Category Archives: Podcasts

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The Superiority of Torah

Podcast: Download (Duration: 53:31 — 24.5MB)

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We are incredibly fortunate to be included amongst the Jewish people. We are incredibly fortunate to be raised with a strong sense of Torah and Torah values, and a deep appreciation for the critical and indispensable mission that our nation was entrusted with at Sinai. We are fortunate to be descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. We are fortunate to be God’s chosen people. There are other religions out there. Many like to study the field of “comparative religion.” Is it appropriate to explore those religions? Are there any dangers of doing that? In this interesting and informative podcast, we learn about some of the differences between our people, our religion, our Torah, and the pretenders. We emerge with an enormously deepened appreciation for how special it is to be part of the Almighty’s nation.

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Parshas Bamidbar (Rebroadcast)

Podcast (parsha): Download (Duration: 56:48 — 26.0MB)

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We kickstart the Book of Numbers with a census of the twelve tribes of Israel – not including the tribe of Levi who is counted independently – conducted by Moses, Aaron, and the most distinguished leaders of said tribes. Subsequently, we read about the banners of the tribes and their assigned encampments, the transference of the sanctity of the firstborn to the Levites, and the designated role of each of the Levite families.

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DONATE: Please consider supporting the podcasts 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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Behar Bechukosai – The Seven Secrets

Podcast (parsha): Download (Duration: 57:15 — 26.2MB)

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I don’t know many farmers. This country used to be an agrarian society, but today fewer than 2% of Americans are farmers. This was not the case in antiquity. In antiquity, making a living effectively meant growing crops. The Almighty makes seemingly unreasonable demands of us when it asks us to cease working the field each seventh year — the Shemittah. Moreover, every 50th year – a year that follows a Shemittah – we are commanded to refrain from working the field for a second year in a row. What is the rationale for this mitzvah? How is this mitzvah intimately connected to the central revelation? In general, what is the secret of the seven? You will find answers to these questions and many more in this edition of the Parsha Podcast. You will also find the remedy for feelings of inadequacy. In short, this podcast is worth your time.

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DONATE: Please consider supporting the podcasts 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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Behar – Intractable Land (5784)

Podcast (parsha): Download (Duration: 1:01:59 — 28.4MB)

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The Land of Israel is special: It is the land of God. All other lands were given by God to humanity. The land of Israel He reserved for himself. The Torah gives us comprehensive laws regarding every element of our life. Many of the laws are only applicable in the land of Israel. The commentaries tell us that truthfully all of the laws can only be fully fulfilled in the land of Israel. Why is this land so special? In this very special Parsha Podcast we focus on one of the mitzvos most intimately associated with the Land – the mitzvah of Shemitah — that the land must lay fallow every seventh year – and analyze it from several dimensions and facets. What we discover reveals a great deal about the Land and what the overarching objective of mitzvos are.

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DONATE: Please consider supporting the podcasts 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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Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochi and the Lesson of Lag Ba’Omer

Podcast: Download (Duration: 49:22 — 22.6MB)

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Lag Ba’Omer is a unique day in the Jewish calendar. It’s a minor festival celebrated in surprising ways for surprising reasons: on this day, the plague that was ravaging the the students of Rabbi Akiva ceased. On this day as well, Rabbi Akiva’s prize student, Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochi, died. The death of a great sage is more of a transition to the heavenly academy. Rabbi Shimon, the great cognoscente and promulgator of the Kabbalistic Torah, ascended to heaven on this auspicious day, and therefore, the power of his life, lessons, and teachings is particularly strong on this day. But why is Rabbi Shimon singled out as the day, as the person whose day of transition to the heavenly academy is particularly celebrated? In this interesting podcast, we identify a unique theme strong throughout the life and teachings of Rabbi Shimon that makes his influence and message ever so relevant.

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DONATE: Please consider supporting the podcasts 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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Parshas Behar & Bechukosai (Rebroadcast)

Podcast (parsha): Download (Duration: 1:38:04 — 44.9MB)

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This week’s double-Parsha closes out the Book of Leviticus. Parshas Behar begins at Mount Sinai, where the Almighty instructed Moshe to convey a series of laws to the Jewish people. The first is the mitzvah of Shemittah, the prohibition of engaging in any agricultural work every seven years. In two chapters in the Torah (Leviticus 26, Deuteronomy 28) we read about the positive consequences of obeying the Torah and heeding its laws; and the terrible, painful consequences of disobeying the Law. Though reading Parshas Bechukosai is scary and a tad depressing, the truth is that this framework is the secret to our nation enduring such long and painful exiles.

