TORAH 101 - By Rabbi Yaakov Wolbe

Some atheists are quite intelligent. Some atheists score highly on IQ tests. How can they be so wrong on matters of faith? Where exactly do the atheists go wrong? In this interesting TORAH 101 podcast, we pinpoint the precise area that causes atheists to err. It turns out, a perfectly functioning and competent and capable […]

We have made enormous strides in our pursuit of a deep, and comprehensive study of Rambam's 13 principles of faith. We have plumbed the depths of these 13 tenets of our religion to the best of our ability. This podcast marks the final installment of this series. In it we explore some of the various […]

It is hard enough for us to keep track of what happens to us in our lifetime; what happens after we die is truly a mystery. But there are timelines that are even murkier: what happens after Messiah? How does the Resurrection unfold? Is Resurrection a one-time thing or are there many different resurrections? What […]

TORCH Fundraiser — support the TORAH 101 Podcast Our organization, TORCH, does only one fundraiser a year, and that is happening right now at giveTORCH.org. This is a matching campaign and every donation will be DOUBLED. Please support the TORAH 101 Podcast right now at giveTORCH.org The website for the Fundraiser is giveTORCH.org Click and donate to support the […]

TORCH Fundraiser — support the TORAH 101 Podcast Our organization, TORCH, does only one fundraiser a year, and that is happening right now at giveTORCH.org. This is a matching campaign and every donation will be DOUBLED. Please support the TORAH 101 Podcast right now at giveTORCH.org The website for the Fundraiser is giveTORCH.org Click and donate to support the […]

The great medieval sage my Maimonides – Rambam – has been guiding us throughout our studies of the 13th principles of faith. This transcendental scholar, who's magisterial writings are authoritatively accepted amongst the entirety of the Jewish people, was one of our people's greatest personalities. His writings are enormously influential and authoritative in matters of […]

In our pursuit of understanding of the subject of resurrection, many questions remain. In the previous episode we talked about the two types of resurrection, there is still a lack of clarity in the similarities and the differences between the two types of resurrection. Furthermore, the Talmud says that the righteous are alive even when […]

One of me hallmarks of the Messianic times is the resurrection of the righteous. With Messiah comes the reemergence of the righteous. Those buried in the land will precede those buried outside of it, but all the righteous will come back. This is well established in the Literature. In this podcast we discussed the two […]

The subject of resurrection was hotly debated in times of yore. The Talmud records a series of debates between great rabbis and their Roman contemporaries about the this subject. When we probe the matter more deeply, we discover that the Roman disbelievers of resurrection have a very good argument. Reasonable people can come to the […]

We stridently disagree with the oft-repeated statement: “You only live once.” #YOLO is a sentiment that violates our beliefs. A central principle of our religion is the concept of resurrection. Death is not permanent. The dead will rise again. Life will be extended to the bodies of the deceased. Abraham will once again grace this […]

We have studied the subject of Messiah in its length and breadth. In the 16th and final installment of our study of the 12th of Rambam's Thirteen Principles of Faith, we briefly survey a potpourri of subjects that are tangential to the main subject of Messiah. We explore six different topics: Messiah Ben Joseph; the […]

Messiah is something that we anticipate and yearn for and await, but it is also something that we must prepare for. The consequences of being unprepared for Messiah are grave. How can we prepare for Messiah? What, specifically, do the sources focus on when it comes to getting in shape for Messiah? In this podcast […]

Our Nation has been yearning for Messiah for a very long time. And for good cause: Messiah is associated with wonderful things. Messiah is the state of the world when the mission that Abraham began gets actualized. Messiah is when the knowledge that our nation personified for millennia finally becomes ubiquitous. Messiah is a time […]

King Messiah will spearhead the spiritual movement that will reverberate the world over. This King will bear a grand and lofty stature exceeding that of the greatest exemplars of our history. In this podcast we explore King Messiah further: what are the indicators of the real messiah? What are the means by which we can […]

The world will undergo immense changes in the times of Messiah. Those changes will be so transformative and so comprehensive that our current world and our current values are scarcely similar to those of the world of Messiah. When Messiah will come is a question that we cannot answer. Trying to do so is prohibited, […]

When will Messiah come? We are all curious to know the answer. What if we can find evidence or proof in Scripture to know when the redemption will happen? Isn't that a tantalizing notion? In this podcast we survey the prohibition, futility, and peril of Messianic prognostication. – – – – – – – – […]

