The Shema Podcast for the Perplexed

I had the great honor and privilege of participating in a roundtable discussion on Succos, in Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe’s beautiful Sukkah, with my Rabbis and fellow Torch Podcasters, Rabbi Yaakov Wolbe, Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe, Rabbi Yaakov Nagel and Rabbi Chaim Bucsko. As always, I gained so much from hearing these amazing Rabbi’s insights, walking away with a heightened sense of understanding and appreciatio...

The Almighty desires for us to continually strengthen ourselves spiritually so that we can grow closer to Him. Just like a weightlifter intentionally exhausts their muscles under the weights they are lifting so that their muscles will tear and then be rebuilt to be stronger, the Almighty created a framework for us to do the same spiritually. He orchestrates events which create tests for us. Tests...

We are deep in the month of Elul and rapidly approaching Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. I asked my dear friend Rabbi Ari Winkler to join us and teach us, how to optimize this time of year to recalibrate ourselves back to who we truly are so we can bring greater alignment between us and our Infinite and Eternal Creator, our Father, our King.

Recently in the news it was reported that an engineer from Google, tasked with developing Artificial Intelligence or A.I., asserted that the A.I. had become self-aware. This idea has been the storyline for a litany of sci-fi movies for decades. In this episode we are joined by the great and awesome, “Average Rabbi,” Rabbi Bucsko to explore this topic with us through the lens of Torah.

In this episode I have on Rabbi Bucsko, aka “The Average Rabbi” and Joe Amar aka “The Exceptional Student” to discuss their new podcast where they are studying in classic teacher student format the foundational book of my learning, Derech Hashem (The Way of G-d) by Rabbi Luzzatto.  We discuss the book, its author Rabbi Luzzatto, the impact its wisdom has had on our lives and more.   If you have st...

The Almighty gave us His Torah so we would know how to serve Him by following His laws or Halacha. One of those sets of instructions were for our sages to put fences around the mitzvos and extrapolate Torah law to apply to the myriad of situations that we would encounter throughout time. Through time and separation in the Diaspora, there have become divergent paths in matters of Halacha. In this e...

The Almighty gave us His Torah so we would know how to serve Him by following His laws or Halacha. One of those sets of instructions were for our sages to put fences around the mitzvos and extrapolate Torah law to apply to the myriad of situations that we would encounter throughout time. Through time and separation in the Diaspora, there have become divergent paths in matters of Halacha. In this e...

The Almighty created everything for one singular purpose and that is to give us the ultimate pleasure. That ultimate pleasure is to be able to be in His presence without feeling ashamed. So, He created mankind as a microcosm of the world at large.   Just as He provides vitality to the spiritual and physical dimensions, our Neshama provides vitality to our physical body. The task at hand is to harn...

The Almighty created everything for one singular purpose and that is to give us the ultimate pleasure. That ultimate pleasure is to be able to be in His presence without feeling ashamed. So, He created mankind as a microcosm of the world at large.   Just as He provides vitality to the spiritual and physical dimensions, our Neshama provides vitality to our physical body. The task at hand is to harn...

Torah is our Creators’ infinitive wisdom, encompassing all knowledge. The question addressed in this episode is how secular wisdom should fit into a Jew’s overall education. I have invited one of the preeminent educators in my community, Rabbi Nagel, to join us and answer this very question. Rabbi Nagel’s words of wisdom will provide you with the proper path to balancing Torah Education with the w...

The Torah begins with Adam’s sin of intermingling in the human consciousness, truth and falsehood and thereby creating the illusion of separation from our Creator. The remainder of the Torah provides us the framework and storyline of the Patriarchs, who took upon themselves the sacred tasks of separating out truth (good) from falsehood (evil) and restoring humanity to the status prior to that mome...

The Torah begins with Adam’s sin of intermingling in the human consciousness, truth and falsehood and thereby creating the illusion of separation from our Creator. The remainder of the Torah provides us the framework and storyline of the Patriarchs, who took upon themselves the sacred tasks of separating out truth (good) from falsehood (evil) and restoring humanity to the status prior to that mome...

With the final two days of Pesach upon us and Shavous in our site, we need to remember that the journey to Mt. Sinai is as important in our growth as our arrival at our destination. Before we receive the Torah, we need to forge ourselves into the perfect vessel to receive it and that is the purpose of the days ahead. We have the great privilege of having Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe, the Executive Director o...

