The Shema Podcast for the Perplexed

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, our Neshama provides vitality to our physical body. The task at hand is to harness the power of our Neshama to rule our physical body which is our kingdom. When we accomplish our task, we will not feel ashamed in Olam Haba when He enters His kingdom, and His presence is known. Part of this equation is using our emotions, which are pure physicality, and infusing them with actions that serve His will. In this episode Rabbi Wohlgelernter shares his Torah and how to have our intellect direct our emotions or in other words to become the master rider of the horse.

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 with the proper path to balancing Torah Education with the way of the world.

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 restoring humanity to the status prior to that moment of Adam’s sin. In this episode Rabbi Abrahams joins us to explain why it was necessary for the Almighty to cause the decedents of Avraham, Yitzchak & Yaakov to endure servitude in Egypt and give us more clarity on our individual roles in completing the task.

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 restoring humanity to the status prior to that moment of Adam’s sin. In this episode Rabbi Abrahams joins us to explain why it was necessary for the Almighty to cause the decedents of Avraham, Yitzchak & Yaakov to endure servitude in Egypt and give us more clarity on our individual roles in completing the task.

With the final two days of Pesach upon us and Shavous in our site, we need to remember that the journey to Mt. Sinai is as important in our growth as our arrival at our destination. Before we receive the Torah, we need to forge ourselves into the perfect vessel to receive it and that is the purpose of the days ahead. We have the great privilege of having Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe, the Executive Director of TORCH, join us to share with us our action items and path on our journey to Shavuos.

Our journey from Pesach to Shavous is about to begin. We will be leaving Egypt this Friday night. A week later we will be standing at the Sea of Reeds with the Egyptian Army quickly approaching. We will be forced once again to make the choice of allowing our Pharaoh to bring us back to his servitude or to forge ahead with strengthened Emunah and walk-through whatever Sea may be standing in our way. I am confident we will all choose the later and continue forward to Shavous and receive our Torah. I decided to bring back my all-star guest team; Akiva and Yehoshua Wolbe, to be our guides on our journey from Egypt to Mt. Sinai.

Our Creator used the Hebrew Letters as the building blocks or programming code of His creation. This means that our Hebrew name and the name of everything in this world has tremendous significance.  In this episode we are joined by my dear friend and teacher, Rabbi Daniel Cotlar, to elucidate for us the significance of what is in a name.

The topic explored today is why the Almighty instructed us to build a Mishkan (Tabernacle), the subsequent Temples and why the Jewish people have been yearning for millennia, for the building of our third and permanent Temple. In this episode our guest Rabbi Menachem Bresler enlightens us to the purpose of the Temple in allowing our Creator to dwell among us and unite the spiritual and physical worlds.

Since the giving of the Torah over 3300 years ago, the revelation of the Almighty has been steadily diminishing, as it fades to its dimmest point right before the arrival of Mashiach, when the Almighty reveals himself to the world. The Almighty in order to train us for the times we live in today, orchestrated the events of Purim, to provide us a roadmap for finding Him in times when there exists the illusion that He is hidden. In this episode our guest is Rabbi Ari Winkler, the founder of my shul, Heimish, who provides us brilliant insights into the lessons of Purim.

How do we reconcile why our Creator, who has no needs, requested of us to bring sacrifices during the times of the Mishkan, 1st and 2nd Temple and G-d willing soon, the 3rd Temple? The short answer is clear and that it is for our benefit, by how so? In this episode we have the brilliant, witty, funny, and average, Rabbi Bucsko joining us to help demystify the subject of the purpose of sacrifices.