The Tefilah Podcast

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! Length: 56 minutes Synopsis: Tonight (2/5/24), in our Wednesday night Tehilim shiur, we continued our analysis of the perek we began last week. Day 2 of learning a new perek is like a box of chocolates: you never know what you're going to get. I was actually a bit worried that we wouldn't get ANYWHERE tonight, as sometimes happen...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! Length: 57 minutes Synopsis: Tonight (1/29/24), in our Wednesday night Tehilim shiur, we began a new perek! I chose this one because of the famous opening line (which is central to the Rambam's writings about praising Hashem). As usual, we spent much of this first session reading and translating the perek, and BOY WAS IT A TEETHBREAKE...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! Length: 1 hour 16 minutes Synopsis: This morning (1/10/24), in our tefilah-focused Machshavah Lab series for women, we continued our analysis of the first berachah of the Amidah. Due to personal circumstances and a reconsideration of halachic priorities, we deviated from our original plan of focusing on the conclusion of the berachah. Inst...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! Length: 1 hour Synopsis: Tonight (1/8/24), in our Wednesday night tefilah shiur, we continued our analysis of what we mean when we say that Hashem loves us. We began by reviewing the essence of what we covered last time, but in a much slower, clearer, and thought-out manner than last time. As we reviewed the sources, we sharpened last week...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! Length: 1 hour 17 minutes Synopsis: This morning (1/3/24), in our tefilah-focused Machshavah Lab series for women, we began a new series: an analysis of the berachos in the amidah! What, exactly, does this entail? That's what we spent the first 20 minutes of shiur discussing: how can we get the most out of our analysis, given our temp...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! Length: 1 hour Synopsis: Tonight (1/1/24), in our Wednesday night tefilah shiur, we took up a question that was sparked by a debate I had on Facebook about whether Hashem loves us unconditionally which, itself, was sparked by the popular Israeli song "Tamid Ohev Oti." We began with a surface-level analysis of the two berachos bef...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! Length: 58 minutes Synopsis: Tonight (12/18/24), in our Wednesday night tefilah shiur, we attempted to "land the plane" - or at least, to tie up some loose ends. After a brief review of last time, I tried yet again to say over the idea that my chavrusa and I came up with. Yet again, I don't feel like I did it justice. The go...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! Length: 1 hour 14 minutes Synopsis: This morning (12/13/24), in our tefilah-focused Machshavah Lab series for women, we attempted to understand the Rambam's view, as expressed in a pair of seemingly contradictory halachos. We learned through two commentaries on the Rambam who offered explanations: the Kesef Mishneh and the Yad Peshuta...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! Length: 57 minutes Synopsis: Whoops! I forgot to upload last week's tefilah shiur. Last Wednesday (12/11/24), in our Wednesday night tefilah shiur, we continued our analysis Modim. After reviewing and refining what we covered last time, we attempted to understand the midrash cited by the Abudarham about how since we are alive and God...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! Length: 1 hour 13 minutes Synopsis: This morning (12/6/24), in our tefilah-focused Machshavah Lab series for women, we continued our exploration of the nusach ha'tefilah. After reviewing what we covered in Part 1, we busted what I call "The Big Nusach Myth" about "the original nusach" and how all the nuschaos we ha...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! Length: 58 minutes Synopsis: This evening (12/4/24), in our Wednesday night tefilah shiur, we continued our analysis Modim. After reviewing our updated translation, going over a few insights I accrued since last week, and examining three ancient nuschaos, we delved into the Abudarham's commentary on the first three words of the berach...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! Length: 57 minutes Synopsis: This evening (11/27/24), in our Wednesday night Tehilim/Tefilah shiur on Erev Thanksgiving, we commenced our in-depth analysis of the blessing of thanksgiving: Modim! We began with a 15-minute review of my "MMMMMMM!" method of tefilah analysis. After that, we spent the rest of the shiur figuring out t...