Podcasts about ssm

Parsha ‘Korach’ (Numbers chapters 16 through 18) is popularly known as the story of “Korah’s Rebellion.” And the Erev Shabbat reading of the portion by Mark Call of SSM certainly explains why: https://hebrewnationonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/SSM-6-19-26-Korach-teaching-podcast-xx.mp3 But we risk missing out if we don’t ask some important questions, and not even just “why?” This was, after all, the guy who had led them through the Red, er, Sea of Reeds, and spoke directly to YHVH Himself. Who did they think they were? But maybe we shouldn’t be surprised. After all, Yahushua told all us that if we don’t believe “Moses’s Writings,” how could we believe His Words? “Korach: A Rebellion that was the First of Too Many https://hebrewnationonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/WT-CooH-6-20-26-Korach-If-we-cant-even-RECOGNIZE-Moses-how-can-we-hope-to-spot-a-FAKE-podcast-xxx.mp3 Service information: Shabbat Shalom Mesa fellowship worship services and teachings are broadcast live every Sabbath, via Paltalk. (www.paltalk.com has both the link, and the app.) The “room name” is “Walking Torah with Shabbat Shalom Mesa,” and can be found via the paltalk search, then bookmarked. Erev Shabbat services begin at 7:00 PM Mountain Time Friday evenings (9 PM Eastern, 8 PM Central) Live Sabbath teachings begin shortly after 11 AM Mountain time on Sabbath day (Saturday). email: mark@markniwot.com The combined two-part reading and Sabbath midrash:

Parsha ‘Beha-alotecha’ ends with what Mark Call of Shabbat Shalom Mesa fellowship has often described as “the Whining.” Which is followed by ‘the Lusting.’ And a lot of people who end up dead as a result. And that leads directly into parsha “Shalach Lekha,” where the words mean “send out men.” It is the story of the infamous “spies” — including Joshua and Caleb — and is also what Mark calls the “first recorded VOTE in history.” And Joshua and Caleb LOST it, 10-2. But, much like ‘votes’ today, the only people that REALLY lost were those who participated. Their “bodies fell in the wilderness,” ultimately, as they were promised. The Erev Shabbat reading of the entire ‘parsha-plus’ clarifies that connection: https://hebrewnationonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/SSM-6-12-26-Beha-alotecha-through-Shalach-Lekha-teaching-podcast-xx.mp3 Did EVERY single man over the age of 20 die in the wilderness because they went along with the “evil report” of those ten spies? Scripture makes it clear that they did. But, other than Joshua and Caleb, weren’t there ANY men above ‘voting age’ that simply didn’t participate with that infamous ‘first vote’? Would God really do that? But it turns out the pattern, and the progression, are clear. First they “murmured,” but perhaps “whined” really is what it would probably be termed today. Then they lusted, and got quail. A LOT of it. And probably wished they hadn’t. But Scripture told us the complaining, and worse, was widespread – but did not use the word “all.” Even if it may have been the vast majority. UNTIL that ‘first recorded vote.’ After which, it says clearly, and repeatedly, “ALL” of ’em. And Joshua and Caleb admonished ALL of ’em, too. And then ALL of them tried to kill them both. After which “ALL” of them got what they deserved. Or had earned. But it may not have been the very first time after all. “Numbers 10 through Shalach-Lekha: “Sodom VOTED to Die! How long will ‘they’ Despise YHVH”? https://hebrewnationonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/WT-CooH-6-13-26-Beha-alotecha-through-Shalach-Lekha-How-Long-will-you-DESPISE-Me-My-Word-podcast-xxxx.mp3 Service information: Shabbat Shalom Mesa fellowship worship services and teachings are broadcast live every Sabbath, via Paltalk. (www.paltalk.com has both the link, and the app.) The “room name” is “Walking Torah with Shabbat Shalom Mesa,” and can be found via the paltalk search, then bookmarked. Erev Shabbat services begin at 7:00 PM Mountain Time Friday evenings (9 PM Eastern, 8 PM Central) Live Sabbath teachings begin shortly after 11 AM Mountain time on Sabbath day (Saturday). email: mark@markniwot.com The combined two-part reading and Sabbath midrash:

A few weeks back, Mark Call of Shabbat Shalom Mesa made the decision to spend a bit more time on the last few weeks of regular readings, which included a “double-portion,” separately. Hopefully you saw why that was important. So, this week, we’ll continue to catch up, with a bit more than parsha ‘Naso,’ (Numbers 4:22 through chapter 7) and continue through a section in chapter 10 that seems to fit well. The reading for parsha Naso begins with the remainder of the duties of the tribe of Gershon, and then summarizes the ‘census’ of the Levites, after which the narrative changes, and we again see that those who were “unclean” – for several reasons – were to be “put out,” or “shalach” in the Hebrew, a word we’ve seen before – of the camp. And that is followed up by descriptions of two other ‘processes,’ described in detail, which seem utterly foreign to most of ‘the sun-day church’ today. https://hebrewnationonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/SSM-6-5-26-Naso-plus-thru-ch-10-teaching-podcast-xx.mp3 The Sabbath Day midrash this week begins with a question: What is it about those two, apparently very different, situations, and thus processes, the connects them? And why do they follow immediately after the commandment to “shalach” or put out of the camp, the “unclean?” The process outlined for the “sota” – or the woman whose husband suspects adultery, but has no proof – is said to be the ONLY one of its kind in Scripture, where YHVH actually PROMISES a miracle, one way or another. It’s also misunderstood and mis-taught (witness most of the twisting you’ve probably heard about ‘Jesus and the Woman CAUGHT in adultery’) and yet still at the very heart of so many of the most important events in all of human history! Why does the ‘whore church’ then ignore the real lesson? And that is followed-up immediately by the process surrounding the ‘Nazerite vow.’ Samson was said to be one “from his mother’s womb,’ as perhaps John the Baptist may have been as well. But Shaul, aka “Paul of Tarsus” notably TOOK such a vow, after he came to know Yahushua, notably, and yet most of xtianity has NEVER heard that! For reasons that Mark says, as the discussion unfolds, are obvious now. “Naso-plus: “Put out” the Unclean – but then Other Ignored Commandments That Speak VOLUMES about what we have been MIS-taught” https://hebrewnationonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/WT-CooH-6-6-26-Naso-plus-thru-ch-10-Shalach-the-unclean-the-Sota-the-Nazerite-and-HOW-MUCH-MORE-so-Es-QQQ-podcast-xxx.mp3 Service information: Shabbat Shalom Mesa fellowship worship services and teachings are broadcast live every Sabbath, via Paltalk. (www.paltalk.com has both the link, and the app.) The “room name” is “Walking Torah with Shabbat Shalom Mesa,” and can be found via the paltalk search, then bookmarked. Erev Shabbat services begin at 7:00 PM Mountain Time Friday evenings (9 PM Eastern, 8 PM Central) Live Sabbath teachings begin shortly after 11 AM Mountain time on Sabbath day (Saturday). email: mark@markniwot.com The combined two-part reading and Sabbath midrash:

Mark Call of Shabbat Shalom Mesa made the decision to treat the last few weeks of regular readings, which included a “double-portion,” separately – because there was so much in there that needed to be given more time. So, this week, we will catch up, at least a bit, with a different combination ‘double parsha,’ and see that the combination also fits. Parsha “Bechukotai,” (Leviticus 26 through the end of the Book) from the opening verse, IF you WALK, “IN MY Statutes,” is perhaps the second most dramatic set of “blessings and curses” in Scripture, after Deuteronomy chapter 28. And it includes what Mark has called the set of “seven times seven times seven times seven” — and a litany of curses that any of us would be hard pressed to argue aren’t at least in their initial stages, or worse. The Erev Shabbat reading then continues with parsha “Bemidbar,” (Numbers chapters 1 through 4) and the command to Moshe and Aaron to “lift up the head” or number – take a census – the men of ‘fighting age’ in the mixed multitude. And the details make certain elements of that effort stand out over the millenia: https://hebrewnationonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/SSM-5-29-26-double-Bechukotai-Bemidbar-teaching-podcast-xx.mp3 The Sabbath Day midrash again begins with a suggestion. Since there is so much emphasis on DOING what YHVH says, ALL of it, and keeping his “statutes, judgments, and commandments, along with the dire promise of what happens if, as it turns out, they did not — the numbers that begin the Book called “Numbers” in English end up telling a stark tale. Because we’ve read ahead. of 603,550 men, all unique, all counted as individuals, it turns out that only TWO (2) – and we know their names – will make it “into the land.” There is also a specific warning in verse 17, that precedes even the multiplied curses. It even has to do with things like data centers, today. And a very specific failure, Mark contends, underlies ALL of those lessons. “Bechukotai, then Bemidbar: Those Who HATE You WILL Rule Over You – and that’s for starters” https://hebrewnationonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/WT-CooH-5-30-26-double-Bechukotai-Bemidbar-Those-who-HATE-you-DO-Rule-Over-You-podcast-xxxx.mp3 Service information: Shabbat Shalom Mesa fellowship worship services and teachings are broadcast live every Sabbath, via Paltalk. (www.paltalk.com has both the link, and the app.) The “room name” is “Walking Torah with Shabbat Shalom Mesa,” and can be found via the paltalk search, then bookmarked. Erev Shabbat services begin at 7:00 PM Mountain Time Friday evenings (9 PM Eastern, 8 PM Central) Live Sabbath teachings begin shortly after 11 AM Mountain time on Sabbath day (Saturday). email: mark@markniwot.com The combined two-part reading and Sabbath midrash:

Parsha “Behar” (Leviticus chapters 25, essentially) is one of the shortest in the annual reading cycle. Certainly one of the most ignored. And, as Mark Call of Shabbat Shalom Mesa fellowship shows pretty clearly, it’s one that we NEVER should have pretended was “done away with.” Yes, verse 10 is in fact inscribed on the Liberty Bell, which only helps make the omission more poignant. And there are even some words in here that, transliterated, even sound a bit familiar. Like, “Jubliee,” from the 50 year (7×7+1) cycle know in Hebrew as ‘yovel.’ The Erev Shabbat reading lays out the specifics of the “sevens” of years, and the seven-sevens: https://hebrewnationonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/SSM-5-22-26-Behar-teaching-podcast-xxx.mp3 But it’s not just the Big Lie that the “Old” Testament has so much outdated stuff that’s been ‘done away with.’ It’s that the system of dishonest weights, and “money” that is nothing but debt, which multiplies without end, is pure slavery, with no Jubilee reprieve. Whether the banksters and fake priests of the world admit it or not, if YHVH’s Reset doesn’t happen every fifty years or so, His Great Reset will happen eventually, without fail. And the irony of those who claim, “I am NOT “under the Law,” while being in bondage to a level of debt slavery the likes of which the world has never before seen, is not just palpable — it’s terminal. Behar: “The Shmita, The Yovel [Jubilee], the REAL Great Reset – and other things we never should have ignored” https://hebrewnationonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/WT-CooH-5-23-26-Behar-Shmita-Yovel-Bondage-and-Torahless-ness-of-the-Fathers-visited-on-US-podcast-xxxx.mp3 Service information: Shabbat Shalom Mesa fellowship worship services and teachings are broadcast live every Sabbath, via Paltalk. (www.paltalk.com has both the link, and the app.) The “room name” is “Walking Torah with Shabbat Shalom Mesa,” and can be found via the paltalk search, then bookmarked. Erev Shabbat services begin at 7:00 PM Mountain Time Friday evenings (9 PM Eastern, 8 PM Central) Live Sabbath teachings begin shortly after 11 AM Mountain time on Sabbath day (Saturday). email: mark@markniwot.com The combined two-part reading and Sabbath midrash:

Dr. Hossain Marandi, president of SSM Health Cardinal Glennon Children's Hospital and system vice president, Pediatric Services joins Megan Lynch to talk about SSM plans for the region's first fully integrated maternal and newborn care center.

