This Jewish Life - With Rabbi Yaakov Wolbe

What makes the Holy Land holy and it’s history from 3,800 years ago to modern Israel. *TORCH Bar and Bat Mitzvah Series 2015, Meyerland Minyan 4/27/2015

*TORCH Breakneck through the Bible, BJC Houston 4/28/2015

Talmud Taanis 20: A Person should always be soft like a reed and not stiff like a cedar. There was a story with Rabbi Eliezer the son of Rabbi Shimon who was coming from Migdal Gedor from the house of his Rabbi, and he was riding on a donkey and traveling on the edge of […]

Patterns in Jewish History, like cliches, repeat themselves. We are told that disunity, discord and disassociation brought down the Second Commonwealth of Israel nearly 2000 years ago. Implied is that unity will be the quality that is necessary to reestablish Jewish sovereignty and stability in Israel. The story of Zionism is one of disparate Jews […]

*Congregation Beth Yeshurun 4/23/2015

We find many references scattered throughout Jewish writings regarding Olam Haba, the next world. What exactly this place is, why we ought to strive to get there and how we go about achieving that goal are matters of immense intrigue and importance. This discussion centers around one of the more peculiar and mysterious Talmudic statements regarding Olam […]

Moses prayed 515 times to God that He rescind His decree of banning Moses from entering Israel. After this relentless prayer assault Moses ceased praying. Why would Moses stop after 515 and not continue and what does that teach us about the effectiveness of prayer? *Shalom Cypress, April 15, 2015

The Jewish attitude to Torah study has always been to not accept the words on a simplistic and superficial level. We view the text of the Torah as having infinite depth and subtle nuances and meanings. In this class we will attempt to dissect and unravel perhaps the most challenging episodes in the Torah: the […]

The narratives of Genesis mustn’t be read and understood as important stories or historical context; The Torah in it’s entirety is instructive. The manner in which the Forefathers are presented in the Torah and the content of those narratives and dialogues are reflective of the lessons that they exemplified and perfected that the Torah wants us […]

What is foretold about man even before conception, and what is significant about that? The Talmud declares that a child studies the entire Torah in utero and as it enters the world an angel strikes it’s mouth and the child forgets it all. What can this possibly mean? What is the nature of the oath administered to […]

Jews are obligated to pray to the Almighty 3 times daily and prayer is named by the Mishna as one of the three pillars that uphold the world. Yet the very principle of prayer is somewhat troubling. For example, when someone is sick the Jewish response is to beseech to God to provide a healing […]

Jewish Philosophy enumerates 13 principle beliefs that all Jews must believe in order to be a Jew. BBM – 2015

The trait of Kindness is the recipe for happy and harmonious marriages, the key to great leadership and the principal principle of a man of faith. All these are contingent on Kindness. Find out why.

The tool used by the Jewish people to fulfill their vital mission of Tikkun Olam is the Almighty’s holy Torah. The Torah alone enables us to be successful at the responsibility that only we can and must achieve. This is why preserving and accurately transmitting the Torah is of such paramount importance. If the Jews lose the […]

Abraham’s greatest contribution was his realization of the existence of the Almighty via the faculties of his own intellect and his commitment to disseminating this God Principle to the masses. Abraham chose God and God in turn chose Abraham to be the progenitor of the people that will collectively complete the sacred mission that Abraham began. […]

Judaism teaches that man is comprised of half body half soul. Our souls are like stars and our body’s earth. We are partially angel and partially beast. Our soul is compared to the Almighty Himself and has unlimited power to propel us to greatness. Will we capitalize on the vast potential or will we falter when […]

The Talmud declares that someone who rejects the legitimacy of the Written Torah as being written by Moses as per the dictation of the Almighty has no portion in the World to Come. If someone accepts the Torah at large but argues that a single verse is not Divine – they have no portion in the […]

This presentation was originally entitled: “The Ten Reasons Why Jews Study Torah”, but further research discovered more. The Torah has been the portable homeland of the Jewish people. Torah study has always been our national pastime. Why are we so obsessed with Torah study?

The what, why and how of kosher in the modern era.

Tefilin are two black leather boxes containing scrolls of sections of the Torah worn by Jews every day. What are some of the meanings behind this intriguing mitzvah, and how do these ideas dovetail with patterns of the totality of all 613 mitzvahs at large.

