing Authority of Hong Kong said it received 1,406 complaints about biblical indecency by this afternoon.
The sudden surge of complaints comes in the wake of the launch of an anonymous website, TruthBible.net, which claims the Bible "made one tremble" due to its graphic content, including rape, incest and bestiality.
If authorities classify the book as "indecent," only people over 18 could purchase it, and the Scriptures would need to be sealed in a wrapper with a mandatory warning on the outside.
"Wow, another excuse to try and remove Jesus or anything about Him from the world, so to speak," said one poster on an Internet messageboard. "The Enemy is hard at work in these last days."
According to the Gospel Herald, the Chinese Christian News Service, the TruthBible site was created by an anonymous person introducing himself ...   more »

Although the constitutional "right to keep and bear arms" is often ridiculed as an archaic relic from America's past, the May issue of WND's acclaimed Whistleblower magazine shows why private gun ownership is actually more crucial to Americans' freedom and security today than at any time in history.  
Titled "FIREARMS AND FREEDOM: Why the Second Amendment is more important than ever," this eye-opening and spine-straightening Whistleblower edition documents how the contentious issue of gun rights – considered by many to be the linchpin of all Americans' rights – is dramatically coming to a head:
The string of horrendous mass murders in "gun-free zones" – most recently at Virginia Tech, and before that October's slaughter of Amish schoolgirls in rural Pennsylvania as well as similar massacres at other schools around the nation – has fueled a furious debate over gun control, "gun-free zones" and "lax gun laws."
Just like the Virginia Tech massacre, most violent crimes cannot be stopped by police, but only by citizens present during the commission of the crime. And research now shows conclusively that armed, law-abiding citizens have a huge impact on deterring and stopping violent criminal acts.
Meanwhile, with terror attacks up 25 percent worldwide ...   more »

The threat of a “coordinated, al Qaeda sponsored terrorist attack” against and within the United States is “extremely high,” stated one intelligence source interviewed yesterday by the Northeast Intelligence Network. In particular, there is a “higher than average concern right now, for the time period through the end of May,” including but not specific to the Memorial Day holiday in the U.S. The threat is for planned attacks “possibly like those we saw in the Madrid and London attacks,” a reference to the coordinated terrorist bomb blasts that hit Madrid’s commuter train system on March 11, 2004 and London's public transportation system on July 7, 2005 respectively.
This veteran official, speaking under the customary condition of anonymity, said that despite this growing concern among high-level intelligence officials, he knows of no plans to raise the color-coded threat level in the U.S., and added that American interests outside of the U.S. considered to be at higher risk are already on increased alert status. “The threat obviously lacks the required specificity but warrants increased vigilance inside the U.S. as well as within other [Western] countries.”
When asked what specific information is behind this increased concern, this official said that “there are several ...   more »

By Donna Anderson
Portland -- Raiders News Network -- This week, researchers at the University of Manchester said they had uncovered new evidence which firmly placed the origins of modern medicine in ancient Egypt and not Greece.
An article by Deborah Gabriel at Black Britain news said, "The researchers from the Knowledge Horizon Centre for Biomedical Egyptology (KNH) were examining ancient texts written on papyrus – made from the plant- which ancient Egyptians used to make scrolls. The medical papyri were written at least 3500 years ago, 1000 years before Hippocrates, who it is claimed was the father of medicine, was even born.
"The Egyptian papyri contain medical treatments and prescriptions used in ancient Egypt. Professor Rosalie David, Director of the KNH Centre told Black Britain: “The evidence we are finding with the plants is that they did have these very valid remedies from at least 1500BC and almost certainly these were copies of earlier papyri which were also the same, so I think you could put the founding of medical science back in the time of the periods in Egypt.”
"The papyri from ancient Egypt were discovered in the 19th century and translated from hieroglyphs into European languages, but ...   more »