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! Length: 58 minutes Synopsis: Tonight (11/13/24), in our Wednesday night Tehilim shiur, we successfully "landed the plane"! Last time we ran through the Radak to get the big picture and I shared the core of my theory. This time we read through him at a more deliberate pace and then brought it all together by asking a key question:...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! Length: 46 minutes Synopsis: This morning (11/8/24), in our tefilah-focused Machshavah Lab series for women, we began a new topic: the nusach ha'tefilah (liturgy). We began by reviewing the relevant facts: what the mitzvah of tefilah from the Torah entailed, how Ezra and his Beis Din changed it, and the historical reasons why. I then...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! Length: 26 minutes Synopsis: This morning (11/8/24), in the "Tefilah Reexamined" series of our Machshavah Lab for women, I decided to start with a review of the three models of tefilah we've learned in Parts 1-4, followed by a quick overview of my "go to" model of tefilah that has been the foundation of my approach...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! Length: 58 minutes Synopsis: Tonight (11/6/24), in our Wednesday night Tehilim shiur, we quickly reviewed the perek and all the questions from last time. After exploring an approach from one of the shiur attendees, we learned the Radak's commentary which I attempted to elucidate with a little help from the Ibn Ezra. I believe I manage...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! Length: 58 minutes Synopsis: Tonight (10/30/24), in our Wednesday night Tehilim shiur, we began (re)learning what I believe is the most well-known psalm of them all. The last time I gave shiur on this was WAAAY back in November 2020, and I figured it was time to revisit it, especially now that I have new resources. We translated the perek...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! Length: 1 hour 27 minutes Synopsis: This morning (9/27/24), in our NEW Machshavah Lab series for women called "Tefilah Reexamined," we began with a grand review of the essential ideas in parts 1-3, focusing on the mitzvah de'oraisa of tefilah as explained by Ralbag, Rambam, and Ramban. Picking up where we left off last time,...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! Length: 57 minutes Synopsis: Tonight (9/25/24), in Wednesday night Tehilim shiur, our goal was "to land the plane" - to distill all of our insights and observations into a unified theory - and land the plane we did! Thanks to Sforno and R' Elia di Nola, we emerged with a powerful understanding of what it REALLY means to want...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! Length: 1 hour 22 minutes Synopsis: This morning (9/20/24), in our NEW Machshavah Lab series for women called "Tefilah Reexamined," we began with a comprehensive review of Parts 1 and 2, then delved into the Ramban's critiques of the Rambam's stance on tefilah. After reading through the Ramban, we compared and contraste...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! Length: 58 minutes Synopsis: Tonight (9/18/24), in Wednesday night Tehilim shiur, I decided not to review and refine the approaches we came up with last time, but instead, to jump right into the Sforno. We learned through his commentary at a leisurely pace, with lots of help from R' Moshe Kravetz's footnotes and R' Elia di N...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! Length: 1 hour 38 minutes Synopsis: This morning (9/13/24), in our NEW Machshavah Lab series for women called "Tefilah Reexamined," we began by reviewing our questions on the Rambam's initial presentation of the mitzvah of tefilah and the Ralbag's answer. We then delved into the Rambam's Allegory of the Palace in t...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! Length: 57 minutes Synopsis: Tonight (9/11/24), in Wednesday night Tehilim shiur, we reviewed our cleaned-up translation of the perek from last time, went over all our questions (raising some new ones in the process), and then we opened the floor for approaches. There were a LOT of great ideas, but three complete theories for the perek, ea...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! Length: 1 hour 28 minutes Synopsis: This morning (9/6/24), in the first shiur of our NEW Machshavah Lab series for women called "Tefilah Reexamined." Since I'm designing and teaching a year-long course on tefilah for high school students, I decided this summer to investigate the whole subject of tefilah afresh, from the grou...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! Length: 57 minutes Synopsis: Tonight (9/4/24), in our first Wednesday night Tehilim shiur of the 2024-2025 season, we began our re-analysis of Sunday's Shir Shel Yom. We learned through this in shiur two years ago (10/26/22, 11/2/22), but found it to be difficult. I don't remember what we said, but I remember that I wasn't s...