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DONATE: Please consider supporting the podcasts 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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Emor – Matching Man and Mission

Podcast (parsha): Download (Duration: 55:34 — 25.4MB)

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The Priests are the noblest amongst us, direct descendants of Aaron, the legendary first priest. They have a very important role to play amongst their people. They have a special blessing that they can bestow upon the people, and they can process sacrifices on our behalf in the Temple. They are spiritual leaders of men. With this role of distinction come certain restrictions: who they can marry, who they can come into contact with. They are forbidden to come into contact with the dead. They are forbidden to be in the same enclosure as a dead body, but it is certainly a worthwhile exchange. In this very sharp Parsha podcast, we contrast the beginning of the parsha with its end. Although most of us are not priests, the lessons that we learn are very pertinent to all and very powerful.

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This Parsha Podcast is dedicated by Melissa Johnson in loving memory of her great-great-grandmother Rebecca Stremovsky-Weinman. May her soul be elevated in heaven.

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DONATE: Please consider supporting the podcasts 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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Emor – Simulated Martyrdom (5784)

Podcast (parsha): Download (Duration: 1:10:47 — 32.4MB)

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Humans have a very important role to play in God’s world. The Almighty created a world in which He is obfuscated. It is possible to live a whole life without acknowledging the one, singular reality of existence: God. The world was designed with the capacity for that reality being ignored. But we are here to change that. Our national mission is to sanctify the name of God – to publicize His existence and Dominion. That is the mission that Abraham embarked upon and that is what we have been dedicated towards ever since. This requirement – to sanctify the Name of God and not to, Heaven forbid, desecrate it – is featured in our Parsha and is a central element of our religion. But how exactly do we sanctify God’s name? What can we do practically to publicize the name of God, to change the trajectory of the world? In this parsha, and in this this very fascinating (if lengthy) Parsha podcast, we discover some very interesting and powerful answers.

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DONATE: Please consider supporting the podcasts 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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Momentum Matters

Podcast: Download (Duration: 47:31 — 21.7MB)

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The hardest part of reaching space is the first moment of liftoff, getting the first inch off the ground. The second inch is still hard, but a little bit easier. The first bit of liftoff serves as momentum for the second inch. In our pursuit of spiritual and personal greatness, we are trying to achieve stratospheric heights. We’re trying to depart from the atmosphere of pettiness, and achieve something grand, something majestic, something otherworldly. The first step is the most important. Importantly, this same principle works in the opposite direction. Just as positive momentum facilitates achievement and height, the danger of negative momentum cannot be underestimated. The Torah tells a tragic and dramatic story about a man with a checkered pedigree and a tumultuous backstory who committed a grievous crime for which he was executed. When we take a careful look at what happened, we see the sheer power of momentum.

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DONATE: Please consider supporting the podcasts 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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Parshas Emor (Rebroadcast)

Podcast (parsha): Download (Duration: 1:03:17 — 29.0MB)

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Parshas Emor contains a staggering 56 mitzvos, nearly all of them relating to either to the Kohanim, the priests, or to the Festivals, and the parsha ends with a very unusual episode that happened at Sinai.

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DONATE: Please consider supporting the podcasts 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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Acharei Mos/Kedoshim – Acting the Goat

Podcast (parsha): Download (Duration: 1:07:55 — 31.1MB)

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Yom Kippur is a different day than every other day of the year. It is the holiest day, the day of atonement, a day of fasting and prayer and repentance. When the Temple was extant, the Nations’ attention was oriented around the high priest’s services in God’s holy Temple. This was the one time a year that the high priest walked into the Holy of Holies. Of the many different services performed by the high priest on this day was a most peculiar one: Two identical goats were given very different fates, determined by a lottery: One was offered as a sacrifice to God on the altar in the Temple, and one was to serve as a scapegoat, bearing the sins of the nation. The scapegoat was sent away to the desert, to the wilderness, to Azazel, where it was chucked off a cliff side, thereby expiating the nation’s sins. What is the message behind the process of the identical goats? What is the message behind the scapegoat? in this fantastic Parsha podcast, we learned the secret of the goats with a brand new twist.

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This Parsha podcast is dedicated in the merit of a speedy recovery of Yosef Shraga Halevi Ben Esther. May he have a Refuah Sheleima.

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DONATE: Please consider supporting the podcasts 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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