Parsha “Emor” (Leviticus chapters 21 through 24) begins with the word “Emor,” or “speak,” and it is directed specifically: to Aaron, and his sons, and those who are ‘cohenim,’ or priests, that follow after them. Speak to THEM. And yet today, the mishkan, and the temple which followed, no longer exists. Neither does that priesthood, so far as a known lineage at least. And so, even though this instruction was given as a commandment “forever,” and “throughout your generations,” and in all your dwellings — even in exile — the things they were charged with doing cannot be done. How can it still be relevant? And though most of us have probably been told that it’s “old testament,” and thus NOT relevant, Mark Call of Shabbat Shalom Mesa fellowship suggests (surprise!) otherwise. For reasons that might even be surprising. And vital. And in fact, it just might be that the fact we’ve been told to ignore so much of this, and particularly when YHVH says otherwise, that gives us every reason to look deeper. The Erev Shabbat reading lays out the details of exactly what the cohenim, those who follow the sons of Aaron, were told to do, and how: https://hebrewnationonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/SSM-4-15-26-Emor-teaching-podcast-xx.mp3 But that is just the start. The parsha also includes some other things, like particularly the “appointed times of YHVH,” that “make the case” so dramatically: If we can’t tell a “real priest,” or cohen, from the fakes that claim to replace them, how can we expect to recognize a fake prophet? Or, more importantly, a fake messiah, or ‘christ.’ After all, Yahushua Himself warned us against exactly that! Emor: “The Real vs the Fake – Teach My People the Difference” https://hebrewnationonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/WT-CooH-5-16-26-Emor-What-is-relevant-here-A-Fake-Priests-for-starters-podcast-xxx.mp3 Service information: Shabbat Shalom Mesa fellowship worship services and teachings are broadcast live every Sabbath, via Paltalk. (www.paltalk.com has both the link, and the app.) The “room name” is “Walking Torah with Shabbat Shalom Mesa,” and can be found via the paltalk search, then bookmarked. Erev Shabbat services begin at 7:00 PM Mountain Time Friday evenings (9 PM Eastern, 8 PM Central) Live Sabbath teachings begin shortly after 11 AM Mountain time on Sabbath day (Saturday). email: mark@markniwot.com The combined two-part reading and Sabbath midrash:

The segment centers on St. Louis County Councilman Dennis Hancock outlining the council's allegations that County Executive Sam Page violated a charter rule barring outside employment, citing SSM work records and reimbursement data as evidence of outside activity beyond his official role. Hancock argues the council has referred the matter to prosecutors and the attorney general after concluding Page's “volunteer work” explanation does not align with employment documentation, raising the possibility of removal from office depending on legal findings. The discussion also touches on broader concerns about transparency, compensation structures, and whether the ongoing legal pressure could accelerate Page's political exit. Hashtags: #StLouisCounty #SamPage #DennisHancock #CountyPolitics #GovernmentOversight #LegalInvestigation #MissouriPolitics

Join Mark Call of Shabbat Shalom Mesa fellowship what may be one of the most vital — and no doubt offensive to some who most need to hear it — of the Torah teachings that the Whore Church would rather be ignored. Parsha “Kedoshim” (Leviticus chapters 19 through 21) is another one of those that most of us have heard is not just “Old” Testament, and thus “done away with,” but full of stuff that we now find insufficiently WOKE to even be allowed to discuss. Prohibitions on “sorcery” and seances and “Gay Sex” – who could imagine how bigoted and certainly some kinda-phobic that is? People will no doubt soon – when the Aliens get revealed – be punished for even reading it. Too bad that’s no longer even hyperbole. And ironically, while even the ‘Whore Church’ still, at least occasionally, quotes the part about “be Holy because The LORD is holy,” even if they spin that, most folks would prefer, and have been TAUGHT to, ignore what that actually means. The Erev Shabbat reading lays out more of the details WHAT that is, and a bit of WHY it’s now, at best, passe’. More importantly, though, given what’s now ‘in-progress’ – the text makes it pretty clear it’s also deadly. https://hebrewnationonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/SSM-5-8-26-Kedoshim-teaching-podcast-xx.mp3 Mark begins the Sabbath Day midrash with an explanation of the title of teaching for this week, and a bit of the irony of how the word “HOLY” has come to mean pretty much the opposite of what His Words says we are to be: Set Apart. From exactly some of what we’ve been taught. And now that the “Alien Deception” is, one way or another, in Full Swing, how will people who don’t even understand what we are to be Set Apart TO, recognize what they have already been set apart FROM, and why? Kedoshim: “VERY ‘Familiar Spirits’ – Coming Soon to a Theater Near YOU!” https://hebrewnationonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/WT-CooH-5-9-26-Kedoshim-VERY-Familiar-Spirits-Coming-Soon-to-a-Theatre-Near-YOU-podcast-xxxx.mp3 Service information: Shabbat Shalom Mesa fellowship worship services and teachings are broadcast live every Sabbath, via Paltalk. (www.paltalk.com has both the link, and the app.) The “room name” is “Walking Torah with Shabbat Shalom Mesa,” and can be found via the paltalk search, then bookmarked. Erev Shabbat services begin at 7:00 PM Mountain Time Friday evenings (9 PM Eastern, 8 PM Central) Live Sabbath teachings begin shortly after 11 AM Mountain time on Sabbath day (Saturday). email: mark@markniwot.com The combined two-part reading and Sabbath midrash:

Parsha “Acharei Mot” (Leviticus chapters 16 through 18) begins, as it says up front, “After the Death” of the two sons of Aaron. But we see several other parshas, since then. Why is that noted here, and what does it mean? And two of those have had to do with a ‘plague’ that hasn’t been seen for centuries, at least. Most of us have also been told that the things described in THIS one, too, are “old testament,” and “done away with.” Arguably, it’s even MORE wrong here! Join Mark Call of Shabbat Shalom Mesa fellowship for a story that only begins there. And if you find the connections valuable, please forward the message to those who might be blessed by it. The Erev Shabbat reading lays out the story, beginning “after the death,” and tells us, over and over again, in fact, that the “statutes” described are to be “forever,” and even tells us the consequences of the Big Lie that they’re not: https://hebrewnationonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/SSM-5-2-26-Acharei-Mot-teaching-podcast-xx.mp3 The story tells us “after the death,” of Aarons sons, Nadab and Abihu, that there are things that must be done, in accord with His Instruction, so that those who do so, WHEN He says so, “die not.” And then it follows with the description of the “two goats,” one for YHVH, and the other for “Azazel.” It might seem that the ‘picture’ represented by the ritual is fairly clear, and yet it’s not a ‘perfect fit’ for what Yahushua did – for several reasons. Mark begins the Sabbath Day midrash with those, and the fact that most of what — in this instance, certainly — must be called what it is, now too often ignored. Even though He says it remains a “statute forever.” And says it three times even. Many people with a ‘sunday-school’ background will remember the line from Hebrews that “it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.” But they ignore the context, and the lesson of the distinction between sin committed “in ignorance” (Hebrews 9:7) and knowing and deliberate rebellion to Him. For if we sin willfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful expectation of judgment, and fiery indignation which will devour the adversaries. Hebrews 10:26-27 This parsha then goes on to directly outline some of those things, which much of the world, and the ‘Whore Church’ which at minimum tacitly accepts, even promotes, YHVH warns about. Some — like things taught in the Publik Cesspools, and mandated by social pressures and tax subsidies — which are called “abomination,” and carry a death penalty. And they “defile the land,” which is why, He concludes, they were, and are, “vomited out” of it. We ‘cannot serve two masters.’ Which will it be? Acharei Mot: “When Does Continued Deliberate Sin In Ignorance Merit Being ‘Vomited Out’?” https://hebrewnationonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/WT-CooH-5-3-26-Acharei-Mot-Do-NOT-defile-statutes-FOREVER-podcast-xxx.mp3 Service information: Shabbat Shalom Mesa fellowship worship services and teachings are broadcast live every Sabbath, via Paltalk. (www.paltalk.com has both the link, and the app.) The “room name” is “Walking Torah with Shabbat Shalom Mesa,” and can be found via the paltalk search, then bookmarked. Erev Shabbat services begin at 7:00 PM Mountain Time Friday evenings (9 PM Eastern, 8 PM Central) Live Sabbath teachings begin shortly after 11 AM Mountain time on Sabbath day (Saturday). email: mark@markniwot.com The combined two-part reading and Sabbath midrash:

Early bird discounts for the San Francisco World's Fair, the biggest AIE gathering of the year, end today - prices will go up by ~$500 tonight so do please lock in ASAP!From near-universal AI tool adoption inside Shopify to internal systems for ML experimentation, auto-research, customer simulation, and ultra-low-latency search, Mikhail Parakhin joins us for a deep dive into what it actually looks like when a 20-year-old, $200B software company goes all-in on AI. We cover why Shopify has become much more vocal about its internal stack, what changed after the December model-quality inflection, and why the real bottleneck in AI coding is no longer generation, but review, CI/CD, and deployment stability.We also go inside Tangle, Tangent, SimGym, which are three major AI initiatives that Shopify is doing to make experimentation reproducible, optimization automatic, customer behavior simulatable, and search and catalog intelligence faster and cheaper at scale. Along the way, Mikhail explains UCP, Liquid AI, and why token budgets are directionally right but often measured badly, why AI-written code can still increase bugs in production, what makes Shopify's customer simulation defensible, and what he learned from the Sydney era at Bing.We discuss:* Mikhail's path from running a major Microsoft business unit spanning Windows, Edge, Bing, and ads to becoming CTO of Shopify* Why Shopify is talking more publicly about AI now, and why staying at the frontier has become necessary for the company* Shopify's internal AI adoption curve, the December inflection, and why CLI-style tools are rising faster than traditional IDE-based tools* Why Jensen Huang is directionally right on token budgets, but raw token count is still the wrong way to evaluate engineering output* Why the real unlock is not more agents in parallel, but better critique loops, stronger models, and spending more on review than generation* Why AI coding can still lead to more bugs in production even if models write cleaner code on average than humans* Why Shopify built its own PR review flow, and why Mikhail thinks most off-the-shelf review tools miss the point* How PR volume, test failures, and deployment rollback are becoming