SHAKEN, BUT, NOT FORSAKEN (one hopes and prays)....

On this ninth day of ELUL the SHOFAR will sound briefly at SHACHARITH, reminding us that ROSH HASHANNAH is only three weeks away, even as it is three weeks since my last posting to this site. This three-week posting-lag has in common that there has been virtually nothing in the news about Gilad Shalit, Ehud Goldwasser, or Eldad Regev. The world races quickly towards the starting gate of ROSH HASHANNAH. Have our three soldiers been forgotten and left behind? Within the past forty-eight hours a school in SDEROT suffered a direct hit from a QASSAM rocket only two weeks before school starts. No one was hurt, fortunately, this time. In the past three weeks these QASSAM gifts from GAZA have steadily "arrived", shall we say "airway, parcel-post delivery"? This, despite IDF activities in GAZA. With each QASSAM do we think of our three missing soldiers? Are not these two matters -- our three missing soldiers, and the rockets hitting especially Sderot -- are not these two matters ONE, as are the leg and the roof/leg creating the letter BETH ??

HAS ANYBODY SEEN OUR THREE MISSING SOLDIERS?

We enter Shabbath once again without Gilad Shalit, Eldad Regev, and Ehud Goldwasser. We have heard nothing this week of Gilad Shalit. Of Eldad and Ehud, we have heard from an anonymous German that one might be alive and one might be dead. Nasrallah of Hebollah has communicated his extortion demands to the French and advised the French to reveal no details. The Israeli government is bargaining to give away much of Israel; meanwhile an apartment complex for housing Holy Jews is bankrupt and Jews are are suing eachother. Israel and Egypt and Saudi Arabia are to be recipients of huge increases in military assistance from the USA, including what amounts to a new air force for Saudi Arabia. Shimon Peres, Tony Blair, Condoleeza Rice, and Tzipi Livni have huge smiles on their faces. All of these billions of dollars for blood! What about our three missing soldiers....