What will happen in the times of Messiah? For us, that is an unanswerable question. Our Sages tell us that unless you are a prophet, it is not possible for you to know ahead of time how the Messianic transformation will unfold. That said, our Sages do provide us with descriptions and accounts and hints […]

We have been awaiting and anticipating Messiah for millennia. Messianic yearning has been a hallmark of Jewish life ever since we were exiled from our land with the destruction of the Second Temple. Messiah, we have learned, will definitely happen. It is inevitable. But the type of Messiah depends upon the path that we choose […]

The sources all agree: Messiah is not a possibility that we can potentially achieve; it is an inevitability. It will definitely happen. Under no circumstances will Messiah and not come before the year 6,000 since Adam. The inevitability of Messiah raises a fundamental question, though: if something is inevitable, it cannot be linked to frail, […]

The Messianic era will unleash seismic changes to our nation and to all of humanity. In this podcast we talk about the ultimate catalyst of Messiah: Repentance. The sources agree that it is only via repentance that Messiah can arrive. When our nation returns to the Almighty, the world is ready to transition to the […]

Please support the annual TORCH fundraiser at giveTORCH.org Every donation is DOUBLED. Our organization, TORCH, runs one annual fundraiser, and it is happening right now at giveTORCH.org. We need your support – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Messiah is not an […]

Please support the annual TORCH fundraiser at giveTORCH.org by clicking HERE Please support The TORAH 101 Podcast at giveTORCH.org by clicking HERE Every donation is DOUBLED This is our only annual fundraiser and we need your support! giveTORCH.org Please support the TORAH 101 Podcast in 2023! – – – – – – – – – – – – – – […]

Messiah will be an era of seismic changes for the Jewish people and for the world. Knowledge of God will be ubiquitous. The primacy of the Jewish people as God's chosen Nation will be universally accepted. The pursuit of wisdom will supersede all other pursuits. The world will begin it's a rapid progress towards perfection. […]

The sources depicting Messiah and the Messianic Era paint a very different picture of the world than the one we are accustomed to. Knowledge of God will be universal, on that day God will be One and His Name will be One. The pursuit of knowledge will dominate. The Jewish Nation will be heralded. King […]

The subject of the Messiah is notoriously confusing. What is Messiah? How will Messiah change our lives?  What will be different in the Messianic era? The answers to these questions are not ubiquitously known. In this podcast we proceed in our studies of the Twelfth Principle of Rambam's Thirteen Principles of Faith by addressing the […]

Our nation has been anticipating and longing for the Messiah, Moshiach (משיח) in Hebrew, for millennia. We are awaiting his arrival, which can come any day. The Messianic era is a utopian world that we yearn for. But what exactly is the Messiah? What are the qualifications to be Messiah? What is the Messianic era […]

The term “Olam Haba” refers the world after the Resurrection, the world where there's life with no death, where there is the dispensing of reward for those who adhere to the word of God. If we were to distill our life mission to one sentence it would be this sentence: our mission in this world […]

What is Olam Haba like? Our sages describe this future world as the world of ultimate reward. Paradise in the Afterlife is a very wonderful and pleasurable experience, but even Paradise is not the ultimate reward. That is reserved for Olam Haba. But what is it like? What does it feel like? In this podcast […]

After a person dies, the Heavenly tribunal determines the fate of their Soul. If the Soul is pristinely pure, the person having accomplished everything that was expected of them and they are also lacking any blemishes borne about by sin, the Soul is ushered to Paradise. If the Soul needs some cleansing, it can be […]

What happens after we die is an endlessly fascinating – or terrifying – topic. In our exploration of the Afterlife we have covered vast grounds: We've spoken about death and the various types of death; we've spoken about the reckoning and accounting that a person must submit before the Heavenly tribunal; we have been made […]

Paradise and Purgatory, “Gehenom” and “Gan Eden” in Hebrew, are two potential destinations of the soul after a person dies. The righteous ones who have lived their lives in complete compliance with the rules, instructions, and guidance of the Torah are brought to Paradise, a venue of sublime, spiritual pleasure. The wicked who have sullied […]

Death is a inescapable part of human life. It was not always like that. Prior to Adam's sin in the Garden, man was destined to live forever. As a result of his consumption from the Tree of Knowledge Good and Evil, Adam condemned humanity to undergo a necessary purification and cleansing process achieved with death. […]

A central pillar of our belief is that when we adhere to the word of God, He will reward us in the Afterlife. Conversely, if we disobey God, we will suffer the consequences of our rebellion in the Afterlife as well. In this podcast we ponder an interesting question: the Torah discusses reward and punishment […]

