Category Archives: Torah 101

#57: The Afterlife in Torah Literature

Podcast (torah101): Download (Duration: 49:17 — 22.6MB)

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A central pillar of our belief is that when we adhere to the word of God, He will reward us in the Afterlife. Conversely, if we disobey God, we will suffer the consequences of our rebellion in the Afterlife as well. In this podcast we ponder an interesting question: the Torah discusses reward and punishment as well, but it omits any overt mention of the Afterlife. The Torah’s foretelling of reward and punishment seems to orient around reward and punishment in this world exclusively. How do we reconcile the principle of reward and punishment in the Afterlife with the apparent dearth of Scriptural evidence to that effect? That is a very good question and one that is addressed by many of our great Sages over the centuries. When we explore their answers we become armed with knowledge and background about the Afterlife that will prove vital for us in our quest to plumb the depths of this great mystery.

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#56: The Unique Markers of a Jewish Soul

Podcast (torah101): Download (Duration: 1:01:42 — 28.2MB)

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Our nation purports to be the chosen people. What does that mean? Why were we chosen? What were we chosen for? The notion of being a chosen people is a very interesting and mysterious idea. In this special podcast, we focus on an element of the uniqueness of the Jewish nation: the Jewish Soul. Are all Souls the same or is there something special about the Jewish Soul? In this exceptional podcast episode you will discover what makes Jewish Souls unique and why that is supremely important.

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#55: The Transposition of the Soul

Podcast (torah101): Download (Duration: 58:48 — 26.9MB)

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How did the soul end up here? What transpired to the soul before it got here? These are fascinating questions that on the surface seem to be quite theoretical. What difference does studying the history and the backstory of the Soul make for us who are already living? A lot, it turns out. By understanding the background of the soul, it’s transposition, and the nature of it’s fusion with the body we discover what the conflict of life is all about. This information is critical to us because it informs the nature of what life is all about and provides invaluable context for how we ought to construct Our lives. In addition, this framework is indispensable to the understanding the nature of the Afterlife. Once we know where the soul came from and its journey, we can understand more about where it is going to.

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Sponsorship: Please consider sponsoring a podcast by making a donation to help fund our Jewish outreach and educational efforts at https://www.torchweb.org/support.php. Thank you!

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#54: The Origin of the Soul

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The Soul is perhaps the loftiest creation of God. Our Sages tell us that the Soul is even loftier than Angels. What does that mean? What is the nature of the relationship of the Soul to its Creator? What are the properties of the Soul? In this fundamental podcast you will learn about the origin of the Soul. You will also be treated to a comprehensive debunking of a heretical, but commonly held, understanding of the Soul. If you want to understand the permanent half of yourself, the part of you that lives on after death, this podcast is indispensable.

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#53: The Anatomy of the Soul

Podcast (torah101): Download (Duration: 1:05:17 — 29.9MB)

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The human Soul is the most ethereal of God’s creations. Our Sages tell us that it is spiritually loftier than Angels. Before we continue our discussions related to what happens to the Soul in the Afterlife, it is important to gain a basic understanding of the nature of the Soul: What is it? Where does it come from? What is the nature of its relationship with life here, when it is temporarily bound to a body by Divine decree? What are the challenges that the Soul must face? These are obviously weighty subjects, and researching them gives all of us the impression that we are way in over our heads, but nevertheless we will give it our best shot. In this first episode on the subject of a Soul, we attempt to construct a picture of what the Soul is. It turns out to be much more complicated than we would expect.

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This TORAH 101 Podcast is dedicated in honor of Baruch Ben Yehuda and Laura Bat Yaakov for all that they have done for us and especially with regards to the amazing sacrifices that they have gone through to give me and my sister a Jewish education. May they get a lot of nachas from us and from this podcast.

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#52: What Happens After You Die: An Eschatological Timeline

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The question of what happens after we die is simultaneously fascinating and terrifying. Death is a future that we all share, and we are all curious about what it will be like, but thinking about it is scary and unsettling. In our exploration of the 13 principles of faith, we are up to the concept of reward and punishment and in this context we will ponder the question of reward and punishment of the post-mortem life. What we discover is endlessly fascinating.

