The Parsha Podcast - With Rabbi Yaakov Wolbe

This week’s parsha features several iconic episodes: Abraham was visited by God as he was recuperating from his circumcision, and concurrently engaged in superlative kindness with three angels masquerading as pagan travelers; Abraham was informed that the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah were about to be destroyed and was unsuccessful in interceding on their behalf; and we also read the two Torah sections that are read on the two days of Rosh Hashana: The episode of the birth of Isaac and the subsequent banishment of Ishmael, and the story of the Binding of Isaac.

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Abraham was the most consequential person of all time. In our classic literature, Abraham is graced with superlatives given to no one else: Abraham was the “beloved one of God.” Abraham was “chosen by God.” Abraham was a “partner with God in Genesis.” Abraham “discovered faith without a teacher, and without a guide.” Abraham became “the father of many nations.” After generations of humanity pushing God’s presence further and further away, Abraham reversed that trend and began to draw the presence of God back to this world. Before the advent of Abraham, God could only be described as the “God of the heaven...

Abraham seems to always be journeying. In last week’s Parsha he traveled from his birthplace of Ur to Charan. This week the Parsha begins with Abraham’s journey to Canaan. He traveled there with his family, he traversed the land in every direction; and when famine strikes, he went down to Egypt and returns. Abraham’s journey is more than being about sightseeing. This is the saga of the transformation of Abraham and the building of the Jewish Nation. What can we learn from Abraham’s journey? What Abrahamic qualities shine forth in his narrative? In this very special...

In this week’s parsha, Abraham is instructed to move to Israel, is given divine promises that he will be the father of many nations; his children will be as numerous as the dust of the earth and the stars of the heaven, a son Ishmael is born, and he is commanded to circumcise his foreskin and those of all males in his household.

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Noah was perfectly righteous. He was pristine. He was flawless. In fact, Noach is the only person labeled as a tzaddik in the Torah, and he receives that honorific twice. He lived a very long life (950 years) and had the great distinction of being perfectly righteous when the entire rest of the world seeped into corruption, robbery, thievery, and selfishness. Noach was a truly remarkable person, yet it was not enough. Our sages find all sorts of ways to poke holes in the personage of Noach. He was righteous, all right, but he wasn’t Abraham. He wasn’t Mosh...

After spending a year in the ark, Noah and his family exited it to find an empty and desolate world. The sinners who dominated the world before the flood were gone as were basically everything else. The animals, not including token representatives of each species, were gone. The trees, the grass, the plants – everything was gone. Noah and his family began to rebuild the world a new world. In this Parsha podcast we study several events that happened in the aftermath of the flood: We learn about the symbolism and essence of the covenant of the rainbow; we study in...

In this week’s parsha: Noah and his family build an Ark as a refuge from an extinction-level Flood brought by God to destroy the world’s sinners.

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TORAH 101

Most people don’t know the first man from Adam. Who was this mysterious being created on day 6 of Genesis? What is the meaning of the hybrid nature of Adam’s formation? What is the significance of him being created from the earth? What does it mean to be created in the image of God? What changed when Adam ate the forbidden fruit? In this inaugural edition of year 11 of the Parsha podcast, we study the great personage of Adam.

As in previous years, we intend to re-release the Parsha Rebroadcast that covers the entire parsha on Sund...

The end of our Parsha delineates the many families and generations spanning from Adam to Noah. There are all sorts of fascinating factoids, nuggets and vignettes  included in this narrative: we study the story of Cain from after his fratricide of his brother until his tragic and surprising death at the hand of his own great, great, great grandson. We learn all about the House of Lamech and its potpourri of colorful characters. We discover a very powerful and persuasive answer to the the knotty philosophical paradox of reconciling total Divine knowledge with our free will. The podcast ends w...

With praise and appreciation to the Almighty, we begin year 11 of the Parsha Podcast (5787). This year, we will re-upload the Parsha Rebroadcast episode which covers the entire Parsha each Sunday, re-release the 9th cycle’s episode (5785) for each respective Parsha each Tuesday, and we will, please God, record and release a new weekly episode each Thursday. Thank you for downloading and please share with a friend.

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The Torah preceded the world. In fact, the Almighty used the Torah as a blueprint for the creation of the world. But the primordial Torah was formatted differently than the Torah we have today. It was black fire on top of white fire. Our Torah is black ink on white parchment. The heavenly Torah is all fire. We end the year 10 of the Parsha podcast with a profound exploration of the Torah that preceded this world and the Torah that we have today.

