Kabbalah Talk with Rav Yaakov Shepherd

Rav Yakov Shepherd
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Ancient Jewish wisdom for the world you actually live in. Each week, Rav Yaakov Shepherd takes one concept of Kabbalah — or the deeper meaning of the moment in the Jewish calendar — and explores it in plain, livable language.

  1. 1d ago

    Kabbalah Talk: Noach

    Why do we wait until it hurts? Eric opens with a question most of us know from our own lives: the thing we keep putting off until it hurts. In this episode of Kabbalah Talk, Eric and Rav Yakov Shepherd read Parashat Noach through that question. We talk about Noach, about the Shechinah, about the teivah that each of us needs to build for himself, and about the tzaddikim. The episode draws on this week's Ramban Yad'a newsletter. Whoever gives their tithes to the yeshiva merits that we pray for them on an ongoing basis, at holy places in the Land of Israel. Our emissaries go out all year, each time to a different place, and they always mention the names of our supporters. Give your tithes here:https://www.jgive.com/new/en/usd/collect/donation-targets/171964/amount Learn with us on Telegram:https://t.me/kabbalahNhalacha More Kabbalah books and Jewish meditation at http://KingDavidKabbalah.com

  2. Oct 9

    Kabbalah Talk: Tohu and Bohu, the Building Blocks of Creation

    What does tohu va'vohu actually mean? Most of us grew up hearing it as a word for chaos, the thing your mother said when she opened the door of your room. In this episode of Kabbalah Talk, Eric asks Rav Yakov Shepherd what tohu and bohu mean, and the answer turns out to be a building site, not a mess. We read the Ramban on Bereishit together with Meirat Einayim by Rabbi Yitzchak of Acco. The Ramban says the raw matter the Greeks called hyle is called tohu in the Holy Tongue: material with no shape yet, ready to receive form. Bohu is the forms built out of it. Yeshayahu speaks of the line of tohu and the stones of bohu, the string a builder stretches across an empty lot to mark the plan before any stone goes in. If there is something in your life that has no shape yet, maybe it isn't a mess. Maybe it is tohu waiting for its bohu. The full study, verse by verse, is in this week's Ramban Yad'a newsletter (PDF):https://kingdavidkabbalah.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/Ramban-Yada-Bereishit-5787.pdf Whoever gives their tithes to the yeshiva merits that we pray for them on an ongoing basis, at holy places in the Land of Israel. Our emissaries go out all year, each time to a different place, and they always mention the names of our supporters. Give your tithes here:https://www.jgive.com/new/en/usd/collect/donation-targets/171964/amount Learn with us on Telegram:https://t.me/kabbalahNhalacha More Kabbalah books and Jewish meditation at http://KingDavidKabbalah.com

  3. Oct 4

    Are We Infinite?

    A forum thread asks three words: "Are we infinite?" Nearly everyone answers yes. Rav Yaakov Shepherd and Eric look at what an old kabbalah book, Shomer Emunim by Rabbi Yosef Ergas, actually says about it, and the answer is more interesting than yes or no: nothing broke off from the Infinite, like a candle lit from a candle, the first flame loses nothing, and yet there is a second flame giving real light. Support the work, and be included in the prayers of the holiday campaign: https://www.jgive.com/new/en/ils/donation-targets/176166 Leave a name for prayer (graves of the tzaddikim / pidyon nefesh): https://kingdavidkabbalah.com/send-a-name/ Source for today's teaching: Shomer Emunim, Rabbi Yosef Ergas (citing the Tikkunei Zohar for the candle image). Ein Sof as a name of Kether: Ramban on Bereishit 1:1.

  4. Sep 30

    The Second Seal: The Night That Is Still Open

    Eric's neighbor isn't going to bed on the night of Hoshana Rabba. Eric thought the sealing was Yom Kippur. He fasted for it, he stood for Ne'ilah, he heard the gates close. So what is still open two weeks later? Rav Yaakov Shepherd answers from the Arizal: Hoshana Rabba is the second seal, and its night is a continuation of Ne'ilah itself. What was decided has not yet been handed over, and while it sits in the heavenly court it can still be changed. That is the note the Zohar calls the pitka, and why in Jerusalem people wish each other pitka tava, a good note. From there, the walking. Why one circle each morning of Sukkot and seven on Hoshana Rabba, and what the circle actually does: a surrounding light, drawn down to guard the Shechinah before the union of Shemini Atzeret. You are not circling to get something. You are circling to be a wall. And the wall does not end on Friday: the hakafot of Simchat Torah, the dancing with the Torah, keep strengthening that same protection. Then the turn. The siddur has Eric asking two names, Ani vaHo, to save him, and Eric thinks that is exactly the pendant kabbalah the Rav warns against. The Rav takes it apart: where the two names sit inside the seventy-two, why the names cannot save anyone, and what you are really addressing when you say hoshia na. Then a short practice for the night itself: the wall, one deed, and two words said to the light inside the letters and not to the letters. Recorded in Jerusalem, at the Yeshiva of the Mekubalim, Nefesh HaChaim, at King David's Tomb. From Erev Yom Kippur until Hoshana Rabba, names are carried in prayer at King David's Tomb, and the same money reaches families as food before the festival. Hoshana Rabba, Friday 2 October, is the last day to join: https://www.jgive.com/new/en/ils/donation-targets/176166 Hoshana Rabba, Simchat Torah, Sukkot, hakafot, Arizal, Zohar, 72 names, Kabbalah, Jewish prayer, Ne'ilah, Shemini Atzeret, Nefesh HaChaim

