by Rabbi Boruch Leff It is wrong to live by rote. Living as mechanical robots contradicts spiritual growth. We need to know why we are Jewish and why we believe what we believe.Every now and then, it behooves us to spend time and effort comprehending and cementing our belief in Torah and Judaism. Parshat Behar affords us such an opportunity.The Torah portion of Behar begins with:"God spoke to Moshe at Mount Sinai, saying..." (Vayikra 25:1)It then describes the laws of shemitta, letting the land lie fallow during the sabbatical year. Rashi there asks the obvious question: Usually, God introduces a set of laws with a statement of His speaking to Moshe without mentioning where Moshe heard it. Why here does the verse say that God spoke these words to Moshe at Mount Sinai? Besides, weren't all the laws stated at Sinai?Rashi answers that this unique method of writing teaches us that just as all of the laws of the sabbatical year were said at Sinai, so too, all of the Torah's laws, in all detail, were said at Sinai.But the question remains, just re-framed: Why then were the laws of Shemitta chosen to teach this concept? Couldn't God ...   more »

"The Christian world and all those who care about safeguarding the Temple Mount must immediately join us in our efforts to protect the holy site and demand that the Israeli government stop the Waqf construction," prominent, third-generation Temple Mount archaeologist Eilat Mazar said. Trench dug by Islamic keepers of Temple Mount
"The Temple Mount is important to people of all religions. Now is the time to act before more antiquities are erased," said Mazar, a senior fellow at Israel's Shalem Center and member of the Public Committee for Prevention of the Destruction of Antiquities on Temple Mount.
Mazar's much-discussed discovery in the City of David, a neighborhood just south of Jerusalem's Old City Walls, is a massive building that dates to the 10th century BC is believed is the remains of the palace of the biblical King David, the second leader of a united Kingdom of Israel, who ruled from around 1005 to 965 B.C.
This weekend, Islamic authorities using heavy machinery to dig on the Temple Mount were caught red-handed by WND destroying Temple-era antiquities and the purported outer wall of the Second Jewish Temple.
Last month, they were given permission by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to use ...   more »

Many Israelis are asking today, 'What does the Lord want from us?' What the Lord is looking for today in His people is one thing – holiness! What the Lord is looking for in His people has not changed since the day He chose us to be His people. 
You shall be unto Me a kingdom of priests, and a holy nation. These are the words which thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel. Exodus 19:6
Our G-d chose us and commanded us to be a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. Yet, anyone living in Israel today recognizes that we are a nation that has turned away from our G-d and His covenant. We have not harkened to His voice, and we have turned away from the purpose for which He has chosen us.
Our G-d not only called us to be a kingdom of priests, He called us to be His witnesses to the nations and peoples of the earth.
Ye are My witnesses, saith the LORD, and My servant whom I have chosen; that ye may know and believe Me, and understand that I am He; before Me there was no G-d formed, neither shall ...   more »

By Aaron Klein
JERUSALEM – Islamic authorities using heavy machinery to dig on the Temple Mount – Judaism's holiest site – have been caught red-handed destroying Temple-era antiquities and what's believed to be a section of an outer wall of the Second Jewish Temple.
WND today obtained a photograph of a massive trench the Waqf, the Muslim custodians of the Temple Mount, have been blasting around the periphery of the holy site purportedly to replace 40-year-old electrical cables for mosques on the Mount. The Waqf has steadfastly denied they found or destroyed any Jewish antiquities during their dig.
Possible carved stone from Jewish Temple-era antiquity exposed by digging at Temple Mount in Jerusalem
In view in the picture, which was obtained in conjunction with Israel's Temple Institute, are concrete slabs broken by Waqf bulldozers and what appears to be a chopped up carved stone from Jewish Temple-era antiquity.
Eilat Mazar, considered one of the most prominent Temple Mount archaeologists, analyzed the photo and told WND the damaged stone displays elements of the second Temple era and might be part of a Jewish Temple wall Israeli archeologists charge the Waqf found and has been attempting to destroy. If authenticated, the wall ...   more »

