Rabbeinu's concentration while learning or davening was so intense that he became merged as one with the sefer before him and anything happening around him belonged to a world of another time and place, unnoticed by him completely.

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The Jews of Libya PART II The Jews of Libya were never a large community, numbering no more than 38,000 at the largest, just before almost 90 percent left for Eretz Yisroel before Libya attained independence in January, 1952. Yet it is an ancient community and there is evidence of Jewish settlement there dating to the time of the Second Beis Hamikdash.

Opinion and Comment Palestinian Incitement Must Stop by Mordecai Plaut Now that the nature of Arafat and the Palestinian society that he built has become exposed to the world, the importance of many of the neglected paragraphs of the original Oslo agreements becomes painfully evident. Even many elements of the Israeli Left -- apparently the last to cling to the hopes raised in Norway almost nine years ago -- are beginning to admit that the constant, vicious incitement against Israelis and Jews that is practiced throughout the Palestinian Authority is a key factor in the constant tension and now escalating violence against us.

"To the Conductor: A Psalm" "I have something interesting to show you," said the doctor, and withdrew a large photograph from his briefcase. "Do you know what this is? It is a photo of an original cell from which a living creature develops. It was taken by a very delicate instrument capable of a forty-thousand-to-one enlargement. Can you note here, on the side of the cell, a certain swelling that is divided by a split of sorts?