Category Archives: Podcasts

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Nitzavim & Vayeilech – Mavericks vs. Heat

Podcast (parsha): Download (Duration: 59:29 — 27.2MB)

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The entire book of Devarim occurs over the span of 36 days, the final 36 days of Moshe’s life. The final four Parshas are an account of the last day of Moshe’s life. As he is about to transition to the other world, the reliable shepherd gathers all the people together for one last covenant and exhortation to hearken to the word of God and to not go astray. But why would the nation go astray? These are the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who were chosen by God to be his people. This is the nation that witnessed the Exodus, the theophany at Sinai, who ate the manna and drank water from a rock, who received revelation directly from God and Torah from Moshe himself. Why is there a risk that they will lapse into idolatry? Why is there a concern that they may mimic the barbarous, abominable ways of the nations? The answer, as we learn in this week’s edition of the Parsha Podcast, is fascinating and frightening.

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This Parsha Podcast is dedicated in honor of a new couple, Coby and Riva Caplan. May they build a beautiful home together.

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DONATE to TORCH: 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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Nitzavim Vayeilech – Like Clockwork (5784)

Podcast (parsha): Download (Duration: 47:06 — 21.6MB)

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We are not machines. We are humans. And that’s messy. We have all sorts of struggles doing the right thing. We are influenced by a myriad of impulses, inclinations, and predispositions. We don’t operate like clockwork. There are other things that always follow a prescribed pattern: The sun always rises in the East and sets in the West. The sun’s reliability is unfailing. The Earth is also completely predictable: It sprouts what you plant. None of us would ever compare fickle humans to the Sun or the heavens or the Earth. But Moshe does. In this profound Parsha podcast, we explore a fascinating and apparently inexplicable demand that Moshe places before us prior to his passing.

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DONATE to TORCH: 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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The Incalculability of Mitzvos

Podcast: Download (Duration: 55:03 — 25.2MB)

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Mitzvos have infinite value. There is no experience that we can have in this world that matches the reward in the world to come for a single mitzvah. But not all mitzvos are the same. Some contain more power than others. And even within a single mitzvah, there are infinite gradients of degrees of devotion and self-sacrifice and commitment and refinement that separate one act of that particular mitzvah from another. In truth, the value of mitzvos is incalculable to humans, and only God can accurately assess its value and power. In this very interesting podcast, we learn some of the reasons why for us they are incalculable.

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DONATE to TORCH: 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 Nitzavim & Vayeilech (Rebroadcast)

Podcast (parsha): Download (Duration: 1:42:13 — 46.8MB)

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On the final day of Moshe’s life, he gathered the entire nation – men, women, children, and according to the Talmud, all souls of future Jews – to pass them through a final covenant with God. The parsha also contains the prophetic predictions of the Messianic times, and it ends with a simple, binary choice: Moshe tells the nation, “Behold I have placed before you today, the life and the good, and death and evil… Choose Life!” Moshe is 120 years old to the day. He was born on the seventh of Adar and now it is the seven of Adar 120 years later. Today is his last day before his passing and he is taking leave from the nation and handing over the reins to Joshua.

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DONATE to TORCH: 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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Ki Savo – The Joystick

Podcast (parsha): Download (Duration: 1:02:43 — 28.7MB)

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Sadness and hopelessness are modern societal epidemics. Notwithstanding the fact that our time has seen more material abundance than ever before, the share of Americans, especially young Americans, who feel consistent and persistent feelings of sadness and hopelessness has skyrocketed in recent years. The Torah offers salient guidance. In our Parsha, we learn how to manipulate our state of joy. It is possible for a person to increase or decrease his or her joy at will. We have the joystick. In this Parsha Podcast, we learn how to manipulate it. In this Parsha Podcast, we learn how to manipulate it.

