The Tefilah Podcast

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! This morning (5/6/22), in our "Machshavah Lab" series for women, we went over three insights I recently had into birkas ha'zman (i.e. shehecheyanu). The first is a basic but beautiful pshat from the Kuzari. The second is an insight I had over Pesach into the unique role played by the shehecheyanu we say at the end of kiddush...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! This evening (5/3/21) in our Tehilim/Tefilah shiur, we took one more pass at trying to understand our perek - this time, with the help of the Radak. The first half of the perek was going strong, but then we lost the track. Thankfully, at the very end of the shiur, we managed to find a really nice practical insight into tefilah. We might no...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! This evening (4/28/21) in our Tehilim/Tefilah shiur, we attempted to understand the major idea and import of Tehilim 28, and I believe we did just that! We developed our own theory, drawing on a number of points made by the Malbim, and arrived at a consensus on what the perek is about and how we can use it to improve our own tefilos. Next...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! This evening (4/26/21) in our Tehilim/Tefilah shiur, we began learning Tehilim 28. I'm sure you're all familiar with Tehilim 28 ... just kidding. How many of us have even READ Tehilim 28? THAT's why I want to learn it. We've spent so much time this year on Tehilim that we regularly say, and I wanted to try a perek we ne...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! This evening (4/5/22), in our tefilah shiur, we were going to continue our analysis of Avos 2:13. However, I recently stumbled upon an eye-opening explanation from the Aruch ha'Shulchan for the (dearly beloved) practice of not saying tachanun for the entirety of Nisan, and I felt like I HAD to give shiur on it. I then realized that si...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! This evening (3/29/22), in our tefilah shiur, we continued our analysis of the mishnah in Avos we began last week. After reviewing the facts and questions, we focused on the first clause: "be careful in krias shema." We developed three approaches: one based on Rabbeinu Yonah, who learns this as a reference to saying Krias Shema a...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! This evening (3/22/22), in our tefilah shiur, we began learning one of the few mishnayos in Pirkei Avos about tefilah. Specifically, how NOT to daven and how to daven, among other things. As usual, we began by raising all the questions and problems we could find. We then read through the Rabbeinu Yonah's commentary, and although we di...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! This evening (3/15/21) in our Tehilim/Tefilah shiur, our goal was to "land the plane" - that is, to wrap up this iteration of our learning of Ashrei. We're doing this because several of our regulars will be out for the next couple of weeks and that seems like a good opportunity to start something new. Did we succeed? Kind of...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! Tonight (3/10/21) in our Tehilim/Tefilah shiur, we continued developing our understanding of Ashrei with the commentary of the Radak. On Tuesday we began learning the cluster of pesukim which includes "poseach es yadecha." Things were going well until the very end, when we encountered a VERY metaphysically disturbing Radak (at le...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! This evening (3/8/22), before we started our Tehilim shiur, we took 5 minutes to learn through a single paragraph from a responsum of the Rambam on the topic of reciting berachos and pesukei d'zimra quickly. Spoiler alert: if you'll take offense to being told that your tefilah has the halachic status of a parrot (דין בתפילתו דין...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! This evening (3/8/21) in our Tehilim/Tefilah shiur, we continued developing our understanding of Ashrei with the commentary of the Radak. This week we began learning the cluster of pesukim which includes פּוֹתֵחַ אֶת יָדֶךָ וּמַשְׂבִּיעַ לְכׇל חַי רָצוֹן. We developed some nice insights, but we got absolutely SLAMMED by a controversial shi...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! Tonight (3/3/21) in our Tehilim/Tefilah shiur, we began by going over everything we covered on Tuesday but with greater depth and clarity. In doing so, we came up with new ideas and new approaches AND it seems that we've opened a path for understanding the second half of Ashrei in a manner that flows smoothly from the first half. If y...