By Rabbi Avraham Pam
A penetrating essay on the requirements — and limitations — of faith and their real-life, political applications
“It happened at the end of two years.”                         —   Genesis 41:1
 The Midrash (Bereishis Rabbah 89:3) comments on this verse: ''Praiseworthy is the man who has made the Divine his trust — this is Joseph — and turned not to the arrogant (Psalms 40:5) — because Joseph told the wine butler, Remember me . . . and mention me to Pharaoh (Genesis 40:14), two years were added to his term in prison.'
Much has been written about this Midrash, which seems to contradict itself. Was Joseph a baal bitachon (lit., master of trust in the Divine) or not? If he is the embodiment of the verse of Psalms praising the man who has made the Divine his trust, why did he display a lack of it by soliciting the help of the wine butler?
This issue can be understood through a clarification of what faith is and what it is not.
The Talmud (Bava Basra 21b) discusses the question of "business infringement", when a person with an established mill or other business can prohibit someone else from opening a ...   more »

Israeli authorities have placed several signs near the Atarot area in northern Jerusalem recently warning travelers, “You are entering territory under the control of the Palestinian Authority.  Israelis are absolutely forbidden to enter!”  Approximately 25,000 residents of Jerusalem, some of them Israeli citizens, live in the areas now designated as PA territory.
Jerusalem Forum chairman Aryeh King said Wednesday that approximately 1,200 dunams of property owned by Jews were located beyond the signs.  The government violated laws regarding Jerusalem by putting up the signs, King said.  The signs prove the government is acting to make its policy of splitting Jerusalem a reality, he said.
King said he plans to lead a tour on Thursday in areas that fall within the municipal boundaries of Jerusalem but are in practice controlled by the Palestinian Authority.  The tour will begin at the Kalandia checkpoint at 12 p.m. and end in the biblical village of Mitzpa.
Original Source   more »

The Kadima party's Knesset representatives held a meeting Monday to discuss the status of Jerusalem and Jerusalem's place in the party platform. Eleven Kadima MKs took part in the discussion, which took place while Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is visiting Japan. No ministers attended the talks.
Most of the MKs in attendance expressed support for the position that Jerusalem must remain united. The Kadima platform includes "guarding united Jerusalem as the capital of Israel" and clearly opposes splitting the city, according to the MKs.
"When the public elected us," said MK David Tal, "it did not know that we plan to make concessions in Jerusalem." Tal observed that in the year 2000, even PLO arch-terrorist Yasser Arafat was afraid to compromise the Arab position on Jerusalem, regardless of the concessions offered by then-Prime Minister Ehud Barak.
"Ministers do not determine the activities of the faction leadership. We also have a position, and today we are making our stance clear," said MK Eli Aflalo, the chairman of the Kadima party Knesset faction. "It is imperative that Olmert and the ministers know about the position we are formulating." Aflalo and MK Zeev Elkin called for the faction meeting following reports that party ...   more »

Over 40 rockets fired from Gaza on Wednesday, hitting factories, homes and a hospital. Sapir College Student Union who lost peer slam prime minister for failing to stop attacks while Meretz party calls for dialogue with Hamas. Olmert, still in Japan, briefed by defense minister on situation
Ynet reporters
Over 40 rockets were fired by Palestinian groups from the northern Gaza Strip towards Israel on Wednesday afternoon. During one of the barrages an Israeli college student was killed after a rocket landed in a parking lot adjacent to the Sapir College campus. Medics alerted to the scene also treated two more Israelis for minor wounds.
PM in Tokyo
Earlier in the day a rocket hit a poultry factory in an industrial zone and a several hours later a rocket struck just outside a Carlsberg beer facility. Several rockets landed in the city of Ashkelon, with one rocket landing near the Barzilai hospital's helicopter pad. One man was wounded from a rocket that landed in a residential street in the city. 
Hamas has claimed responsibility for Wednesday's rocket barrages.
MK David Tal (Kadima) said in response to the deadly attack that Israel must be resolute in its response. "I think we're ...   more »

PROTESTANTS are on the verge of becoming a minority in the United States, a country they helped to found, as immigration reshapes the religious landscape and people change creed or drop religion altogether.
"The number of Americans who report that they are members of Protestant denominations now stands at barely 51 per cent," compared to nearly two-thirds of the population in the 1960s, the first US Religious Landscape Survey by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life said.
"The proportion of the population that is Protestant has declined markedly in recent decades, while the proportion of the population that is not affiliated with any particular religion has increased significantly,'' the survey, which interviewed 35,000 adult Americans, showed.
The declining share of the US religious market that is held by Protestantism would likely impact on US culture and politics, John Greene, a senior fellow at Pew, told reporters.
Immigration has helped Roman Catholicism hold steady in its share of the US religious market, despite the faith having one of the highest attrition rates among adherents.
Around one-third of the survey respondents who said they were raised Catholic no longer describe themselves as Catholic.
But Catholics still make up around 25 ...   more »

In a ceremony that received virtually no attention in the American media, the United States and Canada signed a military agreement Feb. 14 allowing the armed forces from one nation to support the armed forces of the other nation during a domestic civil emergency, even one that does not involve a cross-border crisis.
U.S. Air Force Gen. Gene Renuart, commander of USNORTHCOM, signs agreement Feb. 14, 2008, with Canadian Air Force Lt. Gen. Marc Dumais, commander of Canada Command (USNORTHCOM photo)
The agreement, defined as a Civil Assistance Plan, was not submitted to Congress for approval, nor did Congress pass any law or treaty specifically authorizing this military agreement to combine the operations of the armed forces of the United States and Canada in the event of a wide range of domestic civil disturbances ranging from violent storms, to health epidemics, to civil riots or terrorist attacks.
In Canada, the agreement paving the way for the militaries of the U.S. and Canada to cross each other's borders to fight domestic emergencies was not announced either by the Harper government or the Canadian military, prompting sharp protest.
"It's kind of a trend when it comes to issues of Canada-U.S. relations and ...   more »