the real bottlenecks in the agent era* Why Git, pull requests, and CI/CD may need a new metaphor once code is written at machine speed* What Tangle is, and how Shopify uses it to make ML and data workflows reproducible, collaborative, and production-ready from the start* Why Tangle is different from Airflow, and why content-addressed caching creates network effects across teams* What Tangent is, and how Shopify is using auto-research loops to optimize search, themes, prompt compression, storage, and more* Why Tangent is becoming a democratizing tool for PMs and domain experts, not just ML engineers* Why AutoML finally feels real in the LLM era, and where auto-research still falls short today* Why Tangle, Tangent, and SimGym become much more powerful when combined into one system* What SimGym is, why simulated customers only work if you have real historical behavior, and why Shopify's data gives it a moat* How SimGym evolved from comparing A/B variants to telling merchants what to change on a single live storefront to raise conversions* Why customer simulation is so expensive, from multimodal models to browser farms to serving and distillation costs* How Shopify models merchant and buyer trajectories, runs counterfactuals, and thinks about interventions like discounts, campaigns, and notifications* Why category-level behavior is so different across commerce, and why ideas like Chinese Restaurant Processes are showing up again in practice* Shopify's new UCP and catalog work, including runtime product search, bulk lookups, and identity linking* Why Shopify is using Liquid AI, and why Mikhail sees it as the first genuinely competitive non-transformer architecture he has used in practice* Where Liquid already works inside Shopify today, from low-latency query understanding to large-scale catalog and Sidekick Pulse workloads* Whether Liquid could become frontier-scale with enough compute, and why Shopify remains pragmatic and merit-based about model choice* Who Shopify is hiring right now across ML, data science, and distributed databases* The Sydney story at Bing, why its personality was not an accident, and what Mikhail learned from deliberately shaping AI character early onMikhail Parakhin* LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikhail-parakhin/* X: https://x.com/MParakhinTimestamps00:00:00 Introduction: Mikhail Parakhin, Microsoft, and Shopify00:01:16 Why Shopify Is Talking More About AI00:02:29 Internal AI Adoption at Shopify and the December Inflection00:06:54 Token Budgets, Jensen Huang, and Why Usage Metrics Can Mislead00:10:55 Why Shopify Built Its Own AI PR Review System00:12:38 AI Coding, More Bugs, and the Real Deployment Bottleneck00:14:11 Why Git, PRs, and CI/CD May Need to Change for Agents00:18:24 Tangle: Shopify's Reproducible ML and Data Workflow Engine00:21:19 Why Tangle Is Different from Airflow00:26:14 Tangent: Auto Research for Optimization and Experimentation00:30:07 How Tangent Democratizes Experimentation Beyond ML Engineers00:33:06 The Limits of Auto Research00:36:36 Why Tangle, Tangent, and SimGym Compound Together00:37:20 SimGym: Simulating Customers with Shopify's Historical Data00:42:47 The Infra Behind SimGym00:46:00 Why SimGym Gets Better with Real Customer History00:47:30 Counterfactuals, HSTU, and Modeling Merchant Trajectories00:51:55 CRPs, Clustering, and Category-Level Customer Behavior00:53:30 UCP, Shopify Catalog, and Identity Linking00:55:07 Liquid AI: Why Shopify Uses Non-Transformer Models00:59:13 Real Shopify Use Cases for Liquid01:03:00 Can Liquid Scale into a Frontier Model?01:09:49 Hiring at Shopify: ML, Data Science, and Databases01:10:43 Sydney at Bing: Personality Shaping and AI Character01:13:32 Closing ThoughtsTranscript[00:00:00] swyx: Okay. We're here in the studio, a remote studio, with Mikhail Parakhin, CTO of Shopify. Welcome.[00:00:08] Mikhail Parakhin: Thank you. Welcome.[00:00:10] swyx: I don't even know if I should introduce you as CTO of Shopify. I feel like you have many identities. Uh, you led sort of the, the Bing ML team, I guess, uh, uh, or ads team. I, I don't know, I don't know, uh, you know, it's, uh, people va-variously refer you as like CEO or, or, uh, I don't know what that, that, that said previous role at Microsoft was.[00:00:29] Mikhail Parakhin: Uh, that was... Yeah, my previous role w- at Microsoft was the-- I actually was the CEO of one of Microsoft's business units, which included, as I, you know, as we discussed, all the things that people like to laugh about, uh, including Windows and Edge and Bing and ads and everything.[00:00:47] swyx: Yeah, yeah. What a, what a, what a wild time.You've obviously, uh, done a lot since you landed at Shopify. Uh, one of the reasons I reached out was because you started promoting more sort of internal tooling, uh, primarily Tangle, but also a lot of people have seen and adopted Tobi's QMD, uh, and obviously, I think, uh, Shopify has always been sort of leading in terms of, uh, engineering.I think more-- it's just more recent that you guys have been more vocal about your sort of AI adoption. Is that, is that true?[00:01:16] Mikhail Parakhin: Well, I think AI tools in general are fairly recent development, uh, and we've-- Shopify, you know, at this stage of its development, we're developing AI in-in-house and other, uh, building tools that use AI and, you know, interfacing with the wider AI community, uh, you know, are on the sort of the, uh, runaway trajectory.So it just did by sort of natural byproduct. We, we talk about it more also. We just, uh, just even yesterday, Andrej Karpathy was famous in tweeting about, oh, are there some, uh, ways, uh, that, that you can organize your agents to store the data and then, uh, look up the data so that you don't have to research or, or lose context every- Yestime. And a little bit tongue in cheek, I tweeted that, “Hey, we've, we've done it much earlier, and we even have different approaches, Tobi and I.” Tobi, of course, is a big fan of QMD, and I'm more of a SQL, SQLite fan. But, uh, yeah, very similar things that we've already done here. The point is, yeah, we're very dynamic, you know, explosively growing company, and we have to be at the forefront of AI adoption, obviously.[00:02:29] swyx: Yeah. Yeah. Um, you, your team kindly prepared some slides actually that we were gonna bring up on to, uh, the screen. I think I can, I can screen share, and then we can kind of go through some of the shocking stats that maybe, maybe put some numbers to what exactly is going on. So here we have, uh- An internal AI tool adoption chart.What are we looking at here? What ?[00:02:54] Mikhail Parakhin: Yeah, this is very interesting statistics. Uh, this is number of daily active workers, you know, think of, uh, DAO, basically the active users of-[00:03:05] swyx: Yeah ...[00:03:05] Mikhail Parakhin: AI tool as a percentage of all the people in the company, right? And then- Yeah ... different AI tools. And, uh, you could see two things here is that one is the green is total.Uh, green is just total. So you could see that it approaches really % by now. It's hard not to do your job now without interacting deeply, at least with one tool. You could see another interesting thing is just as many people commented in December was the phase transition when suddenly models gotten good enough that, that everything took off and started growing.Uh, it, it was many people noticed that the thing is that small improvements accumulated into this big change in Sep- December roughly timeframe.[00:03:52] swyx: Yeah.[00:03:52] Mikhail Parakhin: The other thing I would claim you could see is that, uh, CLI-based tools and tools that don't require you to look at the code becoming more popular, and you could see, yeah, various versions of, uh, Cloud Code and Codex and Pi and internal development tools taking off.Uh, exactly, yeah, uh, and blue is our River, just internal agent for coding, where tools, uh, that require IDEs such as, uh, GitHub, Copilot or Cursor, they're not exactly shrinking, but they're not growing as fast. Like, uh, red, red line is, is the IDE kind of tools. So you could see that they're, they're not experiencing as, as fast of a growth.[00:04:37] swyx: As I understand it, basically, every employee has their choice, right? Of choose whatever tool you use, and then you're just kind of doing a, a daily sur-survey or something.[00:04:47] Mikhail Parakhin: Exactly. And, uh, we- Yeah ... the, the push is to get your job done, you can use any tool, and we effectively fund unlimited tokens for everybody.Uh, we, we do, we do try to control the models that, uh, people use, but from the bottom, not from top. Like we basically say, “Hey, please don't use anything less than Opus four point six.”[00:05:09] swyx: Oh .[00:05:10] Mikhail Parakhin: Some people, some people end up using GPT five point four extra high. Some people use Opus four point six. Um, uh, you know, uh, there are some, uh, there are plus and minuses in going for full one million context window versus not.But, uh, we try to discourage people from using anything less than that.[00:05:28] swyx: Yeah, yeah. Got it, got it. Uh, I mean, uh, that's, you know... The, the next chart here, it really kind of shows the expansion and the sort of December twenty twenty-five inflection, right? That, uh, people are using a lot of tokens. I think it's also really interesting that no one was kind of abusing it in twenty twenty-five.Like it was- Had comparatively, uh, to this year, there was almost no growth. I mean, it's still like, you know, probably, probably gave fifty percent.[00:05:56] Mikhail Parakhin: Yeah. This is just a different scale. It's still exponential- Yeah, yeah ...growth at just a different- ...rate of expansion. Uh, there was inflection point, and Sean, I would claim the, the super interesting part here is that you could see that the distribution becoming more and more skewed.Yes. The top percentiles grow faster. So that means- Yeah ...the people in the top ten percentile, they, their consumption grows faster than seventy-five and so forth. So, uh, the distribution skews more and more towards the highest users, which is... I don't know what it tells me. It's like it feels not ideal, to be honest.Or maybe it's okay. We'll see.[00:06:36] swyx: Why does it feel not ideal? Is, is it because of, um, quantity over quality, or what's the concern?[00:06:42] Mikhail Parakhin: Because take it to the limit. That means, you know, if, if this rate of separation continued- Ah, yes ...a year, there will be one person consuming all the tokens. So it's just, it's kinda strange.[00:06:54] swyx: Yeah, I mean, um, uh, I, I think internal like teaching and all that, uh, will, will help sort of distribute things more widely. But in, in the early days, of course, the people who are sort of more AI-pilled will obviously find more ways to use it than the people who are less AI-pilled. Maybe let's, let's call it that.I'll just, I'll just kinda quickly, uh, pause from the, the... You know, we will go back to the rest of the slides, but I just wanna, um, review, you know, there are a lot of CTOs of, of large companies like yourself where they're all considering some kind of token budget, right? Like I think it's something, something that Jensen Huang has been talking about, where like if your 200K engineer is not using 100K of tokens every year, like they're, they're underutilizing coding agents.Of course, Jensen Huang would say that, but like it seems a very quantity over quality approach and like some, some people are basically saying like, well, is this comparable to judging engineer quality by lines of code, right? Which we also know is like kind of flawed, but better than nothing. So I, I don't know if you have like a sort of management take here on, on how to view this kind of, uh, metrics.