After forty days of waiting, wondering what the future might hold, the scouts finally returned to the Israelites camped in the wilderness of Paran. Moses had sent twelve scouts to survey the land of Canaan, not too much further from their camp, to determine what lay ahead and whether or not it was, in fact, a “Promised Land.” At first, their report seemed to indicate a land of true promise and possibility: “We came to  the land you sent us to; it does indeed flow with milk and honey, and this is its fruit,” at which point they...

Today, in 2018, more than 7000 languages are spoken on this planet. Among them are Arabic and Hebrew -- two distinct, mutually unintelligible tongues, though both belong to the larger family of Semitic languages and have structural similarities. Several words – especially those related to essential elements of human life – are virtually identical in the two languages. Such words are primitive remnants of a time before the two split apart, perhaps 6,000 years ago.  Words like “mother,” “father,” “sister,” “brother,” “daughter,” and “son”; words like “head” and “hand,”  “blood” and “bone.” Words like “day,” “night,” “water,” “earth,” and “sky.”...