WUPJ Library

We have heard enough about quick and easy success. A few years ago the Brazilian rock band Titans worked on an album whose name was, “The Best Band of All Times from the Last Week”. Impressive, so modern, so vain… People who until yesterday did not know who you were, now consider you a great […]

Korach and his Dishonest Argument // Parashat Korach (Numbers 16-18) By Rabbi Elyse Goldstein, founder of City Shul , downtown Toronto’s newest Reform congregation “Any dispute which is for the sake of Heaven will ultimately endure, and one which is not for the sake of Heaven will not ultimately endure. What is a dispute for […]

By Rabbi Nathan M. Landman. “They combined against Moses and Aaron and said to them, ‘You have gone too far! For all the community are holy, all of them, and the Lord is in their midst. Why then do you raise yourselves above the Lord’s congregation?’” (Numbers 16:3) The above challenge to Moses’s leadership of […]

by Rabbi Matt Cutler, Congregation Gates of Heaven , Schenectady NY Jewish history has stories of Jews acting less than nobly and has its fair share of stories of Jewish criminals. At the turn of the 20th century, when nearly a million Eastern European Jews came through Ellis Island in New York, there were Jews […]

by Rabbi James Greene, Addison-Penzak Jewish Community Center , Los Gatos, CA Our tradition gives Korah a bad rap. The rabbis tell a story of right and wrong, black and white, good versus evil, Moses against Korah. They see a narrative where Moses is defending God’s rule. But I prefer to tell it differently. For […]

by Rabbi Joel D. Oseran, Vice President, International Development, World Union for Progressive Judaism , Jerusalem Our weekly Torah reading from the Book of Numbers focuses our attention on the infamous act of rebellion by Korach, who along with Dathan, Abiram, On and another 250 heads of the Israelite community set out to challenge the […]

by Rabbi Ann B. Folb, Pretoria Progressive Jewish Congregation – Bet Menorah Parshat Korach contains two of the many challenges to the authority of Moses and Aaron which appear in the Torah, and in this case the punishment is quite severe. The earth literally opens up and swallows Korach and his followers. You may well […]

Recent Issues Parashat Shelach-Lecha – How we see ourselves By: Rabbi Danny Burkeman Whenever I look in the mirror, I’m always a little bit surprised at the face looking back at me. It’s not that I don’t know what I look like, it’s just that in my mind I think I still look the same […]

Recent Issues By: Rabbi Fred Morgan , Temple Beth Israel , Melbourne, Australia Sometimes it’s valuable to remember where we came from and how far we’ve travelled.  When I was a child, the synagogue I grew up in was what we today call classical Reform. Head coverings were no-where to be seen, and the only […]

by Rabbi Pauline Bebe, Centre Maayan, Communauté Juive Libérale , Paris (for the French version, please click here or scroll down) What draws us to explore strange lands? Is it the desire to conquer one’s self? The other? A country? A promised land? We embark into an elsewhere which is inevitably filled with promise: “And […]

by Rabbi Fred Davidow, Chaplain, Glendale Uptown Home, Philadelphia, PA Blue has been a distinctive color of Judaism since Biblical times. In the Torah, God commands the Israelites to wear a garment with fringes at each corner and to attach a blue thread to the fringes (Numbers 15:37-38). The blue dye used to color the […]

by Rabbi Gary M. Bretton-Granatoor, Vice President, Philanthropy, World Union for Progressive Judaism Perhaps the greatest human tragedy is our inability to deal with a plague that has surfaced over and over again, from generation to generation. It is a disease that prevents human beings from ever achieving their highest goals: from societies that aspire […]