by Hana Levi Julian and Alex Traiman(IsraelNN.com) A large trench being dug on the Temple Mount is destroying a never before uncovered section of the outer wall of the Second Temple. The construction is being supervised by the Wakf—the Muslim Authority acting as custodians to the Temple Mount.
Archeologists have been calling for construction to halt on the trench, which is approximately 1,300 feet long and five feet deep.  The Wakf claims the trench is being dug to replace 40-year-old electrical cables for nearby mosques.
New photos of construction debris from the Temple Mount show carved stones casually dumped in a pile that appear to be a section of the outer wall of the Second Temple, according to archaeologist Eilat Mazar. 
According to Rabbi Chaim Richman, International Director of the Temple Institute, the Wakf is intentionally digging in areas where "undoubtedly the Temple once stood."  "For the first time since the Temple's destruction, a section of the Temple Wall itself has been exposed," Richman said.  "And the Wakf under the guise of laying down electrical pipes has dug a trench, destroying the most important holy artifact ever found to date."
Richman contends that the Temple remains are being "purposely destroyed ...   more »

by Hillel Fendel
(IsraelNN.com) Archaeologists digging south of Beit She'an in the Jordan Valley have uncovered, for the first time ever, beehives from the period of Israel's kings.
The dig, at Tel Rehov, located between the religious Kibbutzim Sdei Eliyahu and Ein HaNetziv, is being supervised by archaeologist Amichai Mazar of Hebrew University.  Mazar is a nephew of the famed archaeologist Binyamin Mazar, whose archaeologist daughter, Dr. Eilat Mazar, is a member of the Committee to Prevent the Destruction of Temple Mount Antiquities.The tel - a heap of ancient ruins from different periods, one on top of another - at Rehov is twice the size of Tel Megiddo, and the excavation team has found there rich destruction layers. Among the finds there were hundreds of restorable vessels, figurines, cult stands and the only beehives ever found in an excavation of an Iron Age site. 
The discovery of the beehives was made this past summer, and "it is the earliest beehive complex currently known," Prof. Mazar says. "It is dated to the 10th–9th centuries B.C.E." - around the time of King Solomon.
The beehive complex was found to contain three rows of beehives, for a total of 30, and another 70 ...   more »

 .Rockets fall outside town at the same time thousands of children were making their way to kindergartens and schools. 'My daughter called me terrified and hysteric,' one mother says, 'our children are studying under fire'
Shmulik Hadad
While thousands of children were making their way to school Monday morning, the Color Red alert was heard in Sderot, followed by two loud explosions. Two Qassam rockets landed outside of town, causing no injuries or damage.  
Another rocket landed near a kindergarten in town shortly after; several people suffered shock and a house was damaged.  
A mother of a child who attends the kindergarten said: "They called my and said that a rocket landed near the facility. I ran there and found all the children terrified and in tears. The kindergarten teachers tried to calm them."
Another rocket landed later just outside Sderot, causing no injuries or damages. 
Earlier, Palestinian gunmen fired three rockets from northern Gaza; the Qassams landed in open fields near Sderot. No one was injured and no damage was caused in this attack as well.  
An overall of seven rockets hit the southern town during the morning hours.  
Panic and hysteria
Sderot residents told ...   more »

Christian Couple Forced to Leave Israel after 20 Years
Messianic legal adviser: "It’s a negative precedent. This is not something that has been done. It seems to me unreasonable the decision that was made."
By Nicole Jansezian
Ron Cantrell was living out his calling to stand by the Jewish people in Israel when on June 11, 2003 he was at the scene of a suicide bombing that killed 18 people on a bus on Jaffa Road.
“Experiencing terrorism in such a personal way only confirmed my resolve and commitment to the Jewish nation of Israel,” Cantrell wrote on his website.
Four years later, however, Israel’s Ministry of Interior, exercising its “ultimate discretion,” refused the Cantrell’s application to live in Israel and instead ordered them to leave the Land after having been here for more than 20 years.
Original Source
   more »

No 'pinprick strikes' – 1,200 targets ID'd for massive attack on nuke sites
The Pentagon has formulated a "three-day blitz" plan to annihilate Iran's military that targets 1,200 sites, including Tehran's nuclear facilities, in order to render its military incapable of conducting offensive, defensive or retaliatory missions.
According to the London Sunday Times, citing Alexis Debat, director of terrorism and national security at the Nixon Center, the Pentagon has rejected a strategy of "pinprick strikes" against Iran's nuclear facilities.
"They're about taking out the entire Iranian military," Debat said.
Despite a report last week by the International Atomic Energy Agency of "significant" cooperation by Iran over its nuclear program, Washington sees only continued stalling by the Islamic regime, reports the Times.
President Bush increased his rhetoric against Iran's nuclear program last week, saying Tehran had put the Mideast "under the shadow of a nuclear holocaust" and indicated action would be taken against the program "before it is too late."
According to a Times source close to the Bush administration, the president's recent statements were meant as "a message to a number of audiences" – Iran and the U.N. Security Council.
"A number of nuclear sites have not even been visited ...   more »