The discussions of “Who is a Jew?”, and matrimonial vs. patrilineal descent with regards to the status of a child of a mixed marriage have been rife with misconceptions. The popular maxim of Judaism descending from the mother’s side is only partially true; what the Torah does indeed say is significantly more nuanced.

A wide ranging discussion of major items in Jewish Philosophy.

Abraham died when he was 175; Isaac – 180; Jacob – 147; Moses an even 120. How did they live that long? Is there a secret elixir of life that they consumed? What was their diet?

Judaism teaches that God controls, supervises, manipulates and directs Jewish History. While we struggle to understand why the unprecedented genocide of the Holocaust had to happen, we know that God willed it. Of course this raises important and grave questions, which must be examined thoughtfully and sensitively. This class is a recounting of a largely unknown […]

We tackle the question of theodicy.

What does Jewish Law say regarding suicide? What about physician assisted suicide? We briefly outline the central element of these laws, although we may revisit it at greater length in the future.

The experience of pain and suffering is ubiquitous across all spectrum of human life. All of us, in some capacity, experience difficulties and challenges. Any measure of human suffering creates a dilemma for believers in a just God: How can a just God supervise over injustice? Why do bad things happen to good people? This […]

Striving for character development and ethical refinement are included in the demands that the Almighty expects from every Jew. The very first step on the path to total character perfection is acquiring and refining our capacity to have patience.

Ever since the founding of the Jewish state tension between the political and societal elements in Israel and the religious implications of a Jewish state have existed. In truth, the Zionist dream was hotly divisive across a very broad spectrum of the Jewish world fifty years before Israel’s founding. Recently several issues in the Israeli […]

Jesus is not, and never was, the Messiah because he fulfilled none of the personal qualifications of Messiah, accomplished none of the necessary requirements of the Messiah and the Messianic Era is clearly not underway. Jesus is not, and never was, divine because assigning godly qualities to a man is anathema for Jews and against […]

Maimonides, in including this as the ninth of the thirteen principles of faith, makes it abundantly clear: If you do not believe that every word of the Torah is true you have no place in the Jewish people. The Talmud further clarifies (Sanhedrin 99a) that even if someone acknowledges that all the Torah is divine […]

Jacob’s life was a seemingly endless streak of suffering and challenges. His own brother was hellbent on murdering him; his father in law tricked him into marrying the woman whom he did not desire to marry; his father in law also marginalized him professionally. Joseph’s life path follows a similar line: His brothers conspire to […]

What does the Torah have to say about love? How can we be required to love God? Why is there an additional mitzvah to love a convert? This class was given in Cypress, TX at Shalom Cypress.

At the beginning of the Second Commonwealth Era the Jews were introduced to a reality that they were previously unexposed to; namely living in Israel under foreign rule. With relatively minor exceptions such as the successful Macabbean revolt in 67 BCE and the Bar Kochba Revolt in 132 CE, Israel will be thenceforth dominated by […]

Belief in the idea that God communicates to man is an essential principle of our religion. In fact, various elements of prophecy comprise four of the thirteen principles of the Jewish faith that Maimonides enumerates as necessary for inclusion in the religion. What does prophecy mean? How does one become a prophet? How are claims of […]

As Jews we believe that God is not only the Creator of the Universe, but also is constantly sustaining the world with spiritual and physical nourishment and individually supervising all humans. The extent of how involved God is with us in the most minute fashion is revealed when the Talmud declares “A person cannot bend […]

שלשה מעין עוה”ב, אלו הן: שבת, שמש, ותשמיש. תשמיש דמאי, אילימא תשמיש התטה, הא מכחש כחיש, אלא תשמיש נקבים (ברכות דף נז:) The Talmud does not dispense secrets like gumballs. Therefore the Aggadic secrets of the Talmud are masked in parables, fantastic stories, allusions and the like and only after much toil can one uncover their […]

It is probably impossible for us to truly recognize the enormity of the existential challenges confronting the Jewish people during the beginning of the Second Commonwealth, circa 350 BCE. The nation was still reeling from the trauma of the destruction of the first Temple and the subsequent exile 70 years prior and had just narrowly […]