Holidays – Torah Podcasts by Rabbi Yaakov Wolbe

The Sinai Revelation is the most significant event in all of human history: God revealed Himself to the entire Jewish people, He spoke to them, He gave them the Torah, and they lived. This day is revisited every single year on the festival of Shavuos. Our objective on this day is to renew our vows […]

Lag Ba’Omer is a unique day in the Jewish calendar. It’s a minor festival celebrated in surprising ways for surprising reasons: on this day, the plague that was ravaging the the students of Rabbi Akiva ceased. On this day as well, Rabbi Akiva’s prize student, Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochi, died. The death of a great […]

This special pre-Pesach podcast is dedicated in loving memory of Meir Ben Shmuel Chananya. May his soul be elevated in heaven. – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – The festival of Passover commemorates a very ancient event that happened more […]

Everyone loves the festival of Purim. What’s not to love about it? You get dressed up. You make noise when they say Haman. You give gifts to the poor and foodstuffs to your friends. It’s the one time a year you can drink guiltlessly. But what is the essence of the Festival? What are we […]

The Chanukah story is quite dramatic. The world-dominating Greeks were militarily defeated by a prickly pack of Maccabees. Our sages point the focus of the festival to the miracle of the oil when the priests rededicated the temple and cleansed it from all the Greek defilements. They found only a solitary flask of oil. This […]

The holiest day of the year is upon us. The day of Yom Kippur is unmatched and unrivaled by any other. It is a day of elevation. It is a day of purification. It is a day to be cleansed of all of our sins. It is a day to move past all of our […]

On Yom Kippur afternoon, we read the 48-verse Book of Jonah, which tells of a renegade prophet, Jonah, who defies the directive of God and refuses to castigate the people of Nineveh and instead escapes from God to Tarshish – with mixed results. A simple reading of the story reveals a tale of repentance, both of […]

Rosh Hashanah marks the day of the creation of Adam on Day Six of Genesis. The creation of Adam facilitated the coronation of God as King. Because Adam was endowed with the choice to accept or reject God, his decision to submit himself to God and his Dominion resulted in the establishment of the Kingdom […]

Repentance is one of God’s great gifts to humanity. The ability to move past our mistakes, to cleanse ourselves from our previous trauma, to expunge sin and any of its after effects is indeed a great gift. But this gift may come with some scary packaging. We are all a bit intimidated with the notion […]

The judgment on Rosh Hashanah is comprehensive: every single human has his or her moment of judgment before God. Even the dead are judged again each year. The judgment covers not only our behavior with respect to fulfilling our obligations to God, it also covers interpersonal matters. If we are meritorious, we will be forgiven […]

Preparing for the High Holidays can be daunting. How can anyone adequately prepare for standing in judgment in front of the Heavenly tribunal? But prepare we must. The month of Elul is designated for preparing for the awesome days of Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur. Our Sages took these days very seriously and were completely […]

We are on the doorstep of the month of mercy, the month that precedes the high holidays, the month of Elul. The high holidays are very significant and auspicious days, and it is imperative that we prepare for them. How ought we prepare? What are the particular points of emphasis that we should stress during […]

The ninth day of the Hebrew month of Av is the saddest day of the Jewish calendar. All manner of calamities and tragedies and disasters befell our people on this day. On this day the nation was condemned to wonder in the wilderness for 40 years. On this day both Temples were destroyed. On this […]

Starting from the second day of Passover, we count the Omer. For 7 weeks of 7 days a piece — 49 days — we count. Once the count is completed, the festival of Shavuos is upon us. What exactly is the meaning of this interesting Mitzvah? The subject gets trickier when you examine how the […]

Pesach (Passover) marks the founding event of our nation. We had been enslaved in Egypt for centuries, and in one night the Almighty extracted a nation from amidst a nation with miracles, signs, and wonders. Each Passover we remember and relive that momentous night. We gather together with our family at the Seder, ask the […]

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The month of Shevat is associated with a tribe of Asher and corresponds to the letter Tzadik (צ) and its zodiac sign is a bucket. So much is told to us by the Kabbalists. But what is the secret of this month? What is the energy that permeates this month? What are the particular ways […]

There is no superficiality in Judaism. Everything is multi-layered, multifaceted, multidimensional. That seems to be particularly true with respect to the festival of Chanukah. Chanukah is a rabbinic holiday, and it is the very last mitzvah that we received. There are many oddities that separate this mitzvah from all others. The roots of this festival […]

Everyone loves the festival of Chanukah. There’s something so wonderful and enchanting about this festival and its iconic mitzvah, the lighting of the Menorah. But what is the menorah truly about? We all, of course, know the story of the miraculous oil that lasted for 8 days. But what is at the heart of the […]

The Jewish holidays are not evenly spaced out. They appear in bunches. A mere five days after Yom Kippur comes the seven-day (truthfully nine when you tally everything) Festival of Sukkos (appendaged by Shemini Atzeres and Simchas Torah). The next Festival (excluding the Rabbinic holidays of Chanukah and Purim) does not occur for six months. […]

Repentance draws a person out of darkness into eternal light. It transforms the penitent into a completely new person. But how exactly does repentance work? How do you repent? What are the various elements and facets of repentance? The authoritative book on these questions, Shaarei Teshuva, the Gates of Repentance, was written in the 13th […]

The Ten Days of Repentance are upon us. In just a few days is the Day of Judgment, Rosh Hashanah. These powerful high holidays culminate with the climax of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. What exactly is repentance though? How are we supposed to think about repentance? In this very special podcast, we study […]

Rabbi Shmuly Botnick returns to the podcast with his most mind-bending and dynamic contribution hitherto. In this exhilarating roller-coaster of a podcast, Rabbi Botnick weaves the generation of Enosh, the Flood, the placement of Moshe into the water, his retrieval by Pharaoh’s daughter, his complaint to God about the initial efforts to save the nation, […]

The festival of Sukkos is called “the time of our joy.” The entire festival is associated with joy. Sitting in the Sukkah is joyous, shaking the Lulav is joyous, the traditional celebratory festivities are known as the “Joy of the Drawing.” Why are these days so intimately associated with joy? In this special podcast, we […]

On Yom Kippur afternoon, we read the 48-verse Book of Jonah, which tells of a renegade prophet, Jonah, who defies the directive of God and refuses to castigate the people of Nineveh and instead escapes from God to Tarshish – with mixed results. A simple reading of the story reveals a tale of repentance, both of […]