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#51: How God Dispenses Divine Reward and Punishment

Podcast (torah101): Download (Duration: 48:09 — 22.0MB)

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In our previous episode we established the basic principle that God dispenses reward to those who hearken to Him, and metes out punishment to those who disobey Him. In this episode we get down to specifics: What is the nature of the Divine system of reward and punishment? How is God’s methods of reward and punishment differ from ours? What do our sages tell us about how God rewards and punishes? It turns out to be very different from the human system.

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This TORAH 101 Podcast is dedicated in loving memory of Michael ben Shmuel, whose third yartzeit falls out on the Sixth of Adar, the same day that this podcast is being released. May the Torah study that we do together provide merit for his soul and elevate it in Heaven.

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#50: Divine Reward and Punishment: A General Introduction

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The 11th of the 13 principles of Faith states that God dispenses reward to those who obey His will and punishes those who violate it. What is the nature of this reward and punishment is a vast and complex subject that we will yet navigate, with the help of the Almighty. In this podcast we start by examining the basics: we begin by establishing the general principle of reward and punishment as an accepted fact, unanimously agreed upon by all the sources; we talk about whether or not pursuit of reward and aversion of punishment should be a motivation behind doing mitzvos, and we begin to probe the subject of the precise venue in which God rewards the worthy and punishes those who deserve punishment.

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Sponsorship: Please consider sponsoring a podcast by making a donation to help fund our Jewish outreach and educational efforts at https://www.torchweb.org/support.php. Thank you!

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#49: Free Will and Divine Foreknowledge

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We hold two beliefs that seem to be mutually exclusive. The 10th principle of the 13 principles of faith declares that God knows everything – including the thoughts, deeds, and speech of people – even before it happens. There is nothing that is hidden from Him. We also believe in free will. The principle of free will espouses that man can choose to do a Mitzvah or a sin, to become a Tzadik or to become a Rasha. If God already knows what man will choose ahead of time, is any other option on the table? This is one of the most intractable problems of Jewish philosophy and theology, and one that we tackle in the first podcast of 2022.

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#48: How Pedigree and Past Lives Determine Circumstances

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How exactly does the Almighty determine what are the circumstances that people are placed in in this world? That is an impossible question for humans to answer with exactitude. Unless the Almighty reveals the answer via one of His prophets, we are in the dark. Nevertheless, our Sages outlines for us a bevy of frameworks for how the Almighty dispenses circumstances. In this very special episode, we follow Ramchal as he surveys a comprehensive list of all the reasons why the Divine treats people the way He does. This podcast will not empower us to know why a specific event or circumstance occurred to a specific person, but it will expose you to a slew of mind-blowing ideas that you have never heard of.

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Sponsorship: Please consider sponsoring a podcast by making a donation to help fund our Jewish outreach and educational efforts at https://www.torchweb.org/support.php. Thank you!

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#47: Frameworks for Human Situations, Sufferings, and Successes

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Why are some people rich and others poor? Why do some people have a pleasant life, while others live in grinding, miserable, poverty and privation? Why is there so much inequality in the world? These questions are hard to answer. Rambam tells us that there is a certain kind of heretics that concludes from the disorder and chaos in the world that God has abandoned the land. In this podcast, we begin to fundamentally probe the various reasons why God allocates various circumstances to different people.

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Sponsorship: Please consider sponsoring a podcast by making a donation to help fund our Jewish outreach and educational efforts at https://www.torchweb.org/support.php. Thank you!

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#46: Divine Omniscience

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The Tenth Principle of the Thirteen Principles of Faith states that God is aware of the actions of mankind and acts accordingly. This kickstarts the third section of the Principles which broadly deal with reward and punishment. Divine reward and punishment is only feasible if the Almighty has complete knowledge of all the behavior and deeds of the people that He judges. In the first episode on the Principle we discuss the unequal phenomenon of heretics who believe in an all-powerful God, but argue that God has abandoned the land and people. Why is that a common position, what prompted that position, and what is the Torah’s response to their questions?

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Sponsorship: Please consider sponsoring a podcast by making a donation to help fund our Jewish outreach and educational efforts at https://www.torchweb.org/support.php. Thank you!

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