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The final Parsha of the Torah tells of Moshe’s deathbed blessing to the tribes. For the duration of the Torah, Moshe has been constantly criticizing and reprimanding the nation. Praising the people is something that he does only on his last day. After Moshe blesses the nation, he ascends the mountain and passes away. The Parsha ends with Torah’s the stirring and poignant eulogy of Moshe. In this very special edition of the Parsha podcast, recorded during the intermediate days of the festival of Sukkot, we cap off a wonderful year of Parsha podcasts with a deep and...

The final parsha of the Torah details the blessings that Moshe conveyed to the tribes of Israel immediately prior to his passing, and the Torah ends with the description of the death, burial, and eulogy of Moshe.

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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 last day of Moshe’s reign, coincided with the first day of Joshua’s reign. For one day, Moshe and Joshua led the nation together as co-heads. On that day, Moshe and Joshua together conveyed the exquisite, comprehensive sound of Haazinu. A song that spans everything: the past, the present, the future, this world, the world to come. A song that encapsulates all of Torah, a song that foretells all future events. Not all stanzas though scream joy. Not all of what we read does not evoke ecstasy. Not all of what we read inspires us to dance. We r...

Parshas Hazinu is one of the most fascinating, poetic, and richly profound Parshas in the Torah. It is also arguably the most mysterious one. The majority of the Parsha is the Song of Haazinu, an intricate tapestry of prophecies that encapsulate the grand scope of Jewish history. The commentators on this Parsha strive to even understand the basic meaning of its words. In this penultimate episode of the 8th cycle of the Parsha podcast, focus on the commentary of the Ohr HaChaim. While we don’t go through the entirety of his magisterial commentary, we select five magnificent comments fr...

Still in the final day of Moshe’s life, he conveys to the nation a 43-verse Song predicting the contours of Jewish history, both past, present, and future. The patterns are familiar to the readers of Deuteronomy and even casual observers and students of Jewish history: The nation is recipients of tremendous divine goodness, yet they become corpulent and rebel against God. Consequently, God allows the nations to feast upon the people, but despite the harsh and painful torment and suffering, we continue to exist. The Song ends with a vivid description of the Messianic reclamation.

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On the second day of Rosh Hashana, we read the Torah section of Genesis chapter 22 that tells the very famous and quite troubling episode of the Binding of Isaac. Abraham – the same Abraham who railed against the ways of child sacrifice of the pagans – is instructed by God to take Isaac – the same Isaac who was declared as the one who will be Abraham’s true progeny – and offer him as a sacrifice on Mount Moriah. In this podcast we attempt to understand the many connections that this reading has with the themes and ideas of Rosh Hashana.

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The Torah readings for the two days of Rosh Hashana were not arbitrarily chosen. There are very good reasons why on the first day of Rosh Hashana we read Genesis chapter 21, which tells of the conception and birth of Isaac, and the banishment of Ishmael, his brush with death, and his salvation. In this podcast we attempt to understand the many connections that this reading has with the themes and ideas of Rosh Hashana.

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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 witn...

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 profou...

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...

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...

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 th...

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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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...

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...

In the parsha that contains the most mitzvos of any of the 54 Torah sections (a staggering 74 mitzvos), we read about the wayward and rebellious son, the requirement to build a fence around your roof to prevent tragedy, two episodes that we are mandated to remember, and many, many more interesting and insightful mitzvos.

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Our Parsha features laws relating to all types of leaders: Judges must not corrupt judgment, must not accept bribery, must hearken to the rulings of the Grand Sanhedrin, and must relentlessly pursue justice. Kings may not have too many wives, too many horses, too much silver and gold, and must always be cognizant of the Almighty by carrying a Torah scroll wherever they go. Prophets mustn’t withhold the prophecy and mustn’t misappropriate prophecy given to their fellow. Priests play a vital role in the release of accidental murderers from cities of refuge and in the ceremony of decap...

In this Parsha Podcast we share two fascinating and deep insights from our Parsha. The first relates to the method by which capital punishment must be meted out. The second is a novel and fascinating spiritual and cosmic perspective on the monarchy as a method of government, both in the era when monarchies were widespread and of the era of its effective dissolution.

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This week we learn the laws governing all kinds of leaders: The parsha begins by detailing the laws of judges, the jurisdiction of the Sanhedrin, the Supreme Court, and what happens to rebellious judges; we read about the unique laws related to kings; there are more laws pertaining to the Kohanim; and we find the means of vetting professed prophets and what happens to the six kinds of false prophets.