[00:08:02] Mikhail Parakhin: Well, I mean, you're, you're baiting me. I, I like... This is my favorite topic. Uh, if you let me, I'll probably talk for two hours on just this. I have a lot of things to say. Like I do think Jensen gotten a lot of bad press saying, “Oh, of course you're, you know, this, uh, the- ...the cake seller says you don't need enough cakes.”You know? Like, of course. Uh, but, uh, I actually, uh, think that's undeserved. I think he, he's actually right. Uh, I do think- He,[00:08:33] swyx: he's directionally correct.[00:08:35] Mikhail Parakhin: Yeah. Yeah. He's directionally correct for sure. Uh-[00:08:37] swyx: Who knows what the right number is? Yeah.[00:08:39] Mikhail Parakhin: The thing that I do Uh, want to say, and this is something that we learned through trial and error and very important is like two things.One is that it's not about just consuming tokens. Uh, you can consume tokens and, and in fact, the anti-pattern is running multiple agents, too many agents in parallel that don't communicate with each other. That's almost useless, uh, compared to just fewer agents and burns tokens very efficiently. Uh, setting up the right critique loop, especially with the high quality models, where one agent does something, the other one, ideally with a different model, critiques it, uh, suggests ways to improve it, the agent redoes it with this critique and, and so it takes much longer.So people don't like it because latency goes up. You know, they, they have to wait until this debate is happening. But, uh, the quality of the code is much higher. And another thing, just since you mentioned like, look, uh, uh, yeah, the overall budget is just like, uh, lines of codes. Lines of codes are exploding for everybody right now, or partially because AI is really mover balls, but partially just because AI can write a lot more code, you know, doesn't get tired.And so you have to have to have a very strong narrow waist during PR review. Otherwise, just the number of bugs will go through the roof. It's, uh, it's this unexpected consequence of the just volume trumping everything. I would claim by now good model writes code on average with fewer bugs than, than the average human.But since they write so much more of it, like more of it will make it into production. So you have to- You still[00:10:26] swyx: have[00:10:26] Mikhail Parakhin: more bugs. Yeah. Have to have a very rigorous PR reviews, also automated of course. But, uh, yeah, that to spend a lot budget there. Like this, this for me, for me, actually, the important metric is the ratio of budget spent during code generation versus, uh, spent, uh, expensive tokens like GPT, uh, five point four Pro or, uh, uh, Deep Think from Gemini, you know, checking on PR reviews.[00:10:55] swyx: Yeah, totally. Uh, I noticed in your chart you didn't have any review tools. Do you just use like, like let's say a Claude code to review tools? Or do you have another set of review tools like the Greptiles, the Code Rabbits, uh, Devin Reviews has a review tool. I don't know if you've had those specialist review tools.[00:11:13] Mikhail Parakhin: You are a little bit jumping on my store tool right now because the graphs I was only showing public tools. Uh, uh, the-- I haven't found a good PR review tool that, that does what I think should be done. And, uh, partially my, my thinking is because it's so... It just goes against both what people feel like emotionally they prefer and, uh, some of the, uh, you know, frankly Even business models that, that the companies run.At peer review tool, uh, time, you want to run the largest models. That means, I don't know, Codex or, or, uh, Cloud Code is not gonna cut it. You need to have pro-level models if you really want to, uh, stand the tide of bots from going into production. And you need us to spend a lot of time, the models taking turns, but you don't want, like, a big swarm of, uh, of, uh, agents.So in fact, you end up in a different dual-dualistic world where you generate not that many tokens. You, in fact, generate few tokens, but it takes f-a long time because these are expensive models taking turns rather than many, many agents trying to do many things in parallel. So that's, that's why I feel like I haven't found good tools, so we are using our own for peer review for now.[00:12:33] swyx: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, uh, I think a lot of companies are building their own, uh, especially to their needs, right?[00:12:38] Mikhail Parakhin: Mm-hmm.[00:12:38] swyx: Um, I, uh, you also have a chart here going back to the slides on, uh, PR merge growth, where we're now at thirty percent, uh, month on month rather than ten percent. Uh, and also the, the estimated complexity is going up.You know, this is productivity, right? ‘Cause y- presumably there's more stuff going into the code base and more, more features getting worked on. I'm curious about the backlog, right? Like the, the, the-- I actually don't mind a pro-level model taking an hour or two hours to review my PR, because I've dealt with humans who take a week to review my PR, right?And I keep pinging them on Slack, “Hey, hey, review my PR.” So, you know, I think there's some trade-off here where, like, it still doesn't make sense.[00:13:18] Mikhail Parakhin: Exactly. That, that's exactly m-my point. Uh, that on one hand, you can tolerate longer latencies at, uh, PR. On the other hand, like right now, the real problem is not in spending time waiting for PR.It's real problem is since there's so much more code than- Yeah ... uh, probability of at least some tests failing going up, and then you, like, keep de-failing, then you have to find the offending PR, evict it, retest it without that PR, and so deployment cycle becomes much longer. Uh, so it actually, in terms of the overall time to deploy, it's total time savings if you spend more time on a longer model, like thinking for an hour, because then, then you, you don't have to spend all that time during testing and rolling, you know, rolling back the deployment.[00:14:03] swyx: Yeah, totally. That's still worth it. You know, you don't look at the individual, look at the aggregate, and look at the, the, the change in the aggregate system.[00:14:11] Mikhail Parakhin: Exactly.[00:14:11] swyx: I'm kind of curious if, like, there's this PR mentality and, like, c-- the, the, the CICD paradigm will be changed eventually. Some people are like, obviously a lot of people want new GitHub, but I even wonder if, like, Git is the problem, right?Like, is that the bottleneck? Is the concept of a PR a bottleneck? Do you guys use stack diffs? I don't know if, uh, that's a, like, a merge queue stack diff type of thing.[00:14:34] Mikhail Parakhin: We, we use, we use Stacks, we u- we use Graphite. We worked with, uh, Graphite a lot. Uh, so we use Stack, uh, PRs. I think, uh, like that's clearly the overall CICD in general, and the interaction with the code repository right now is the, clearly the sort of the, the main issue and the bottleneck for us, uh, and highest top of mind.I would say we probably need a different metaphor or different whole design of how to process it in new agentic world. I haven't seen anything dramatically better yet. I, I think everybody right now is just trying to keep their head above the water ‘cause, ‘cause there, there's so many PRs and then everybody's CICD pipelines start creaking, the, the times are increasing, the number of bugs slipping by increasing, and you have to, have to clap on down.And so we are a little bit in this situation when we need to first stabilize that story and then start thinking, hey, what, what it could be a completely different and new world, which I haven't... I know some people working on it. I haven't seen something, like anything super compelling yet, but clearly the old thing were designed for humans will need to be morphed into something new.[00:15:53] swyx: One of the thing that I, I think about is kind of like the merge conflict is basically a global mutex on the whole system, right? And in, in hu- in human organizations, we do have something like that. It's the company standup. But like, other than that, it's like it's actually fitting for us to be somewhat decentralized, somewhat plugged into one stream of information source, but somewhat lossy.Like it's okay, you know, that, that not every delivery is like atomic consistency. Like we're not dealing with a database sometimes.[00:16:27] Mikhail Parakhin: This is a very good point, uh, because since humans don't write code too fast, you know that global mutex is not too bad. Once you-[00:16:36] swyx: Yes ...[00:16:37] Mikhail Parakhin: start writing code at the speed of machine, it becomes the, you know, the bottleneck.Then what do you do? Maybe, and I can't believe I'm saying this because I, I'm long-- lifelong opponent of, uh, microservices, and I always thought that was, like, a really bad idea. And now that you're saying it, like, maybe in new guys like microservices will make a comeback, you know, because then you, you can ship things independently in tiny things and, and the managing all that complexity automatically will be much easier.I don't know. Like, we'll s-- we'll have to see.[00:17:10] swyx: Yeah. I mean, I don't know what the Microsoft or, or Shopify thing is, but I, I read this paper from Google where they have a monorepo that deploys into microservices, right? And then, uh, the other concept that I think about a lot is the Chaos Monkey concept from, from Netflix.Being able to create, like, this robust system where, um, uh, you know, you, you have the service discovery, you have the, uh, the independent, independent microservices discovery and, and, uh, you know, probably going to be a fair amount of duplication. That's how an organic system sort of scales, uh, that, that you have that...I don't know how you call it. Slack? Robustness? Depend-- uh, d-duplication. I, I, I forget the-- I, I'm-- And this-- those-- these are not exactly the terms- Hmm ... I'm looking for, but I c-can't really think of the words. Okay. I was gonna go into Tangent and Tangle. Uh, so, uh, we, we sort of discussed the overall stats that, uh, Shopify has.Uh, but, you know, I, I think some, some pretty cool stuff that you guys are working on is your ML experimentation, uh, and your, your sort of auto tr-research training pipeline. Presumably you're much closer to this one because it's, it's a sort of personal hobby of yours. How, how would you explain them in, together?I thought we have a slide that, like, uh, has the s- the system diagram.[00:18:24] Mikhail Parakhin: Yeah. Tangle first and then Tangent as a-[00:18:27] swyx: Yeah ...[00:18:28] Mikhail Parakhin: as a thing on top of Tangle. And, uh, Tangle is the third generation, I claim, of, uh, systems of, uh, running any data processing, but a bit with a skew for ML experiments, but not necessarily. Any sort of data processing tasks where you need to iterate, share, and you have scale so that you want maximum efficiency.You know how, like, normally you would work, you would-- Imagine you're a data scientist or an ML practitioner, you would get Jupiter notebooks or, or maybe you would get, uh, you know, Pyth- your Python scripts, and you would manage the data, and you produce those TSV files, and you put them in some JFS or something.Then you would notice that, oh, it has this, uh, weird missing values. You go and write another script that, uh, goes and replaces them with, uh-[00:19:20] swyx: Ah ...