By Elbridge Colby - The recent killing of Hezbollah's Imad Mughniyah, after a quarter-century of pursuit, was met by a mixture of applause and shrugs. It also begged a bigger question: How important is it to take out key terrorists — such as Osama bin Laden?
Indeed, perhaps spurred on by failure, a sense that capturing or killing bin Laden is unimportant appears to be taking hold in influential quarters. In a recent article in the New Yorker, former Deputy Director of Central Intelligence John McLaughlin reported the U.S. "is not particularly looking for him." And the FBI's intelligence chief, Wayne Murphy, wondered "if the benefits of getting bin Laden balance out," confessing that he doesn't "know if it buys us anything." Last year, Army Chief of Staff Peter Schoomaker questioned whether capturing or killing bin Laden is "all that important, frankly," while renowned counterterrorism expert Bruce Hoffman argued that "we need to drop our preoccupation with" him.
Though the hunt for bin Laden continues, as evidenced by the recent reported killing of Abu Laith al-Libi, energy for the search is likely dissipating for several valid reasons: frustration with not capturing bin Laden and a concomitant desire to play down ...   more »

Allie Martin -
Janice Crouse, a senior fellow with Concerned Women for America, says it's disturbing that many young people in evangelical churches are experimenting with the Wiccan religion. Church leaders and Christian parents, she warns, must be ready to counter that growing interest among their youth.  
Crouse cites an article in Religion Journal which said youth pastors in the Southern Baptist Convention were worried about large numbers of evangelicals taking part in Wicca, a religion that involves nature worship, stresses moral autonomy, and includes remedies and spells -- beliefs that Crouse points out are distinctly different from orthodox Christianity, not to mention incompatible with the Bible. 
"... Wiccans believe in moral autonomy -- [that] 'nobody can tell me what to do.' And I think particularly with young people ... that's a very desirable thing; they don't want the church telling them that there are boundaries, [that] there are things that they can't do," she explains. "Another one is that they don't believe in having authorities beyond human constructs; that we as individuals have the responsibility to shape our own beliefs and there's no evil beyond that." 
Crouse, who directs Concerned Women for America's Beverly LaHaye Institute, says the ...   more »

Allie Martin
A California pastor is calling a new study on religious affiliation indicative of a faith deficit facing the nation.
According to the Pew study, the number of Americans who say they are ot affiliated with any religion is growing. Study results found that 44 percent of adults have left the denomination of their childhood for another denomination, another faith, or no faith at all. 
Phil Munsey is pastor of Life Church in Mission Viejo, California and author of Legacy Now. Munsey believes Christian parents should leave a "legacy of faith."
"... [W]hat do you believe, what do you believe about God in your life? Because what you believe is what you leave," he explains. "And I think a lot of people don't understand that we have a responsibility to teach our children well ...." 
Munsey also believes many churches in America have forgotten their primary mission. He says some churches need to pay attention to the "fruit" of their members and make sure that they promote leaving a strong legacy. Munsey says focusing on leaving a legacy will help people take their faith to the next level. 
According to the Pew Study, the United States is on the ...   more »

Serial killer Steve Wright was caught largely through DNA samples
We seem to be busily building the world's first popular police state.
Opinion polls show high levels of support for identity cards, surveillance cameras, detention without trial - and now a national DNA database covering every individual, including those who have never had any dealings with the police.
Given the growing fear of crime, such attitudes are not surprising. Events in the past week have encouraged them further. Both Suffolk serial killer Steve Wright and Mark Dixie, murderer of Sally Anne Bowman, were caught largely through DNA samples. Police officers and victims' relatives want the change. The case seems open and shut.
Britain already has the world's largest DNA database. Anyone arrested in England and Wales is compelled to submit to a DNA swab and the record is kept whether he is convicted or not. In Scotland this rule is restricted to violent and sex offenders, and then for only three years unless an extension is applied for.
But the operation of the scheme south of the Border has led to the beginning of serious doubts. As so often with measures aimed at greater security, people are far less enthusiastic ...   more »

Chuck Baldwin Chuck Baldwin
"And the Jews' passover was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem, And found in the temple those that sold oxen and sheep and doves, and the changers of money sitting: And when he had made a scourge of small cords, he drove them all out of the temple, and the sheep, and the oxen; and poured out the changers' money, and overthrew the tables." John 2:13-15 (KJV)
The moneychangers of Jesus' day were the equivalent of the international bankers of our day. With the consent and approbation of the Jewish leaders, these bankers set up shop in the Temple. Their purpose was to exchange whatever currency the Jewish worshipper brought with him or her into Jewish currency, which would then be used to purchase whatever sacrifice the worshipper required. Of course, the exchange rates benefited only the bankers and Jewish leaders (and Caesar, who collected a tax on the exchange, of course). For everyone else, the system was nothing more than legalized extortion.
When Jesus saw what the bankers were doing, He was incensed. And throughout the Gospel narratives, this is the only occasion where Jesus is recorded as resorting to violence. He made ...   more »