Our journey from Pesach to Shavous is about to begin. We will be leaving Egypt this Friday night. A week later we will be standing at the Sea of Reeds with the Egyptian Army quickly approaching. We will be forced once again to make the choice of allowing our Pharaoh to bring us back to his servitude or to forge ahead with strengthened Emunah and walk-through whatever Sea may be standing in our way...

Our Creator used the Hebrew Letters as the building blocks or programming code of His creation. This means that our Hebrew name and the name of everything in this world has tremendous significance.  In this episode we are joined by my dear friend and teacher, Rabbi Daniel Cotlar, to elucidate for us the significance of what is in a name.

The topic explored today is why the Almighty instructed us to build a Mishkan (Tabernacle), the subsequent Temples and why the Jewish people have been yearning for millennia, for the building of our third and permanent Temple. In this episode our guest Rabbi Menachem Bresler enlightens us to the purpose of the Temple in allowing our Creator to dwell among us and unite the spiritual and physical wo...

Since the giving of the Torah over 3300 years ago, the revelation of the Almighty has been steadily diminishing, as it fades to its dimmest point right before the arrival of Mashiach, when the Almighty reveals himself to the world. The Almighty in order to train us for the times we live in today, orchestrated the events of Purim, to provide us a roadmap for finding Him in times when there exists t...

How do we reconcile why our Creator, who has no needs, requested of us to bring sacrifices during the times of the Mishkan, 1st and 2nd Temple and G-d willing soon, the 3rd Temple? The short answer is clear and that it is for our benefit, by how so? In this episode we have the brilliant, witty, funny, and average, Rabbi Bucsko joining us to help demystify the subject of the purpose of sacrifices.

This is one of my most favorite episodes.  We have the honor of interviewing Rabbi Yaakov Wolbe on his just published book, “Upon A Ten Stringed Harp – How Torah and Mitzvos Prepare the Soul for Eternity.”  Tune in to hear firsthand about this amazing publication, that will be taking the Jewish world by storm and having a major transformational impact on the Jewish people.

G-d created the Yetzer Hara, and He created the Torah as the antidote!  The summation of everything we do as Jews comes down to how well we harness the tools of Torah and mitzvos, to succeed in this epic battle.  I have the great Rabbi Nagel joining us and sharing his wisdom on The Art of War, tactics, and strategies for defeating the Yetzer Hara.

The Almighty took our Neshama from the Heavenly realm, where it had no needs, and placed it into a body that has needs. If the purpose of creation was because G-d wanted to bestow goodness, then wouldn’t it have made more sense for Him to just create the Heavenly realm and stop there.   Why did the Almighty think it is necessary to confine our lofty Neshama in a lowly body and world? Part of the a...

The Almighty took our Neshama from the Heavenly realm, where it had no needs, and placed it into a body that has needs. If the purpose of creation was because G-d wanted to bestow goodness, then wouldn’t it have made more sense for Him to just create the Heavenly realm and stop there.   Why did the Almighty think it is necessary to confine our lofty Neshama in a lowly body and world? Part of the a...

Rabbi Noson, the primary disciple of Rabbi Nachman, stated that if a Jew does not live with recognition that everything occurring to them, is being orchestrated by the Almighty and all for their good, then it does not matter if they declare their belief in G-d from the moment they wake up, to the moment they go to sleep, the reality is, is that they are an atheist. Our infinite and eternal Creator...

Often in our endeavors to grow as Jews, we sometimes can’t see beyond the challenge directly in front of us and we forget that we are building something much bigger than ourselves. In this inspiring episode, I interviewed Rabbi Yissachar Granitsky. He tells an incredible story of his life as a non-Jew, the event’s G-d created to lead him to a Yeshiva in Israel, so that he could hear a Rabbi ask hi...

Our Siddur is replete with prayers for the coming of Moshiach. It is something that for millennium we have anticipated. After listening to Rabbi Yaghobian speak on this matter, I felt like a character from the 90’s movie Pulp Fiction; a woman who was overdosing from a heroin, only to be brought back to life via an adrenaline shot through her sternum into her heart.  Rabbi Yaghobian’s words were li...