WUPJ Library

A few months ago my wife and I boarded an old ship leaving Lahaina harbor in Maui headed towards the island of Molokai. This island is famous in Hawaiian tradition for many of the now famous rituals and lore of Hawaiian culture that originated on Molokai. Yet, most tourists to Molokai know about it from the story of a Belgian Catholic priest, Father Damien, who came in the latter part of the 19th century to minister to the colony of lepers.

by Rabbi Dr. Walter Rothschild, Landesrabbiner of Schleswig-Holstein, Germany There are many forces that we cannot see and cannot really understand – but we know they are there and we notice it when things go wrong. A person who says “I will only believe in what I can see” is effectively cutting himself off from all […]

Recent Issues By: Rabbi Fred Morgan AM, Rabbi Emeritus, Temple Beth Israel , Melbourne, Australia and Professorial Fellow, Australian Catholic University In terms of Jewish liturgical practices relating to the reading from the Torah, this Shabbat is one of the most complicated. It is, first of all, Shabbat Tazri’a. Tazri’a , one of two portions […]

This past March, while participating in a Germany-Belarus interfaith trip, I learned the story of Fritz Rappolt. Though not mentally ill, Fritz had been diagnosed as psychopathic at the Bethel Hospital in Bielefeld, but was released from Bethel in September, 1940 when Jews were not allowed to be treated in medical institutions.

This week’s portion, Tazria – Metzora, is the greatest homiletic challenge to a preacher, for it deals with the issues of leprosy. No doubt, the Biblical writer did not mean Hansen’s disease, as we know it today, but some skin malformation that caused those who saw it to take a step back in fear. The text itself centers on the ways the “leprosy” is diagnosed and the ritual purification that occurs after an imposed quarantine, which lasted until the disease evidenced remission.

This week, in Australia and in Israel, we observe two significant events for honour and remembrance, both on the 25th of April.  In Australia, we offer our annual memorial service for the ANZACs – members of the Australia and New Zealand Army Corps who fought together valiantly during the First World War.  Dawn services and ceremonies throughout the nation provide opportunity for reflection and solemn commemoration.

by Rabbi Mark Goldsmith, Alyth – North Western Reform Synagogue , London, UK The birth of a child is always an amazing thing – no matter that children have been born in huge numbers since time immemorial – it is still a little miracle every time a child is born.  In a Midrash interpreting our […]

Recent Issues By: Rabbi Daniel Mikelberg, Temple Sinai Congregation of Toronto , Ontario, Canada A Time for Silence and a Time for Speaking The famous words of Ecclesiastes (3:1) remind us that ” a season is set for everything, a time for every experience under heaven” . Some of the actions associated with these experiences […]

We often think that e-mails or text messages are like oral conversation; that once the words are pronounced they disappear, but it is not the case. They stay in the minds of people that have been hurt, and the pain is difficult to erase. A little click can cause a great shock: let us take our time, zeman nakat, let us hurry slowly so that we be motsi shem tov – uttering good words, words of good.

By: Raphael W. Asher, Rabbi Emeritus, Congregation Bnai Tikvah , Walnut Creek, California, USA Pretty nearly full disclosure: My critical take on some of the excesses of the kashrut establishment come from family lore involving my two grandfathers (z”l). One was the Landesrabbiner in Hesse, Germany in the pre-war years. When some Kosher ingredients became […]

Recent Issues By Rabbi Alan Londy, D.Min., Rabbi of the New Reform Temple, Member of the Rabbinic Circle of the WUPJ Progressive Judaism is one of the key elements for the vitality and survival of the Jewish people.  It arose from a group of serious Jews who were concerned by the challenges of the modern […]

I have a love-hate relationship with this climactic passage in Parashat Shmini. The literary critic in me loves the spare wording, the way the story leaves so much to the imagination of the reader. I find Aaron’s silence in the face of literally unspeakable tragedy to be deeply moving. And there is the enduring mystery here: have Nadav and Avihu committed a crime so terrible that the only appropriate penalty is death?