[00:19:21] Mikhail Parakhin: dash S. And then, then you, then you run some, some, uh, “Oh, I need to filter bots.” And so you run some light GBM model that, uh, removes the bots. And then, then you like-- And then you, you kind of like get into shape, and then you start experimenting, and you run multiple experiments, and then you're like, “Oh my God,” like, “this experiment is worse.”You undo, and you cannot get to previous result. And like, “Ah, what did I do?” Like that. Again, then, then you finally like get everything working. Then you like start throwing it over the fence to production. You, you replicate it, those things don't work, and then sometimes you like don't notice that you forgot some feature naming and the, the features don't match.But then, like imagine you, you did everything, and then six months later you're like, have to repeat it because now there's more data, or you wanted to do another pass, and you're like, “What, what did I do?” Or like, or like, “This script crashes now,” or the, “the path has changed.” And then, then you're trying to, like you spend another month just doing ar- digital archeology on your own, you know, history, right?Now multiply that by many, many teams. Now imagine you got an intern that you wanna ramp up. Now you have to show that intern, “Oh, you know, look, here's the folder, there's the scripts, you know, ask your cloud agent to do, and then, uh, to, to figure it out.” And then cloud agent does something, and then you're, “Ah, yeah, right, right, it was the wrong folder.I forgot to tell you, I actually have this other thing I forgot myself.” And, and that's, that's the, like, the daily life we all, uh, all know it, uh, if, if you're a data scientist, machine practitioner, ma- machine learning practitioner or, uh, or even like any data managing, uh, person.[00:21:00] swyx: Yeah. So I, I used to do this, uh, f- uh, on the quant finance side, uh, in, in my hedge fund.So we did this before Airflow, and then, uh, obviously Airflow came along and, uh, then more recently Dagster, uh, I would say is like, in my mind, what I would use for that shape of problem, uh, where you had to materialize assets and create a pipeline.[00:21:19] Mikhail Parakhin: And that's, that's very good segue because... So Airflow is great, but Airflow is more about you, you have something and you wanna repeatedly run it in production on schedule.It's less about you as a team developing things and being able to share, and you grabbing the standard pipeline and saying, “Hey, I wanna change this tiny little component in the huge sea of data processing, and I don't wanna-- I wanna run ten experiments on this, and I wanna do hyperparameter optimization.”All that is very hard to do with Airflow. It's very easy to do with Tango. Tango is m- more about, it's everything about group of people Running experiments, it might be agents too nowadays. Uh, running experiments cheaply, collaborating, sharing results. Uh, you don't need to understand fully. You, you grab-- you clone somebody else's experiment or somebody else's pipeline, uh, run, uh, change small piece, run it, be, like, get it to production state, and then ship in one click.So then the... You don't have to port it into any other system to, to run in production. You can just run the same experiment. It's, it's fully production ready. And, and it's, uh, it has lots of... Again, as I said, it's third generation system. The original one was, I would claim there was Ether and then, uh, at least in my career, Ether was the first, first, uh, that pioneered this type of approach.And then there was, uh, Nirvana, which, uh, uh, at Yandex, which did kind of sec-second take on this. And now this one aggregates the, the learnings from all of those and, and Airflow as well to, to get to the state where you try it, it, it feels kind of magical. Uh, ‘cause now everything is based on content, uh, hashes.So even if the version changed, but if the output didn't change, nothing is being rerun. It's very efficient. If you... Multiple people start experiment that needs the same sort of data preprocessing, it's not repeated multiple times. It's automatically done only once. If you start ten experiments that all require, you know, some, some data preparation first as the first step, and you don't have to coordinate for that.Like, you don't have to know that other people are starting it. You now, it's very easy compos-, uh, composability, any language you can u- uh, you wanna use, and it's very visual. So you can see immediately, you can edit it easily, you can assemble small things with just even mouse clicks if you want to, and, uh, share, clone.And everybody knows also it's fully kind of static in the sense that we rerun it second time, it will exactly have the same results. Like, you will never have to do digital archeology. So full versioning and everything is also there.[00:24:06] swyx: Uh, so, so people can, uh... It's open source. Go to the GitHub repo and, and, uh, check it out.Uh, and it is also a really good, uh, blog post about it. I think all these is, like, really appealing. The, the, the, the thing that I think sells me the most about it is that, um, sort of development to production transition, right? Which I think, um, a lot of people haven't really solved that, uh, strictly, right?Like, we develop really, really well in, in Python notebooks, but then, you know, that's obviously not a sort of production ready process. I think that, like, any way in which that is solved, I think is, is very appealing. Then the other thing that you mentioned, which also raised my eyebrows, was content-based caching, which you mentioned is, is, um, you know, is ve-very much, uh, um, a sort of efficiency measure about, uh, you know, just like recalculation only on, on sort of content addressing Which I think makes sense.Uh, it surprised me that the savings could be this much, but maybe I just haven't worked at your scale where there's so much duplication, uh, that people just rerun because they change a single ID upstream.[00:25:10] Mikhail Parakhin: It does, yeah. But it's not only you rerun. The, the main savings are coming from the fact that you ran it, you got your job done, and you moved on.Then- Yeah ... somebody else in some department you don't know existed runs the same task, but on a newer version.[00:25:27] swyx: Yeah.[00:25:27] Mikhail Parakhin: Like right now, you can't, in, in most of the organizations, you can't even find out about it so that you can't even measure that you're spending that time twice, right? Here- Yeah ... if everybody's on Tango, that's detected automatically and detected that the output is the same.And then for that person, all it looks like is like experiment just suddenly moved, jumped forward, right? Uh, uh- Yeah ... so that's because, because the, there's network effect of multiple people helping each other.[00:25:51] swyx: Yeah. This is one of those things where it's designed to be a platform from the beginning rather than an individual developer's tool from the beginning, right?And, and everything's gonna streams down from there. That is the sort of Tango, uh, orchestrator, and it's, it manages jobs. We've seen a few versions of this, and this is obviously, uh, uh, the sort of, uh, unique approaches that you guys have, have, uh, figured out. And then there's Tangent.[00:26:14] Mikhail Parakhin: Yeah. And Tangent is basically an automatic auto research loop that can help and kind of do your work for you.Uh- ... you know, uh, effectively, effectively, Andrej Karpathy recently popularized it with auto research. Yes. Remember he said like he was, uh, speed running this, uh... Yeah, uh, you know the story. The, here we're basically bringing the same capability into Tango so that, uh, the, uh, Tangent can analyze it. It's just an agent that can run multiple experiments, figure out what can be changed, and keep on rerunning it, keep on modifying until, uh, maximizing some goal, some loss function, whatever you need to, to achieve.And in general, I would say if you're not using auto research-like approach in whatever you do, like literally whatever you do, then you're missing out. We saw at Shopify that taking like a wildfire, anything where you can put measurements can be done dramatically better. Our-[00:27:19] swyx: Mm-hmm ...[00:27:20] Mikhail Parakhin: uh, speed of, uh, templatization HTML, uh, completely new UX tem- uh, templatization of, uh, reducing latency for liquid themes.Uh, we-- Our, uh, search, uh, recently we moved from It's hard even, uh, quote from eight hundred QPS to forty-two hundred QPS with the same quality just by pure optimizations and not a research loop that kept running and changing code in our index serve on the same number of machines, just increasing the throughput.We, we managed to improve the quality of gisting and machine learning process. Uh, you know, gisting is the prompt compression technique that[00:27:59] swyx: allows for[00:28:00] Mikhail Parakhin: lower latency and, and lower and, uh, actually higher quality slightly. So like literally whatever different walks of life, and it doesn't have to be AI related.Uh, we, we had a reduction in, uh, storage because the agents would go and find data sets that clearly are derivative, uh, and then you don't need to store things twice. You know, we, we, we found somewhat embarrassingly that it was one of the largest tables was hashing random IDs into another random ID, and we literally- Oofput only one. So it was translating, yeah, two random IDs hashed[00:28:36] swyx: into[00:28:37] Mikhail Parakhin: each. So, so[00:28:37] swyx: it has access to the code as well, so it can, it can check the, like what, what the hell is it doing?[00:28:42] Mikhail Parakhin: So there, there cou- it could be run in two levels. You, uh, you know, at the superficial level, it could just use ex-existing components and, uh, reshuffle them.Uh, you know, like you can grab- Yeah ... uh, XGBoost, and you can grab some, some Py- PyTorch module, and then can grab some, you know, grab another tools and, and combine them. At a deeper level, since Tangle is all sort of CLI based underneath you, every, every component is a wrapped really CLI, uh, call and a YAML file, it can analyze code and create new components and, and, uh, keep on iterating as well.So, so you can, you can both have quick modifications of existing t- uh, pipelines with the, with components that are already there pre-baked, or you can create new components, uh, and-[00:29:29] swyx: Yeah ...[00:29:29] Mikhail Parakhin: keep iterating on those. So auto research is, again, this is probably the, the thing I was excited the most in the last two months happening, and we see it taking like, like totally like a wildfire.Just, uh, everybody, every day, every... well, every day, every minute, I would, uh, have somebody Slack message saying, “Oh, look how much better I made it.” And, uh, it's all throughout the research.[00:29:53] swyx: Is this democratized in some way in, in the sense that like is it your ML, uh, engineers and researchers doing this, or is it your regular PMs and software engineers also have the ability to auto-- to use Tangent?[00:30:07] Mikhail Parakhin: This is an awesome question. Like, Tango in general and Tangent in particular are extremely democratizing. Like they- Yeah ... they are the main tools for- ‘Cause I don't[00:30:15] swyx: need the details.