By Rabbi Shraga Simmons
The High Holidays are all about personal growth. Here are key areas that will make the greatest difference in building overall spiritual health.
"The world stands on three things: On Torah, on the service [of God], and on acts of kindness." (Talmud - Avot 1:2)A chair or table needs at least three legs to stand on. In the spiritual world, this is true as well. Every human being has three primary relationships in life: with yourself, with God and with others. Success and balance is required in all three.Rosh Hashana is the time for getting our lives in order, correcting our mistakes, and making a plan for the future. With that in mind, here's how these three pillars translate to our life today:
Torah = Pursuit of Wisdom
Service of God = Spiritual Connection
Kindness = KindnessPURSUIT OF WISDOMTo get started on your High Holiday growth program, try asking yourself some of the following questions, relating to "pursuit of wisdom:"
When I read or watch TV, is the content something that will make me a better person?
Do I regularly waste time?
Have I clearly identified a set of life-long priorities?
What am I afraid of? ...   more »

by Hillel Fendel -(IsraelNN.com) Thrown out of Gush Katif two years ago with the promise that their Jordan Valley community would be built speedily, the people of Shirat HaYam are still waiting - but no longer passively.The final permits for their designated new home community of Maskiyot in the Jordan Valley have not yet arrived, and the residents are planning to make the move unilaterally within the coming weeks.  "How long can we continue to hear 'very soon' and 'any day now'" says Shirat HaYam secretariat head Yossi Hazut.  "We've been waiting for nearly two years, and if we don't make a move, it can go on for another two years."     Among the 21 Gush Katif communities destroyed in Ariel Sharon's Disengagement/expulsion plan, Shirat HaYam - lit., the Song of the Sea - has a special place in the hearts of many.  Its location literally on the shore of the Mediterranean Sea, its founding in response to the deadly Kfar Darom bus bombing, and its strengthening in response to the murder of one of its founders at the hands of terrorists - these are all part of its uniqueness.     Several of the 21 families of Shirat Hayam moved directly to ...   more »

The redeployment of commando units close to Israeli lines on the slopes of Mt Hermon has raised temperatures in Israel. Military sources comment that these Syrian units, especially trained for cross-border raids, are now in position to make a grab for Israeli territory or a surprise attack on the Israeli army position at the meeting point of the Israel, Syria and Lebanese borders. To the south, Syrian units are reported by our sources as having moved a large fleet of bulldozers to the Golan. They are busy building another line of fortifications around their “pita” disposition (which forms a flat semicircle like pita) and digging new anti-tank trenches. The IDF is likewise building fortifications on the Israeli side of the Golan Heights, while also deepening and extending protective trenches. A series of ramps has been constructed for the use of tanks.Some western observers say Israel’s war preparations are more extensive than those of the Syrian army. At the same time, both are taking the utmost care to avoid the slightest move that might be interpreted as crossing the red line between fortifying and posing to spring into action. The Syrian army has cancelled its summer war game for the first ...   more »

Eight Baghdad Jews who represent the remnants of that city's Jewish community are facing security threats so grave that they need to flee the country, the community's caretaker, Canon Andrew White, told The Jerusalem Post from London on Tuesday.
According to White, who himself has fled from Baghdad due to terrorist threats, the situation has become dire for the 2,600-year-old community, which only 100 years ago made up a third of Baghdad's population.
Ever since sectarian violence in the capital first forced the community to assume a low profile, White, who suffers from multiple sclerosis, has taken on the role of community keeper, bringing the families food, money and medicine. He has also been actively trying to increase awareness of their plight abroad, petitioning for diplomatic and humanitarian support in America and Europe.
White is the vicar of St. George's Anglican Church in the US Embassy in Baghdad, where he has been posted since a 1998 sanction by Saddam Hussein gave him permission to serve the church. He said "violent incidents" had been recorded against the eight Jews. He also said they were constantly threatened by looming violence, given that they reside beyond the heavily guarded Green Zone.
"The time ...   more »

By Aaron Klein
RAMALLAH – United States-run programs that train militias from Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah organization have been utilized to kill Jews and were instrumental in the "success" of the Palestinian intifada that began in 2000, a senior Fatah militant trained by the U.S. told WND.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas
"I do not think that the operations of the Palestinian resistance would have been so successful and would have killed more than 1,000 Israelis since 2000 and defeated the Israelis in Gaza without these [American] trainings," said Abu Yousuf, a senior officer of Abbas' Force 17 Presidential Guard unit in Ramallah.
The U.S. has long run training programs at a base in the West Bank city of Jericho for members of Force 17, which serves as de facto police units in the West Bank, and for the Palestinian Preventative Security Services, another major Fatah security force.
This weekend diplomatic security officials announced the State Department will begin training Force 17 again this year in an effort to bolster Abbas against Hamas, which took over the Gaza Strip in June when the terror group easily defeated U.S.-backed Fatah forces in the territory.
Under an agreement signed this ...   more »

President avoids question, ridicules 'conspiracy theorists' who believe it
The leaders of the United States, Canada and Mexico conferred over the Security and Prosperity Partnership
MONTEBELLO, Quebec – President Bush today sidestepped a direct question about whether he'd be willing to categorically deny there is a plan to create the North American Union.
Instead, he ridiculed those who believe that is taking place as conspiracy theorists.
The exchange came at a news conference held by Bush, Mexico's President Felipe Calderon, and Canada's Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who met at a resort in the rural woods outside of Ottawa, Quebec, to discuss their latest work on the Security and Prosperity Partnership.
After the trio presented their prepared statement about the SPP, several reporters who had been selected in advance were allowed to ask questions.
When it came time for a question from a Fox News reporter, Bush was asked if he would be willing to categorically deny that there is a plan to create a North American Union, or that there are plans to create NAFTA Superhighways.
(Story continues below)
"As you three leaders meet here, there are a growing number of people in each of your countries who have expressed ...   more »

Tuesday August 21 (Foodconsumer.org) -- Common viral infections may be at least partially responsible for the obesity epidemic sweeping through the United States and other countries, according to U.S. scientists, who reported at the 234th national meeting of the American Chemical Society that a gene in a common virus appears to promote obesity.
laboratory studies led by Magdalena Pasarica from the Louisiana State University system and colleagues showed that human adenovirus-36 (Ad-36), an agent that has long been recognized as a cause of respiratory and eye infections in humans, can turn adult stem cells into fat cells.
"We're not saying that a virus is the only cause of obesity, but this study provides stronger evidence that some obesity cases may involve viral infections," said Magdalena Pasarica, M.D., Ph.D., the study presenter.
"Not all infected people will develop obesity," she noted. "We would ultimately like to identify the underlying factors that predispose some obese people to develop this virus and eventually find a way to treat it."
An early epidemiologic study led by Nikhil Dhurandhar, Ph.D. from Pennington Biomedical Research Center at the LSUS linked a virus to human obesity for the first time, showing that the Ad-36 is more commonly ...   more »

The European Union has strongly criticised death penalties carried out in Texas, calling on its authorities to halt the 400th execution in the US state.
In a statement released on Tuesday (21 August), the Portuguese EU presidency said the bloc viewed with "great regret" the upcoming executions and urged Texas Governor Rick Perry to halt them and consider a moratorium on the death penalty.
"We believe that elimination of the death penalty is fundamental to the protection of human dignity, and to the progressive development of human rights. We further consider this punishment to be cruel and inhumane," Lisbon stated on behalf of the EU.
"There is no evidence to suggest that the use of the death penalty serves as a deterrent against violent crime and the irreversibility of the punishment means that miscarriages of justice - which are inevitable in all legal systems – cannot be redressed."
On Wednesday the 400 mark since capital punishment was reintroduced in Texas in 1976 is due to be reached with the execution of 32-year old Johnny Ray Conner for killing a grocery store clerk in 1998.
Commenting on the EU's appeal to call off his death sentence, Governor Perry replied that it ...   more »

Sen. Joe Lieberman says the great majority of foreign fighters who become suicide bombers in Iraq enter the country from Syria – and most arrive there by landing in the Syrian capital at Damascus International Airport.
In an opinion piece for the Wall Street Journal, Lieberman asserts that cutting off the flow of terrorists traveling through Damascus is a key to success in Iraq.
"Al-Qaida in Iraq is sustained by a transnational network of facilitators and human smugglers, who replenish its supply of suicide bombers – approximately 60 to 80 Islamist extremists, recruited every month from across the Middle East, North Africa and Europe, and sent to meet their al-Qaida handlers in Syria, from where they are taken to Iraq to blow themselves up to kill countless others,” Lieberman writes.
Up to 80 percent of those extremists enter Iraq via Syria, according to Lieberman, "because of the permissive environment for terrorism that the Syrian government has fostered.”
Most U.S. intelligence estimates are that the overwhelming majority of foreign fighters reach Syria "by flying into Damascus International Airport, making the airport the central hub of al-Qaida travel in the Middle East, and the most vulnerable chokepoint in al-Qaida’s war against Iraq ...   more »

A church whose pastor is a leader in the local pro-life efforts has earned an Internal Revenue Service demand for an audit of the organization's books by posting its biblically mandated support for life on its marquee.
The IRS demand arrived recently for Pastor Mark Holick and the Spirit One Christian Center at which he serves in Wichita, Kan., and he says it's a result of the church's work against abortion in a city that features one of the world's premiere late-term abortionists, George Tiller.
"He not only kills late-term babies but, if parents so desire, he will baptize the babies before he burns them to ashes in his (on premises) incinerator," the church statement said of Tiller.
Tiller's political connections in Kansas have been documented by Operation Rescue, a pro-life organization, and reported by WND.
Holick said local Christian ministries have been effective in bringing an end to the Wichita abortion industry, leaving only Tiller's abortion clinic operating. Now he's also facing criminal charges alleging he failed to follow state law in performing those procedures.
But Holick said the message he's getting is straightforward: "Don't touch abortion – if you do, we will come after you!"
"An examination of ...   more »