With 13 dead, 30 wounded and a Muslim officer who shouted 'Allahu Akbar' as he opened fire on them, we must do three things: first, most importantly, we must care for the injured, support their families, and comfort the mourners. Second, we must fight all efforts to use this tragedy to cast aspersions upon an entire tradition and all of its followers. And third, we, and more importantly those followers, must ask tough questions about the relationship between the faith which the shooter, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, followed and the actions which he took.

The human issues really are job one. And the test of that commitment will be in the way which people not only reach out to the families of the victims, but also to the Hasan family as well. They too, by all accounts, are victims. There is no evidence that they supported Maj. Hasan in his terrorist attack, and they are among the most vulnerable to any potential backlash which may occur. While the military and the FBI will certainly continue to investigate all aspects of this case, including Hasan's family, until we know otherwise, they too deserve our compassion and concern.

Starting this week, millions of New Yorkers will be told, 'yes' as adds begin appearing in New York City subways which tell them so. Following past campaigns in Dallas, Chicago and other locations around the nation this advertising campaign for Greg Epstein's book of the same name, is clearly meant to provoke, not educate. And that is truly a shame for everybody but Mr.Epstein and his publisher.

Given the fact that we are the most faithful population among all Western developed countries (70% of Americans report that religion is very important to them and over 90% profess belief in some greater power), and also locked in bitter disputes about the role of faith in our nation, this campaign may be good for book sales, but it's far less interesting than it otherwise might be. In fact, it looks and sounds remarkably similar to the kinds of pro-God campaigns which annoy the very people who sponsored this one!

Two South Carolina Republican officials have apologized for defending U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint by likening him to Jews who "take care of the pennies." Edwin Merwin and James Ulmer, Chairman of the GOP in Bamberg County and Orangeburg County respectively, wrote in to the Orangeburg Times to explain why Senator DeMint deserved praise for not bringing home as much pork as some of his detractors would like. And you have to love the fact that they defended a senator's avoidance of pork by explaining the Jewishness of his actions, even if it was not dietary laws which they had in mind.

When I first read that President Obama had been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, it was in a 5 a.m. email from a friend, not a fan of the President's, and I assumed my friend was joking. Reading this morning's Washington Post, I realized three things: he was not, the judges were misguided and/or misunderstood at best, and that their decision may actually make a mockery of an otherwise noble prize.

After much politicking by the Congressional Prayer Caucus, the words "In God We Trust" are now engraved in big gold letters at the Capitol Visitor Center. Good or bad, it got me thinking about what it is we supposedly trust God for. As far as I can tell, historically the term refers to our trust in God's protection of our nation. But what does it mean for a nation to be protected by God?

Despite the attitude of many Jewish leaders, I am not certain that ignoring this famously hateful church group at Westboro Baptist Church is the best way to go. Members of Topeka, Kansas, congregation will be in New York for a variety of activities, including planned protests at numerous Jewish institutions. Among the stops on their tour d'fear and hate is Temple Beth El on Long Island, where a memorial service will be held Thursday for murdered Yale student Anne Le. The temple was to be the site of her wedding to fiancé Jonathan Widawsky.

Ignoring these protesters strikes me as a bad idea for any number of reasons, not least of which is that, with any group is as hateful and fearful as this, failure to engage is often construed as tacit permission, or at least passive acquiescence. And more often than not, history teaches us that silence is deadly. How can we not respond to a group that announces itself like this:

"Two Christian girls. Two sets of distraught parents. And two state courts smack in the middle of it." That's how William McGurn begins his Wall Street Journal coverage of two cases that could not be more dissimilar. And if we cannot make the proper distinction between the two, we are all in trouble.

It may be due to aggressively activist courts prepared to strip parents of their rights to shape their kids' religious upbringing, or because of overly timid courts who hide behind that very right to avoid protecting children from parents prepared to kill them over their religious choices. Either way, if the wrong decisions are upheld in either of these cases, we should all be worried.

We have discovered the limits of our collective national memory. It's about eight years. There was almost nothing about 9/11 in the news until this morning, and even today's headlines in the nation's leading papers reflect the sense that we have moved on, that if anything, we are remembering an event that not only occurred in the past, but is no longer a real part of our present.

Seventy years ago this week, German gun boats began both their shelling of the Polish military base at Westerplatte and the Second World War began. Why we still have ceremonies marking this event and what they tell us about contemporary politics is worthy of a careful look, both for the promise and the peril they portend.

Despite denials by the Federal Bureau of Prisons, stories continue to circulate that Bernie Madoff has cancer. Sadly, but not surprisingly, more than a few people have suggested that he is getting what "he deserves" and that this is his "punishment from God". Such comments, and the theologies which support them, while viscerally satisfying for many, actually make God very small. They imagine a God whose frame of reference is no larger than our own, and whose definition of Justice is no more complex.

Hailed by many as perhaps the greatest senator of the 20th century, Ted Kennedy died today following a 15-month-long battle with brain cancer. I don't know if he really was the greatest senator, but he was a model of how to combine passionately held views and genuine civility toward even those with whom he passionately disagreed.

In a world of increasingly mean-spirited politics and polarizing politicians who sit on both sides of the aisle, Mr. Kennedy's death is a loss for all Americans. His combination of passionate liberalism and respectful engagement with even the most strident conservatives was rooted in an approach to life about which he spoke often and which can be traced to ancient biblical and rabbinic teachings of which I am reminded on the morning of the senator's death.