[00:30:16] Mikhail Parakhin: Yeah. Exactly. Initially used by ML and AI engineers, but then literally, as you said, PMs are like the highest user right now is one of PMs on our org, uh, Sartak and he was, he was number one by, by usage of, of this ‘cause they're just, uh, energetic and knowledgeable, and now it, it unlocks a lot of capability where you don't have to co-change code manually.[00:30:39] swyx: I mean, I mean, because it kind of cuts out the ML, ML engineer from the process because the, the, the PMs have the domain knowledge and the ability to think about, uh, from first principles about, okay, what, what results do I want? And they can-- they even have the access to the data that, that needs to go in.So it's like in some ways, like this is the magic black box that we've always wanted for, for training and, and for, uh, I guess, uh, uh, hill climbing, whatever.[00:31:04] Mikhail Parakhin: It's basically cloud code for your AI development- ... uh, situation, right? Like now, now you don't have to know exactly how algorithms work. You can just, uh, bring your domain knowledge and expertise and product knowledge and iterate within Tangent until you've gotten the results that you need.[00:31:21] swyx: In my previous roles, every time that someone has pitched AutoML, you know, I've always been like, “Uh, this is not, this is not gonna work. It's, you know, it's, it's always gonna be a flop.” Somehow it's working now. I mean, presumably the answer is now we have LLMs and it's good enough, right? It's, it's an emergent property that we can do auto research, but like, it doesn't feel that satisfying that how come we didn't do this before, right?Like we just did like parameter search and like, I don't know. That's maybe that's it.[00:31:48] Mikhail Parakhin: Yeah. Bayesian optimization and hyperparameter optimization was, was the one that, or facet of AutoML that was used very actively, which incidentally also built into, uh, Tango. But, you know, I know Patrice Simard very well, and, uh, he was such a, uh, such a proponent of AutoML, and he put, like literally spent careers trying to democratize it.Without LLMs, it just turned out to be very hard. Like it, you, you would have flexibility within certain narrow domain, but it was hard to wider scale, and now with LLMs suddenly it's like magic wand, and so suddenly everybody- ... is an AutoML expert.[00:32:28] swyx: Yeah, I, I think it's multiple things, right? Like I'm, I'm just gonna bring up the, the, the chart again, right?Like LLMs can do the monitoring very well. That is the very potentially unbounded, super unstructured. It can do the analysis very well, it can do the... Uh, and basically it is much more intelligence poured into every single step. Uh, there's maybe nothing structurally changed about AutoML, but this is just m-more intelligent and more unstructured.[00:32:53] Mikhail Parakhin: Exactly.[00:32:54] swyx: Any flaws that you've run into? Like everyone is like drinking the Kool-Aid, oh my God, time savings, uh, you know, performance improvements. Like what, what, uh, issues have you have, uh, come up?[00:33:06] Mikhail Parakhin: This is really cool. It's not a solution to all the world's problems for sure. The limitations are usually the ones I-- And this is where we get into a bit of a subjective territory.Uh, I can only share what I've, I've seen so far, and I'm sure the situation, uh, is changing, and, you know, maybe after I say it, like many people will reach out and say, “Hey, what about this?” And you don't know that, and then, then we'll be probably right. But what I've seen is auto research is very good at doing kind of obvious things that you don't have bandwidth to do or you didn't notice or maybe you're not aware of like the-- some standard practices.It is not good at doing something completely out of distribution, something that, you know, you have to think for, for multiple days, uh, and, and do something like none of this. So, so it's, uh, I, uh, set an experiment once, uh, on, on my sort of, uh, hobby thing, and I let it run for, uh, ended up, uh, several weeks run, uh, you know, it's like full production kind of scale, so it, you know, slow runs and, and it ex-- it performed in the end, uh, over four hundred experiments, and only one was successful.I'm like, “Okay, that's, that's good.” But-[00:34:18] swyx: But it saved time.[00:34:19] Mikhail Parakhin: Yeah, I saved time. Like it, it was the, that thing. Yeah, if I, if I were doing four hundred experiments myself, my betting average, as I said, would have been much higher, I'm sure. But also, first of all, it would take me like three years to do four hundred experiments.And, uh, I didn't have to do them. Like the machines were just, uh, the price of electricity did that. So, and I got one improvement, uh, that in, uh, my, my-- Honestly, when I was starting that experiment, my thinking was to go and show that, “Hey, Andre, maybe you just don't know how to optimize.” And I was super smart because in, in my pro-problem, it was optimized for many years, and it was like fully improved.Uh, and I didn't expect it, you know, auto research to find anything at all. Yet it did. So instead of making fun of Andre, I ended up, uh, a big, big supporter. Yeah, that's exactly the tweet. Yes.[00:35:10] swyx: You and Toby really, really go back and forth on-online a lot, which is really funny. Uh, think of it as, as an eval for the optimalness of the code it's running on.Uh, it's almost like it reminds me of like a Kolmogorov complexity thing, but, uh, I guess it's-- there's some optimal thing that you're trying to sort of reduce down to, I guess. Um, and so, so you, you, you know, you should congratulate yourself that you had, uh, you know, uh, ninety-nine percent, uh, optimality.[00:35:36] Mikhail Parakhin: Exactly, yeah. I think Andre really deserves a lot of credit for popularizing this approach. This is, uh, this is incredibly, I think, powerful and cool and You know, the, uh, even him, him just mentioning it led to a lot of gains in a lot of places in the industry, so we should be thankful.[00:35:56] swyx: Yeah. I think he also has a just...I don't know what it is. Like, um, you know, it, it is a simple self-contained project that people can take and apply to other things, which is, is, is one thing, but also just the name. Just like somehow no one, no one managed to call their thing auto research. It's just naming things is very important. I think that that is mostly, uh, our coverage of Tango and, and, uh, Tangents.I think obviously, you know, there's a lot of, uh, ML infra at, at Shopify that people can, uh, dive into. We're about to go into SimGym, but before I do that, any, any other sort of broader comments around this whole effort? Like where is it, where is it leading to?[00:36:36] Mikhail Parakhin: As a segue to SimGym, like all those things start composing strongly.And, uh, you could see a huge unlock when you can look at each one of the tools and, and you see, oh, they're extremely useful. Uh, Tango is useful by itself. Auto Research is useful by itself. SimGym is useful by itself. If you combine all three, you create like synergetic effect. I think that's why we wanted to even, uh, cover them today is because this is something that if you go back even, you know, five years ago, would've been unthinkable.Uh, replicating that, uh, would, would be either incredibly costly or impossible, right? With probably thousands of people are required.[00:37:20] swyx: Well, we have serverless human, uh, serverless intelligence, right? Like, uh, so yes, you do have thousands of hu-- of, of intelligences, not just, not humans. And that's, that's close enough, right?Even if they're not AGI, they're, they're close enough to do the, the task that you need them to do. And, and, you know, that's, there's plenty for, for a lot of routine work, knowledge work. Okay, let's get into SimGym. Um, this is one of those things I, I was surprised to see actually it's apparently your, uh, one of your most popular launches, and I think something that, uh, I think Sim AI, I think Yunjun Park, who did the Smallville thing, there's a very small cottage industry of people trying to do like the simulate customer thing.I think a lot of people maybe don't super trust this yet because they're like, well, obviously they would just do what you prompt them to do, right? But maybe just think, uh, tell us about the sort of inspiration or origin story.[00:38:10] Mikhail Parakhin: That's exactly actually the thing I wanted to cover, because if you don't have the historical data, all you can do is prompt a-agents in a vacuum, and they will do exactly what you prompt them to do.In fact, when I first proposed it, and this is a bit of, um, my brainchild initially, if I, I can boast, even Toby said like, “But wouldn't they, they just repeat what, what you tell them?” And, uh, but I'm like, “Yes, except Shopify has decades of history of how people made changes and what there is, uh, there, what it resulted in terms of sales.”So now what we can do is we can-- we have this... It's not, it's a noisy data. There's a small, usually websites, uh, you know, like things, things are never in isolation. It's almost never AB experiment. It's always AA experiment when there's has two meanings, but basically, you know, in different time you run two different things.But if you aggregate in general, uh, like everything together, and you apply, uh, denoising and collaborative filtering like approach, you can extract a very clear signal. And then you can optimize your agents. And that's why it took so long. It took almost a year of that optimization of just us sitting and fiddling, and, and we had this internal goals of correlation of hitting-- internal goal was to hit zero point seven correlation with, uh, add to cart events, for example.Like that, that if we run real AB test experiment, that it should, it should go and, and rep-uh, replicate, uh, same sort of success that, that humans had or lack thereof. And it, it took forever, and I don't think that's easily replicatable because, uh, like who else would have that data? You have to have this historic, you know, decades, uh, worth of data.And now, now the, like the other thing you need is in-infrastructure and the scale, right? Because, uh, w- again, what we found, uh, stat sig results, you need to run a lot of simulations, a lot of agents, and, and it's-- Those are expensive things. Like you're, you're making actions in the browser because you want a real friction.You want to, to be able to get the image like of what humans will see because you wanna, uh, detect effects like, “Hey, if I make my images larger, will I have more sales or l- uh, fewer sales?” And like usually people's intuition here, by the way, is that I increase my images, I will have more because they look nicer.You know, designers all look sparse and big images. Like usually your sales tank, right? But, but, uh, you know, from HTML, all the characters look the same only the, the size tag looks different, right? So it's very hard. So you have to take visual information, you have to run this in simulated browser environment on the big farm and, and of course, you have to have, uh, like very, very expensive model, good model with multi-model model.So all this it's-- is what's taken so long and, uh, to share my personal fail a little bit there, Sean, is like, you know, we always had this bias to-- for like large company bias. You know, we always, uh, whenever you-- we do, we're like, “Hey, we'll run an experiment,” right? We make, make a change, and we will run an experiment and then, uh, see, uh, see which one's better or like, “No, this is worse,” and most of them are worse, so you discard it and keep iterating, hill climbing.And we're like, “Oh, like smaller merchants, they cannot get stat sig results. They cannot really run experiments simply because, you know, in a week there would be not enough data for them.” So we thought from this perspective. What we didn't realize is that most people don't have A and B, they just have one thing, and they need suggestions of What A and B should be.So, uh, we first build this, hey, we run simulation on two separate teams and, and, uh, say, “Hey, which one is better?” We then morphed it into, and very recently just released it, when you have just your site, your theme, we run over it and we say, “Hey, here's what predicted values of, of, uh, uh, conversions are, and here's how we think you should modify it to increase your conversions.”And then circling back to what you started with, the proof is in the pudding. Like, if we are not correlating with reality, like, people will not be using it. And, uh, thankfully, we see literally every day more users than the previous day. So, so right now, uh, right now- It's working. Yeah. I'm-- Right now my problem is how to pay for it all because the so our major thing is how to optimize the LLMs, do distillation, how to run the headless browsers, uh, and handful browsers, uh, uh, cheaper so that we can accommodate the increase in traffic.