Here come Chinese containers to Great White North
By Jerome R. Corsi
An agreement announced by Transport Canada last month advances toward reality the massive planning that has been done to develop the NAFTA Superhighway in Canada.
A July 30 press release on the website of Transport Canada, the Canadian government's counterpart to the U.S. Department of Transportation, announced the signing of a memorandum of understanding, or MOU, between the governments of Canada and the provinces of Ontario and Quebec to develop the "Continental Gateway and Trade Corridor."
The memorandum noted Ontario and Quebec are "vital contributors to the Canadian economy representing approximately 60 percent of Canada's exports and gross domestic product."
"The main objective of this MOU," the document continued, "is to establish this commercial gateway and trade corridor as a strategic, integrated and globally competitive transportation system that supports the movement of international trade."
The memorandum makes clear that the billions of dollars in toll-road highway construction and infrastructure development contemplated will be financed by private investors, including foreign investment consortia, under the model of "public-private partnerships," or PPPs.
The Ontario-Quebec segment of the Canadian Continental Gateway and Trade Corridor derives from a National Policy Framework for Strategic ...   more »

Hillary Clinton and Norman Hsu
A shady Chinese megadonor to Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign has close ties to an aerospace mogul accused of placing his business interests before national security by sharing missile secrets with Beijing during the Clinton administration.
Before his forced resignation last week, Norman Yuan Yuen Hsu sat on the board of trustees of the liberal New School university in New York with former Loral Corp. head Bernard L. Schwartz, who was allowed to transfer restricted satellite and missile technology to a People's Liberation Army front after contributing a record amount of cash to President Clinton's 1996 campaign.
The New School has removed Hsu's name from its list of trustees. But the old list showing both Hsu and Schwartz is still captured on Google's cache files. Here is the screen shot.
Schwartz, vice chairman of the New School board, was among officials who introduced Hsu to the school's administration, WND has learned.
Hillary Clinton and Bernard Schwartz
Last November, Schwartz and Hsu chaired a New School banquet at the Mandarin Oriental in New York which featured Sen. Clinton as keynote speaker. Clinton steered a $1 million federal grant to the college.
More recently, Schwartz and Hsu (pronounced ...   more »

Twelve Russian strategic bombers will take part in an Arctic exercise on Monday and Tuesday including tactical launches of cruise missiles, an air force spokesman said.
He did not specify where the exercise was taking place but said TU-95MC bombers would take off from five air bases stretching from the Volga River city of Engels to Anadyr on the Chukotka Peninsula overlooking the United States.
"The planes will also practice mid-air refuelling from Il-78 transport planes," the spokesman said.
Last month, President Vladimir Putin ordered Russia's air force to resume long-range patrols by the strategic bombers, abandoned since the end of the Cold War.
In line with his assertive foreign policy and efforts to build up the Russian armed forces, Putin has said the resumption of patrols is needed to guarantee national security.
The air force exercise also follows a widely advertised scientific expedition to the North Pole last month with the task of finding justification for Russia's claims for a bigger slice of the Arctic zone, believed to have rich mineral resources.
Original Source



   more »

China's military successfully hacked into the Pentagon's computer network, raising fears it could disrupt the US defence department's systems, the Financial Times reported Tuesday.
The Chinese military's cyber attack was carried out in June following months of efforts, the London-based newspaper said, citing unnamed current and former US officials.
While the Pentagon declined to say who was behind the hacking, which led to the shutdown of a computer system serving the office of Defence Secretary Robert Gates, officials told the paper it was China's People's Liberation Army.
"The PLA has demonstrated the ability to conduct attacks that disable our system," the paper quoted a former US official as saying.
One senior US official reportedly said the Pentagon had pinpointed the exact origin of the attack.
The paper quoted another person familiar with the event as saying there was a "very high level of confidence... trending towards total certainty" that the PLA was responsible.
The paper said both the US and Chinese militaries were widely assumed to conduct computer espionage on each other.
"But US officials said the penetration in June raised concerns to a new level because of fears that China had shown it could disrupt systems at critical times," ...   more »