WUPJ Library

Hanging in my office is a framed verse from this week’s Torah portion, Terumah – “They shall make a sanctuary for Me, and I will dwell in them”.  (Exodus 25:8) 

All of the different translations of the Tanakh, the Hebrew Bible, have a philosophy, a way of going about their task. And part of that philosophy is wrestling with an important dilemma: How “smoothly” should you try to convey what the Bible, or in our case, the Torah, is trying to say?

Our Torah portion, parshat Yitro, finds Moses exhausted and overwhelmed. Can we blame him? He has a lot of responsibility on his shoulders, having to deal with every single problem experienced by each Israelite. One can only imagine the mishegas he had to sort out over the course of an average day.

In parshat Beshalach, our people are about to cross the sea. We’re on the verge of freedom but before the story continues, we read that God has a plan to minimize our fear, our anxiety and even our regret. God will lead us on the slow path, through dry land, into and through the wilderness and eventually, to the Promised Land. God has a plan to try to minimize our trauma.

Rabbi Neal I Borovitz | Rabbi Emeritus, Temple Avodat Shalom, New Jersey, USA “VaYomer Adonai el Moshe Bo el Paroh” is the first clause of the opening verse of this week’s Parsha. Most English Bibles, based upon both Jewish and Christian scholarship, translate   “Bo el Paroh “as a Divine command to Moses to: Go to […]

The Torah portion, Va’era, presents a profound paradigm shift, the revelation of a divine name/attribute heretofore unknown, even to our Patriarchs and Matriarchs.

This week, in our annual Torah reading cycle, we open the second book of the Torah, Exodus. Genesis has narrated our coming into being as an identifiable Jewish people. From the emergence of life as we know it, to the parents of all humanity, to questions about how we might behave better in society, to Abraham who leaves all he knows to begin afresh.

This week’s parasha illustrates a paradigm of human excellence at the time of illness and death. Joseph gave his father the most precious gift he could. He did not allow his father to die alone.

For the last eight months I have felt as though I have been frozen in place as though paralyzed not only by fear of a global pandemic, but also by the simple limitations of what I am able to do. Have you ever been afraid to go forward or back?  Afraid to change your focus?  What about unsure of your footing? It has happened to me. 

Rabbi Danny Burkeman | Temple Shir Tikva, Massachusetts, USA When I was at school, I remember that the collecting of football (soccer) stickers was very popular amongst us boys. We would buy packets of stickers, affixing them in an album, trying to complete teams and eventually fill in all the blanks. At school during break […]

Tamar’s story of empowerment and resilience is tucked away in Parshat Vayeshev, and could easily be overshadowed by Joseph’s dramatic journey from favored son to forgotten prisoner. In fact, even within her narrative, Tamar’s bravery is subtle, and requires us to pay close attention.

Is there anything more agonizing than a child pleading to their parent for a blessing—knowing that that blessing is gone? But, was the blessing gone? How can it be that blessings are zero-sum, that giving a prized blessing to one son means it is not available to the other?