[00:42:47] swyx: Yeah. I, I understand that you, uh, you published a lot of technical detail at GTC, so I was just gonna bring it up a little bit. I think s- was this in, in con-conjunction with some kind of GTC presentation? Or something like that, right?[00:42:59] Mikhail Parakhin: Well, we, yeah, we, we did it in several place, but yeah, we had the engineering- Yeahblog, uh, as well. Yeah.[00:43:05] swyx: Yeah. So you're running, uh, GPT OSS. Uh,[00:43:08] Mikhail Parakhin: the, this is an older version. You know, now we run multimodal model. But yeah- Yeah ... GPT OSS, we still run GPT OSS as well for[00:43:15] swyx: And then you have the VMs, and you also have browser-based. I really like this one where it you said, “It violates almost every assumption that standard LLM serving is designed for.”And then you had like, basically orders of magnitude differences between everything.[00:43:29] Mikhail Parakhin: Exactly. Which is, which, uh, which was, you know, a bit of a challenge to implement, like when, like even simple things. Uh, be- since it violates all the assumptions, for example, multi-instance GPUs, like MIGs don't work as well.But we needed, uh, to get MIG to work because, ‘cause otherwise it's way too expensive. And so we had to deal with the, yeah, with, uh, lots of infrastructure and, and, uh, work with, uh, uh, Fireworks and CentML, uh, you know, to help with optimizations and browser-based, as you mentioned. Yeah, like, takes a village.[00:44:04] swyx: Okay. So there's a lot of like, I guess, experimentation in the infrastructure so far, and you've published more or less what you have here. I guess I'm, I'm less familiar with CentML. I, I don't do, uh, that much work in this, this part of the stack. But why was it the sort of preferred instance platform?[00:44:22] Mikhail Parakhin: There are really three probably top companies. There used to be, uh, uh- Three top companies, uh, at least I was aware of that did, uh, LM optimization. You know, together Fireworks and Santa ML, not necessarily in that order. Santa ML recently got acquired by NVIDIA. Uh, what they did is if you have a model and you want to optimize it to a specific prof-- uh, profile of usage, uh, they would go and do it.And, uh, we work with, with those companies, uh, this was work particularly in with Santa ML and NVIDIA to get them the best possible results out of it. And, and sometimes you, you have to retune depending on, like sometimes you want the maximum throughput, sometimes you want minimal latency, sometimes you want like the cheapest, right?And, yeah, or some combination. And so yeah, these are people who would come and help you.[00:45:14] swyx: I see. I see. Yeah, yeah. I'm familiar with these people for the LLM, you know, autoregressive stack. But the other interesting category of these optimizers is also the diffusion people, whereas like Fel and, you know, uh, Pruna recently has come up a lot as well, which I think is like really underappreciated, uh, at least by myself, because I, I thought, oh, all the workload would be LLMs, but actually there's a lot of diffusion as well.[00:45:38] Mikhail Parakhin: Exactly.[00:45:38] swyx: There's a lot here, so I, I, I... it's, it's, uh, it's, it's, it's hard to cover. But I, I do think like people underappreciate the importance of customer simulation, basically. I think this is something that I'm candidly still getting to terms with. Uh, you know, uh, you also-- your team also like prepared this, like, really nice diagram.Uh, I, I assume this is AI generated.[00:46:00] Mikhail Parakhin: Yeah, it looks-[00:46:01] swyx: Maybe it's not.[00:46:01] Mikhail Parakhin: Yeah, it looks, uh, Gemini-ish. Yeah, but, uh, uh, honestly, I, I don't know where, where the hell they generated. It looks, look, uh, looks like it's, uh, Google. But the interesting part, John, that, that, uh, we haven't covered, but I, I wanted to mention is if your store had previous customers, rather than it's a new store, you're like new merchant just launching things, it helps tremendously in just correlation and forecast.Yeah, we take your previous, uh, customer's behavior, and we create agents that replicate those specific distribution of, of customers that you get, and then we a- we apply those to your changes, and then that, that raised raw, you know, the re-- uh, just correlation with the add to cart events or to-- with conversion or whatever it, it, it may be, uh, quite dramatically.So, uh, replicating humans in general seems like an interesting, cool challenge.[00:46:58] swyx: As a shareholder, I think this is the-- like if people are Shopify shareholders, they should really deeply understand this because this is basically the moat. The, the more you use Shopify, the more it will just automatically improve, right?Like you're, you're doing the job for them.[00:47:13] Mikhail Parakhin: Yeah, that's what we started with. Like, uh- ... uh, otherwise, if you're just a startup, I wouldn't do it if, uh, you know, if it was my startup because Without the data, it, yeah, as, as you said, it's, it's exactly the case that, uh, whatever you say in prompt, that's, that's what the agents will be doing.[00:47:30] swyx: The statistician in me wants to like really satisfy the sort of, um, statistical intuition, I guess. Um, to me it's kind of, uh, the, the word that comes to mind is, um, ergodicity. Uh, so let's say a, a customer takes this path, customer takes this path, customer takes this path, right? Um, the... In my mind, the way I explain it is like, okay, here, here's the ninety-five percentile, here's the five percentile, and here's the median, right?Um, but to me, what SimGym is potentially doing is that it can, uh, modify... It can sort of model the sort of in-between sort of journeys as well, that, that maybe are dependent on the previous states. This may be like a very RL-type conclusion where like basically the summary statistics, if you only did naive AB testing, you only have the, the statistics at, at, at a certain point, and you only judge based on the sort of overall summary statistics.But here you can actually model trajectories. Does that make sense? Or-[00:48:31] Mikhail Parakhin: That makes total sense because like, well, that, that makes even more sense that maybe even you realize bec- because-[00:48:38] swyx: Okay. Please,[00:48:38] Mikhail Parakhin: please. Yes ... we do-- Yeah. The, so internally, uh, we have this system, we talked about it briefly once at NeurIPS.We have a huge HSTU-based system that models the whole companies, uh, and their possible paths. And like- Yeah ... what you are, what you are showing, like actually at any point of time, you can either model the user's behavior or you mo- can also think about, uh, the whole merchant as a company, as the entity that acts in the world.You can model that as well. And then you can do, can do counterfactuals. In your graph, like in your blue graph, uh, if you're... Imagine in the center there, uh, somewhere in the middle, you would have an intervention. I give that person a coupon, or I don't know, I send a personal thank you card, or give a discount in some- somewhere.And then you can, uh, then you can do forward rollouts from that counterfactual. So what would have happened with that intervention or without the intervention? And you can even ch- change where that intervention, uh, in time can happen, right? Like some- where, where in this journey. So we, we do this at the Shopify scale for our merchants, and then if we notice that something that they can be fixing, like there's a strong counterfactual, like we have Shopify policy, they basically get a notification like, “Hey, we think your...something is wrong with your-” I don't know, Canadian sales. Like, uh, it looks like it's misconfigured. Here's what you need to do. Or do you think like, uh, you have to set up this campaign with these parameters? And we do that at the buyer level to literally offer discounts or cashback or, or things to buyers.So this is-- I'm getting very excited. Like this is my sort of area of, uh, interest, I guess, and, and hobby. But being able to m-model something complex as human beings or companies and model counterfactuals on it, where you can have interventions in the future and optimize when to make intervention, what kind inter-- uh, what kind of intervention to make.It's such an unlock that previously was completely impossible. Like the-- it was, it was always dreamed of, but never... Like how would you even simulate it without LLMs or HTUs? I think very, very exciting times.[00:50:59] swyx: I just wanted to, uh, to maybe illustrate this. I, I'm not the best illustrator, but I, I am a conceptual statistics guy.And y-you know, you cannot just do this. Like this is a dimensionality AB test doesn't do, right? Like, uh, because it doesn't have the, the, the change over time, uh, stochastic nature, uh, and it doesn't have the sort of contextual like... Here's all the context to this point. Um, okay, cool. Um, that's SimGym.You're, you're gonna burn a lot of tokens on this thing. But you're, you're one of the, the only scale platforms in the world that can, uh, that can do this across a huge variety of workloads, right? I'm even curious on a sort of human, uh, research level of like, well, do, does retail behave d-differently from like clothing sales?D-does that behave differently from electronic sales? I, I don't know. I don't know what else you guys... The Kardashian shoppers, do they differ from like people who buy, uh, I don't know, cars and, uh, whatever.