Shema Podcast – Jewish Podcast: Recent Episodes
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I had the great honor and privilege of participating in a roundtable discussion on Chanukah, at the TORCH Center with my Rabbis and fellow Torch Podcasters, Rabbi Yaakov Wolbe, Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe, Rabbi Yaakov Nagel and Rabbi Chaim Bucsko. The upcoming holiday of Chanukah will be so much richer for me as a result of learning from my beloved Rabbis and I know you will feel the same.
Chanukah is a very special time of year for the Jewish people, so I wanted to bring on to the podcast 4 very special guest to share with us their wisdom on our holiday of Chanukah and the message the Almighty wants us to absorb and take with us throughout the year.
Tearing Through the Illusion Part II
The Almighty calls Shabbos a gift for the Jew. However, it is the most difficult mitzvah for a Jew to take upon themselves for the first time as one’s Yetzer Hara will use every tactic possible to dissuade them from doing so. In Part II of this episode I setup a panel discussion with Rabbi Bucsko and his students and we discuss the motivations for them wanting to keep Shabbos, the challenges associated with changing one’s lifestyle to observe this mitzvah and how to develop a personalized road map to receive the gift of Shabbos, that the Almighty is eagerly wanting to give to each of us.
When B’nai Yisrael left Egypt, they were not alone. Pharoah had also sent out his people, the Erev Rav, the Mixed Multitude. Moshe Rabbeinu converts them to be part of the Jewish people and they became the instigators of the sin of the golden calf, complaining about lack of meat, water and more. The Erev […]
Everyone has an innate desire to be considered “normal.” The problem with the secular world is that the behaviors that fall into the “normal area” of a bell curve distribution have been in a constant state of fluctuation throughout human history. And the rate of change of the “behaviors” in the norm has been accelerating […]
A life centered around Torah is a life dedicated to perpetual transformation and with that comes struggles and challenges. Nissim Black is American-Israeli rapper who has achieved international stardom through his beautiful and inspiring music. His transformation to an Orthodox Jew and likewise the transformation of his music through this process is equally inspiring. He […]
The greatest mitzvah for a Jew to connect with their Creator is by keeping Shabbos. However, it is the most difficult mitzvah for a Jew to take upon themselves. The reason for its difficulty has nothing to do with the complexities of the halacha but with the fact that the Jew’s Yetzer Hara does not […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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, […]
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, […]
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 […]
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 […]