Our nation purports to be the chosen people. What does that mean? Why were we chosen? What were we chosen for? The notion of being a chosen people is a very interesting and mysterious idea. In this special podcast, we focus on an element of the uniqueness of the Jewish nation: the Jewish Soul. Are […]

How did the soul end up here? What transpired to the soul before it got here? These are fascinating questions that on the surface seem to be quite theoretical. What difference does studying the history and the backstory of the Soul make for us who are already living? A lot, it turns out. By understanding […]

The Soul is perhaps the loftiest creation of God. Our Sages tell us that the Soul is even loftier than Angels. What does that mean? What is the nature of the relationship of the Soul to its Creator? What are the properties of the Soul? In this fundamental podcast you will learn about the origin […]

With deep appreciation to the Almighty for all the goodness that He has bestowed upon us, I'm happy to share that my wife, Chaya, and I were blessed with a beautiful baby boy on Monday, March 14. Thank God, both Mom and baby are doing fabulous! In this special edition of the podcast, I share […]

The human Soul is the most ethereal of God's creations. Our Sages tell us that it is spiritually loftier than Angels. Before we continue our discussions related to what happens to the Soul in the Afterlife, it is important to gain a basic understanding of the nature of the Soul: What is it? Where does […]

In conjunction with our annual fundraiser this week at giveTORCH.org (every donation is tripled), we are releasing a special interview conducted by the TORCH Board President, Dan Kullman, about my new book, Upon A Ten-Stringed Harp. Please consider contributing to our annual fundraiser at giveTORCH.org.

Please support The TORAH 101 Podcast and the annual TORCH fundraiser at giveTORCH.org Every donation will be TRIPLED Show your support for TORCH and The TORAH 101 Podcast and donate to the annual fundraiser at giveTORCH.org – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – […]

In our previous episode we established the basic principle that God dispenses reward to those who hearken to Him, and metes out punishment to those who disobey Him. In this episode we get down to specifics: What is the nature of the Divine system of reward and punishment? How is God's methods of reward and […]

The 11th of the 13 principles of Faith states that God dispenses reward to those who obey His will and punishes those who violate it. What is the nature of this reward and punishment is a vast and complex subject that we will yet navigate, with the help of the Almighty. In this podcast we […]

We hold two beliefs that seem to be mutually exclusive. The 10th principle of the 13 principles of faith declares that God knows everything – including the thoughts, deeds, and speech of people – even before it happens. There is nothing that is hidden from Him. We also believe in free will. The principle of […]

How exactly does the Almighty determine what are the circumstances that people are placed in in this world? That is an impossible question for humans to answer with exactitude. Unless the Almighty reveals the answer via one of His prophets, we are in the dark. Nevertheless, our Sages outlines for us a bevy of frameworks […]

Why are some people rich and others poor? Why do some people have a pleasant life, while others live in grinding, miserable, poverty and privation? Why is there so much inequality in the world? These questions are hard to answer. Rambam tells us that there is a certain kind of heretics that concludes from the […]

The Tenth Principle of the Thirteen Principles of Faith states that God is aware of the actions of mankind and acts accordingly. This kickstarts the third section of the Principles which broadly deal with reward and punishment. Divine reward and punishment is only feasible if the Almighty has complete knowledge of all the behavior and […]

In Principle #8 of the 13 Principles of faith, we learned that the Torah is divine. In our exploration of that Principle, we probed many aspects of the idea of the Divinity of Torah, ranging from the history of Torah, to the components of Torah, to Oral Torah, to Rabbinic law, and culminating with the […]

Why is our nation so obsessed with Torah? Why do we make such an emphasis on it? What benefits do we as individuals and does society at large accrue with Torah study? In this sweeping episode we explore this fundamental question. We begin with the big picture by outlining some of the critical benefits that […]

Torah study in not just another discipline; it’s a relationship. Our Sages compare the relationship of the Jew to Torah as that of a husband and wife. It’s deep, intimate, and special. Just as husband and wife can unite to create something new, the objective of Torah study is to transform the person and create […]

For the Jewish people. Torah is not just a corpus of law, of an accounting of our past, or even the ancient heritage of our people. Torah and an obsession with Torah study have been the defining characteristics of our nation since its inception. Torah is what we stand for;  it’s what we do; it’s […]

Please support The TORCH Podcasts and the annual TORCH fundraiser at giveTORCH.org Every donation will be TRIPLED Show your support for TORCH and the TORCH Podcasts and donate to the annual fundraiser at giveTORCH.org – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – […]