WUPJ Library

Rabbi Dr. Ulrike Offenberg | Juedische Gemeinde Hameln, DEU Legend has it that Napoleon was once riding through Paris (others say: through Vilna) when he heard crying and lamenting voices from a synagogue he was passing. He had his entourage inquire what had happened and they brought back the message that the Jews were mourning about […]

Rabbi Becky Hoffman | Associate Rabbi and Religious School Director, Temple Kol Tikvah, Woodland Hills, CA Is fairness learned or is it innate? In a study of capuchin monkeys, Professor Frans de Waal showed that monkeys understand the concept of fairness[1].  In the experiment, he placed 2 monkeys in clear cages side by side.  The […]

Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.   Rabbi Jeffrey Ableser | Temple Beth El of Flint, Michigan, USA Why would an eighteen verse story in BeMidbar be cut in half and read over two Torah portions? Our Torah portion, Pinchas, is problematic for a number of reasons. It starts out with the grandson of […]

In today’s day and age, it is almost trite to talk about the power of words. Trite, because unless you’ve been living under a rock, this generation can communicate the most trivial of things to the farthest reaches of the world in the blink of an eye.

Most people I know would say that death is frightening. While Judaism has notions of afterlife, these are not emphasized.  However, we do have extensive literature on the mourning process.