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! Tonight (3/1/21) in our Tehilim/Tefilah shiur, since we only had one attendee, we decided to attempt to cover ground. We learned a whopping FOUR pesukim - first, attempting to interpret them on our own, then reading the Radak, and then checking out some other meforshim. We aimed to keep this more on the "bekius" side because we w...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! Tonight (2/24/21) in our Tehilim/Tefilah shiur we continued our pasuk-by-pasuk analysis of Ashrei. We set out to review what we did last time, and ended up diving even deeper into those same three pesukim with the Radak! After a few new observations at the beginning, we reread the Radak, then took a detour to review the Ralbag's take...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! Last night (2/22/21) in our Tehilim/Tefilah shiur we continued our pasuk-by-pasuk analysis of Ashrei. After reviewing the ideas from last Thursday (how Ashrei gets you Olam ha'Ba) and last Tuesday (the flow of pesukim 1-7), we continued in the Radak's commentary, taking a detour to the three Gemaras (with Rashi and Tosafos) which...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! Tonight (2/17/21) in our Tehilim/Tefilah shiur we paused our analysis of Ashrei with the Radak to learn the Gemara which states that a person who says Ashrei three times a day is assured a prime spot in Olam ha'Ba. We initially intended to just raise the questions and leave the answers for next week, but we were zocheh to answer all o...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! Tonight (2/15/21) in our Tehilim/Tefilah shiur we continued our analysis of Ashrei with the aid of the Radak's commentary. We began with a methodology point about how to approach texts like this, which the chachamim acknowledge are deeper or more important than most. We then reviewed pesukim 1-7 to refine some of our previous ideas, n...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! Tonight (2/10/21) in our Tehilim/Tefilah shiur we continued our analysis of Ashrei with the aid of the Radak's commentary. Our shiur was shorter than usual (since we discussed a methodology point beforehand, which I've uploaded as a separate recording), we only got through five pesukim, but the Radak certainly delivered - even if...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! This evening (2/10/22), as a preface to our Tehilim shiur, I read a short reflection I wrote about chinuch prompted by an excerpt from "Letters to a Young Poet" (1934) by Rainer Maria Rilke. I chose to conduct a discussion about this because earlier this week in our Tehilim shiur we encountered two major philosophical conundrums...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! Have you ever asked yourself, "How may the Radak's commentary be likened to steak, and the Malbim's to sushi?" If so, then this shiur is for you! Tonight (2/8/21) in our Tehilim/Tefilah shiur we continued our analysis of Ashrei. After reviewing the ideas from the Radak that we covered last time, I presented my metaphori...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! Tonight (2/3/21) in our Tehilim/Tefilah shiur we began continued our analysis of Ashrei. We spent the first half of shiur developing our own theory of the main idea in the perek. After that, we began the Radak's commentary. We learned his introduction to Ashrei and his commentary on the first two pesukim. ---------- מקורות: תהלים פרק...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! Tonight (2/1/21) in our Tehilim/Tefilah shiur we began learning the one perek of Pesukei d'Zimra we hadn't yet touched: the famous "Ashrei." We spent the entire session tonight translating and making observations along the way and concluded by identifying the pivot. Next time we'll attempt to come up with our own t...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! Note: I've uploaded this shiur to Machshavah Lab AND The Tefilah Podcast because it's relevant to both and I can spare the minutes this month. This evening (1/11/22), in our tefilah shiur, we tackled a bunch of fundamental questions on tefilah, including but not limited to: (1) How "poetic" are the Torah's songs, D...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! Tonight (12/30/21) in our Tehilim/Tefilah shiur we attempted to come up with our own understanding of the perek. After reviewing the translation, we attempted to identify all the sub-themes and to discern their interrelationship and unity. Next week (בג"ה) we'll begin learning the Meiri's commentary. ---------- מקורות: תהלים...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! Tonight (12/28/21) in our Tehilim/Tefilah shiur we revisited a perek of Tehilim we learned last year, by request. Last time we (a) rushed through the perek, (b) aiming to get just the big picture without understanding every nuance, and (c) without going through any single commentary. This time we intend to follow the method we've been...