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DONATE to TORCH: 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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Ki Savo – Gaze from Heaven (5784)

Podcast (parsha): Download (Duration: 57:05 — 26.1MB)

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Blessings and curses. That is the dominant theme of our Parsha. We read the admonition of Deuteronomy – 98 bone-chilling curses that will befall our people in the event that we repudiate our covenant with God. Blessings and curses appear a second time: the nation is instructed to assemble at Mount Gerizim and mount Ebal on the day of the crossing of the Jordan. There, they must make a public pronouncement of blessings and curses. What is the lesson of blessing and curses? Why do we get blessings and curses? In this special and sprawling Parsha podcast, we thread a theme throughout the Parsha that wraps together of the first fruits, the confession of the tithes, the blessings and the curses, and Moshe’s joyous exclamation to the people when he declares that they have finally, forty years after the Exodus, been forged into a nation. Put away your pagers, beepers, and walkie-talkies. Now it’s time for the Parsha podcast.

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DONATE to TORCH: 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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The First Elul

Podcast: Download (Duration: 40:58 — 18.8MB)

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We have a begun hallowed days of Elul. In one month, we will celebrate Rosh Hashanah. We will all be judged. We will blow the shofar. We will pray for a good year. Ten days later, the holy day of Yom Kippur. We will fast for 25 hours: no food, no drink. On that day,we are like angels. On that day – The gates of mercy are open, like no other day. On that day – The gates of repentance, the gates of forgiveness, the gates of atonement, are wide open. On that day – God is ensconced, as it were, on the throne of mercy. Elul is when we prepare. But how exactly do we prepare? In this interesting podcast, we draw back to the beginning, to the first Elul. It contains the secret and the propitious power of these days.

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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 Ki Savo (Rebroadcast)

Podcast (parsha): Download (Duration: 55:33 — 25.4MB)

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As the Book of Deuteronomy draws to its conclusion, the narrative makes a transition: Moshe finishes conveying the mitzvos to the nation, and sets up his final parting message to the people. First, he commands the nation to perform several elaborate ceremonies on the very first day that they cross the Jordan River; then he conveys a scathing, terrifying list of curses that will befall the people in the event that we deviate from the Torah.

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DONATE to TORCH: 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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Ki Seitzei – Moabite the Hand that Fed You

Podcast (parsha): Download (Duration: 56:01 — 25.6MB)

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Our number one goal in life is to achieve perfection. Perfection of character, perfection of behavior, profession of speech, profession of thought, perfection in every possible way. Our bad character needs to be fixed, our shortcomings need to be rectified, our bad habits need to be reversed, our maladies of character need to be remedied. But how much can we actually change? Is there anything that we do not change I must learn to live with? These are some weighty questions and in a very unusual place in this week’s Parsha we find answers, answers that will enable us to ascend the ladder of perfection. It’s all laid out for you in this week’s edition of the Parsha podcast.

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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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Ki Seitzei – Conscience Cleanser (5784)

Podcast (parsha): Download (Duration: 46:31 — 21.3MB)

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Of the motley potpourri of subjects featured in Parshas Ki Seitzei are several fascinating mitzvos that we address in this week’s Parsha podcast. We begin with a fascinating analysis of the law of the beautiful captive woman. We proceed with a heartening insight based upon the wayward and rebellious son. Finally, we offer a sharp and penetrating insight into the prohibition against bringing a harlot’s fee to the temple and into the prohibition against excising a skin ailment of tzaraas. Listen to this wonderful and profound edition of the Parsha podcast. You will not regret it. On the contrary, it will delight you give you great joy.

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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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NEW TORCH Mailing Address POBox:

TORCH
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Confronting Mortality (How to Preparing for the Afterlife Part 2)

Podcast: Download (Duration: 52:20 — 24.0MB)

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Death and the afterlife are foreign, and often terrifying, subjects. Naturally, most of us tend to try to avoid thinking about it too much. This is exactly what allows the evil inclination to deceive and mislead us. It’s an important subject to the well-upon, though too much morbid fascination can be counterproductive. In part 2 of our series on when and how to prepare for the afterlife, we address the weighty subject of when young people encounter mortality. When a young person, God forbid, loses a relative, a friend, a parent, or when God forbid, a young person is diagnosed with a terminal illness, this difficult subject is thrust the spotlight. As always, the Torah provides clear, illuminating guidance and direction.

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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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NEW TORCH Mailing Address POBox:

TORCH
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Email me with questions, comments, and feedback: rabbiwolbe@gmail.com

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