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Idolatry is anathema. Idolatry in the Holy Land is totally intolerable. Multiple times in the book of Devarim, we are exhorted to thoroughly and utterly destroy any remnant of idolatry that we encounter in the Land, be it altars, pillars, idolatrous trees, or molten images. But it is insufficient to eliminate the idols. We are required to uproot the idols from their source. The impulse to engage in idolatry has been rendered extinct today. No one craves to genuflect to an image of wood and stone, but we still can be enticed to do bad things. Just as we...

The Torah spends a lot of time cautioning us against idolatry. As the nation is about to cross over the Jordan and enter Canaan, they are repeatedly warned to not fall prey to the idolatrous practices of the indigenous population. Instead, they must shatter the idolatrous altars, destroy idolatrous infrastructure, obliterate idolatrous paraphernalia , uproot idolatrous trees, and thoroughly dismantled all idolatrous venues. The warnings against idolatry are one of the primary themes of the book of Devarim and of Moshe’s last messages to the nation. What does this mean for us today? We are are quite unfamiliar with th...

This week’s parsha marks a transition in the Book of Deuteronomy: it is no longer primarily about admonishment and rebuke and warnings, instead we read a bevy of mitzvos – some repetitions and some new ones that have hitherto not been mentioned.

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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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Several themes seem to be repeating themselves again and again throughout the Book of Devarim. For example, the nation is repeatedly encouraged to not be fearful of the formidable Canaanite Nations waiting for them on the other side of the Jordan. But the one theme that repeats itself more frequently than any other is the nation being encouraged to observe the laws, the statutes, and the commandments of Torah. They are encouraged, they are exhorted, they are enticed with rewards for observance and threatened with the consequences of its repudiation. Why is it so important for the nation to...

Flashy achievements make the news. Great triumphs, awesome deeds, transcendent moments grab our attention and seize our imagination. Humdrum acts fail to stir excitement. But when we are devising a strategy for how to prepare our ladder of ascension, it may be ill-advised to pursue quantum leaps of greatness. In fact the most effective process to transformative greatness is slow and gradual and dotted with seeming unremarkable, bite-sized micro movements up a very tall ladder. This idea is hinted to in Rashi’s first comment to our Parsha. When we analyze other parts of the Parsha, we see a va...

We pick up where we left off last week amid Moshe’s speech to the nation before his passing, and as in the previous few weeks, Parshas Eikev is jam packed with insights and timeless lessons. Moshe pivots between looking back on the conduct of the nation in the preceding 40 years and admonishing them for their misdeeds, and gazing forward to the conquest of Canaan and the secrets to making their settlement peaceful, prosperous, and secure.

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Prayer always makes an impact. Moshe’s prayer was exceedingly powerful and made a supercharged impact. But all of Moshe’s prayer, and all of his pleading, and all of his incessant Divine entreatment did not succeed in getting God to change his decree barring Moshe from entering the Land. Moshe’s 515 prayers was unable to reverse the decree. In this very interesting Parsha podcast, we go behind the scenes and explore some fascinating angles and reasons why Moshe was denied entrance to the Holy Land.

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Moshe was Joshua’s teacher. By any measure, Moshe was a greater leader of the nation than Joshua was. Moshe was the sun to Joshua’s moon. But Moshe was unable to lead the nation across the Jordan; a feat that Joshua pulled off. How did Joshua the acolyte manage to outshine and upstage the master? That question is the first of two subjects addressed in this week’s Parsha podcast. To find out the other one you will have to listen for yourself.

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This week’s parsha continues Moshe’s monologue to the nation in the weeks preceding his passing. He begins by recounting his repeated efforts in trying to convince God to rescind His decree that Moshe not enter the Land; Moshe then begins the retelling of the Torah; and we read many warnings and predictions about proper behavior and the consequences of abandoning Torah and mitzvos. This is a parsha replete with iconic verses and big themes!

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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 yo...

A month before his passing, Moshe gathers the nation for a final message. He begins with a two-verse critique of the nation, not excoriating them for their sins, but gently reprimanding them in a veiled and subtle manner. Moshe then pledges to begin to explain the Torah with scintillating clarity. Before he does so though, he offers a broad retrospective of some of the events of the preceding 40 years. He talks about the nation seeking alternative judges, retells the episode of the spies and its aftereffects, and recounts the nation’s encounters with five foreign kingdoms on the east ba...