  5. Sep 22

    The Four Species and the Magid’s Meditation: What Even Moshe Didn’t Know

    The Midrash names three things that stayed a wonder: Pesach, Matzah, and Maror. A fourth thing it says we never fully grasped: the four species of the lulav. Not the greatest sages. Not Moshe Rabbeinu himself. Not even Shlomo HaMelech, the wisest of men. So what is left for the rest of us? Rav Yaakov Shepherd and Eric take up a simple, concrete meditation from the Magid of Mezeritch for the actual moment of shaking the lulav: forward, to lift the heart's earthly desire up to the daat; there, to sort it from what is truly desired; back, to bring that clarity home into the heart. And hidden inside the count of the four species themselves, the Rav lays out all seven lower sefirot, each with its own earthly pull and its own godly one. Recorded in Jerusalem, at the Yeshiva of the Mekubalim, Nefesh HaChaim. This Sukkot the yeshiva is buying a set of the four species, and food for the table, for families who cannot afford them. Whoever gives receives a real share in the mitzvah of the lulav and etrog that the money buys. The prayers said at King David's Tomb on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur were said with this in mind, and they apply to everyone who joins, even now. https://www.jgive.com/new/en/ils/donation-targets/176166 The ready to print meditation page from this episode is free. It arrives by email the moment you ask for it here: https://join.mekobalim.org Chag Sameach. Sukkot, lulav, etrog, four species, Kabbalah, Jewish meditation, Magid of Mezeritch, sefirot, Nefesh HaChaim

  6. Sep 17

    Zochrenu LeChaim: The Line in Brackets

    EREV YOM KIPPUR The pidyon kaparot comes first, at dawn, following the Arizal. On Erev Yom Kippur in the afternoon the Rav performs the pidyon nefesh at King David's Tomb, in the old Kabbalistic order of it, according to the kavanot of the Rashash. Every name sent to the yeshiva is in both, and you are told the day it was done. The same giving also buys food for families in need, for Sukkot. Take part: https://www.jgive.com/new/en/ils/donation-targets/176166 Send a name and the mother's name: https://mekobalim.org/shemot You do not need to give in order to send a name.

  7. Sep 10

    One Hundred Voices: The Hidden Architecture of the Shofar

    Some years the shofar is not blown at all, and this is one of them. The first day of Rosh Hashanah falls on Shabbat. Rav Yaakov Shepherd and Eric work through four questions that open out of that silence. Why the Sages set aside a mitzvah of the Torah itself. Why Rosh Hashanah is two days in Israel too, when the reason for two days never applied there. Where the number one hundred comes from, and the ten that live inside it. And what the shofar of the Jubilee has to do with the one you will hear this year. Recorded in Jerusalem, at the Yeshiva of the Mekubalim, Nefesh HaChaim, at King David's Tomb. Until Hoshana Rabbah, your name is said in prayer at King David's Tomb, at the Kotel, at Meron, at Amuka and in Uman, through the ten days. https://www.jgive.com/new/en/ils/donation-targets/176166

  8. Sep 4

    Give the Day Back: The Jewish Way to Fall Asleep

    You lie down exhausted and your mind picks that exact moment to review everything. The   conversation that went sideways, the email you didn't send, tomorrow's list in order. Your body   lies down and your mind stands up.   Rav Yaakov Shepherd starts from an unlikely place: Yonah, asleep below deck while the storm tears   the ship apart and the sailors throw cargo overboard. The one prophet famous for sleeping too   well. What the tradition says about that sleep is not that Yonah was indifferent. It is that when   Yonah went down into the sea, his soul went up.   Sleep was never switching off. It is handing the day back into the hands of the One who neither   slumbers nor sleeps. You were never meant to carry it through the night. That was never your   shift.   The second half is a guided practice, and you are meant to fall asleep during it. Falling asleep   in the middle is not failing the practice. It is the practice. Lie down, get comfortable, and let   the phone rest far from the bed.   The Rav's guided meditations, ready when you are: https://app.jmeditate.com Tags: jewish meditation, kabbalah, sleep, insomnia, rav shepherd, bedtime, jonah, hashem, jewish spirituality

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Ancient Jewish wisdom for the world you actually live in. Each week, Rav Yaakov Shepherd takes one concept of Kabbalah — or the deeper meaning of the moment in the Jewish calendar — and explores it in plain, livable language.

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