WUPJ Library

Dr. Adva Guttman Tirosh’s sister is 27-year-old Tamar Guttman. She was at the Nova party when Hamas attacked. She has not been heard from since, and she is believed to have been kidnapped. Tamar has Crohn’s Disease, which needs constant treatment. Hear Adva recount the events of that dark day and the harrowing mission of […]

In this first video of the series, Rabbi Stacey summarizes the roundtable discussions and key takeaways from ‘The WUPJ as a Central Hub of a Worldwide Network”. Watch it here.

As I was reading this week’s parashah about the construction of the Tabernacle, I found that one repeated detail caught my attention: “And he [Bezalel] made fifty gold clasps and coupled the curtains to one another with the clasps, so that the tabernacle became one whole,” and then just a few verses later we are told again that, “He made fifty copper clasps to couple the tent together so that it might become one whole” (Exodus 36:13,18).

In the wonderful world of midrash, the rabbis portray the letters of our Hebrew alphabet as agents in dialogue with the Divine, each pleading their case as to why the holy Torah should begin with them. In this week’s parasha however, I imagine an entirely different dialogue taking place. Here the dialogue is not between the Hebrew letters and God, but between the parasha of Mishpatim, and God.

Jewish genealogy is a particularly powerful tool that can help strengthen the Jewish people and our Jewish stories. I have heard of so many families reuniting especially post Shoa that didn’t know a branch had survived at all and they re-discovered one another because of Jewish genealogy, some sleuthing, and asking questions!

Rabbi Rami Shapiro | One River Foundation Torah is a human document written by multiple authors over centuries. As such it reflects both the best and worst of human imagining. We see evidence of both in this week’s parasha: the God who kills and the God who forgives. What so troubled the Israelites that they […]

Rabbi Linda Henry Goodman | Rabbi Emerita at Union Temple of Brooklyn, New York, US As an “only child,” I always have been particularly fascinated by the sibling relationships throughout the Book of Genesis.  I don’t know about all other “only children.”  But in my own fantasizing about what it would have been like to […]

Rabbi Rami Shapiro | One River Foundation Too often when reading Torah, we get hooked on the drama and miss the message. Parashat Vayeshev is a case in point. The story is so rich and well known—Joseph and his coat of many colors, Joseph sold into slavery, Joseph falsely accused of rape and thrown into […]

Rabbi Michael Zedek | Emanuel Congregation, Chicago, USA One of my most beloved teachers would offer, “Is the Bible the religious text of Western civilization because it is a great book, or is it a great book because it is the religious text of Western civilization?” Self-evidently, rabbis insist on the former conviction, and the […]

Rabbi Dan Moskovitz | Temple Sholom, Vancouver, Canada My wife and I have three children, two boys and a girl. Ever since they were old enough to realize that they outnumbered us — that we were, in sports speak, in a “zone defense” — each one has tried to get over on the other two […]

Rabbi Uri Lam | Congregation Beth-El, Sao Paulo, Brazil And so, when it will come to me later Maybe death, the anguish of those who live Maybe loneliness, the end of those who love I can tell about the love (I lived): That is not immortal, since it is flame But let it be infinite […]

Rabbi Dan Moskovitz | Temple Sholom in Vancouver, Canada One Yom Kippur, a rabbi was warning his congregation about the fragility of life. “One day everyone in this congregation is going to die,” he thundered from the bimah. Seated in the front row was an elderly woman who laughed out loud when she heard this. Irritated, […]