[00:51:55] Mikhail Parakhin: Well, very different, and different sensitivities and different modes of, uh, shopping and, and different levels of what's important.Now, to-totally, you can do aggregations at, uh, at a store level. You can do aggregations at a different, uh, category level. I don't know if, uh, you know, for our statisticians among us, I couldn't believe, but we-- recently we're looking at it, and we had to bring back, uh, CRPs, you know, Chinese restaurant process.It's a, like, way of aggregating and, like, naturally grow clustering. So across... Specifically to answer questions that, uh, like you were just posing on how, how if, if buyers behave different categories. And I'm like, “I haven't seen CRP since two thousand and one.” It's[00:52:37] swyx: so What? It's so- What is... No, I haven't, I haven't seen this.No. This is not in my training. Uh,[00:52:44] Mikhail Parakhin: but, but yeah, it, uh, uh, it actually, like the, the-- there was a very popular kind of theory, popular neurips HTML circles in early two thousands, uh, kind of nice. And now, now it has practical applications, uh- Yeah ... that we were resurrecting.[00:53:03] swyx: Yeah, amazing. Uh, I, I can see, I can see how this is like a, uh, a fun job for you where you get to apply all these things.Um, yeah, yeah, so super cool. Super cool. So, okay, so, so anyone who, who knows what CRPs are and has always wanted to use them at work, uh, they should, they should definitely join Shopify. Okay, so w-we have a lot and but I, I'm, I'm being mindful of the time. I, I do wanted to, to sort of cover some other things.Um, I-I'll give you a choice, UCP or Liquid?[00:53:30] Mikhail Parakhin: Liquid. I think, I think on UCP, you know, like UCP is very important for us and, and it just we are-- UCP, we have a structured, uh, discussions, and you can read about them, and we have, uh, blog posts, and we have a big release this week, in fact, like with our catalog.Oh,[00:53:46] swyx: okay.[00:53:46] Mikhail Parakhin: Uh, yeah,[00:53:46] swyx: but- Le-I mean, we, we can, we can discuss the, the, the release briefly because we'll release this after the-- after it's already announced so whatever. There's a catalog that you guys are doing?[00:53:55] Mikhail Parakhin: Yeah. So we are, we are- Okay ... we are bringing in capabilities of a whole, uh, Shopify catalog.Basically, you now you can search for products, you can do lookups by specific ID, you can do bulk lookups when you need to bring m-multiple products. You don't need to know in ad-in advance what you're trying to show or to sell or check out. Like, you can now, you can now have this decided at, at runtime, and this big area for investment for us for both non-personalized and personalized searches, trying to provide basically a win-window into whole universe of products that are being sold everywhere in the world.And Shopify is really not exactly, but almost like a super set of any-anything being sold. Now we are bringing it into UCP and, uh, and, uh, identity linking is another big thing for us, uh, so that you, you can use, uh, like Google or whatever, whatever identity you have, uh, they're minimizing friction.[00:54:56] swyx: Yeah. So[00:54:57] Mikhail Parakhin: yeah, big release for us.But Liquid AI of course we never talk about, and the problem might be more, more aligned with what we d-discussed previously on this chat.[00:55:07] swyx: Sure. The main thing that everyone understands about Liquid is that it is inspired by Worm, and I still don't know why. I'm curious on your explanation. I think you, you, uh, you can make things very approachable.And also I think like what is the potential of like the, the level of efficiency that you get out of Liquid?[00:55:23] Mikhail Parakhin: You- we all familiar with transformer architectures. And, uh, for the longest time, there was a competing architecture, it's called the state space models. So, so Sams, uh, you know, Chris, Chris Reyes, one of the pioneers and, and lots of startups, uh, trying to make those realities.They have, uh, significant benefits being main being, uh, being much faster and, uh, lower footprint and not quadratic in length, you know, sort of, uh, linear in, in, uh, in your context length. But with state space models- They never quite made it. Like they're used-- They have, uh, certain niches when they thrive, their hybrid architectures are useful, but they never quite made it.And liquid neural networks are, you can think of them as a next step, like, uh, sort of, uh, state-space model square. It's non-transformer architecture that's more complicated than sta-state space and really difficult to code if you-- if I'm being honest. But it's, um, very efficient. It's, uh, subline-- sub, uh, quadratic in, in length of your context.Uh, it's very compact way to represent things, and that's a liquid AI company. They... Their goal is to productize it, and very often you have this need, uh, when you need to have long context and small model, and you want to have low latency. Like in general, it's basically on par with transformers, and if you do hybrids with transformers, it's, it's even better.That's why we at Shopify, when we tried multiple and we constantly try multiple models, multiple companies, we found that for small, particularly with low latency applications, when you have low latency and/or if you need longer context lengths, liquid was the best. And so we still use the whole zoo and always like obviously test and use everything, uh, every open source model and, you know, it feels l

Join Mark Call of Shabbat Shalom Mesa fellowship for a provocative two-part look at parsha Tazria, Leviticus chapters 12 through 14, and a discussion of what is too often dismissed as “old” testament minutia that no longer has any relevance. Mark suggests that one of the most intriguing things about certain sections — like this one! — is how things that the ‘church’ claims are irrelevant is how He may have Written it for us knowing far better. Just maybe. And the Erev Shabbat reading starts to make that case: https://hebrewnationonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/SSM-4-17-26-Tazria-teaching-podcast-xx.mp3 During the Sabbath Day midrash, Mark begins by asking some relevant questions, including, “what is UN-righteousness?” And what does this parsha tell us about it. And the answer follows from the observation that a person who was ‘declared’ unclean, by the cohenim, was put “outside the [clean, evidently!] camp” — until they were again declared clean. A look at the story of Miriam, and her “bad-mouthing” of Moses (in Hebrew, “lashon hora,” or the “evil tongue”) does at least begin to make the case that “gossip” or such damaging and contemptible speech, MIGHT be a cause of the ‘plague’ of tzaraat. And unlike ‘leprosy’ – there hasn’t been a single known case of tzaraat in the world for many centuries. But if “evil speech” can even remotely result in that ‘visual manifestation of a spiritual malady” – why, oh why, don’t we see it literally EVERYWHERE in a world today where the “Evil Tongue” gets you a network late night show? Did YHVH decide to stop the warning? As things get worse, and we enter into greater tribulation, wouldn’t an indicator of ‘wolves in sheep’s clothing’ be handy? Perhaps at least part of the problem is that when the whole word is ‘unclean’, there’s no point in kicking them out. Which seems to make the lesson all the more important. Tazria: “What is UN-righteousness?” https://hebrewnationonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/WT-CooH-4-18-26-Tazria-No-Tzaraat-for-centuries-so-What-is-Righteousness-podcast-xxx.mp3 Service information: Shabbat Shalom Mesa fellowship worship services and teachings are broadcast live every Sabbath, via Paltalk. (www.paltalk.com has both the link, and the app.) The “room name” is “Walking Torah with Shabbat Shalom Mesa,” and can be found via the paltalk search, then bookmarked. Erev Shabbat services begin at 7:00 PM Mountain Time Friday evenings (9 PM Eastern, 8 PM Central) Live Sabbath teachings begin shortly after 11 AM Mountain time on Sabbath day (Saturday). email: mark@markniwot.com The combined two-part reading and Sabbath midrash:

Parsha “Shemini,” (Leviticus chapters 9 through 11) is a ‘tour de force’ of what we have been told is “old testament” and “done away with,” and the reasons why that is such a satanic lie. The story starts on the Eighth (or ‘Shemini’) day where YHVH tells Moshe and Aaron and the elders of Israel what must be done, as Aaron and his sons are consecrated to be kohenim, priests to Him. Join Mark Call of Shabbat Shalom Mesa fellowship for a provocative two-part look at the parsha, and a discussion that will again, surprise some who have, like it or not, rejected His Word in favor of a pervasive Lie. And the Erev Shabbat reading lays that out in a manner that is hard to ignore: https://hebrewnationonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/SSM-4-10-26-Shemini-teaching-podcast-xx.mp3 During the Sabbath Day midrash, Mark suggests that the atbash, or set of literary brackets that surround the key element in the deaths of Nadab and Abihu (“there came forth fire from before YHVH, and CONSUMED…”) also touch the very heart of the lesson. It’s all about eating, or consuming (the SAME Hebrew word, every time) and it surrounds people who were “nigh unto Me,” says YHVH. And the should have known better, but instead did that which He had NOT commanded. As if He had. And there it is. Funny how so much of what He commanded, and then warned about, has been literally “turned on its head.” And how, once we see it, the thing that some disciples once called a “hard teaching,” isn’t really so hard at all. And the Big Lie is (again) revealed for what it is. Shemini: “No Sugar in the Gas Tank” https://hebrewnationonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/WT-CooH-4-11-26-Shemini-Sugar-in-the-Gas-Tank-podcast-xxx.mp3 Service information: Shabbat Shalom Mesa fellowship worship services and teachings are broadcast live every Sabbath, via Paltalk. (www.paltalk.com has both the link, and the app.) The “room name” is “Walking Torah with Shabbat Shalom Mesa,” and can be found via the paltalk search, then bookmarked. Erev Shabbat services begin at 7:00 PM Mountain Time Friday evenings (9 PM Eastern, 8 PM Central) Live Sabbath teachings begin shortly after 11 AM Mountain time on Sabbath day (Saturday). email: mark@markniwot.com The combined two-part reading and Sabbath midrash:

Parsha “Tzav,” (Lev. 6 through 8) continues the instruction concerning specific types of ‘sacrifices’ and ‘offerings,’ followed by the related process for sanctification of Aaron and his sons as cohenim. There is a stunning contrast here, too, since this is the timeframe of His “Appointed Times” or moedim, known as Pesach, or Passover, and followed by the week of the Feast of Unleavened Bread. NOT to be confused with re-naming the Most Important Event in Human History with a fake, pagan, abomination of a ‘fertility goddess.’ Join Mark Call of Shabbat Shalom Mesa fellowship for a provocative two-part look at the parsha, and a discussion that will no doubt offend many (as He did). But arguably not nearly as much as the issue so clearly offends Him. You might call it the unequivocally “NOT-Easter” Special. First, the Erev Shabbat reading: https://hebrewnationonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/SSM-4-3-Tzav-teaching-podcast-xx.mp3 In the Sabbath Day midrash, Mark this week explores the stunning CONTRAST between those ‘offerings’ and ‘sacrifices,’ — which Scripture again emphasizes in such detail — and the Single Sacrifice which has since be re-named to something it is certainly not. Is there no irony in the claim that the single ‘Final’ and Ultimate Sacrifice has been renamed in an idolatrous celebration that invites the death penalty? The haftorah reading begins with a warning that those who originally heard failed to heed. “You trust in lying words…” said the prophet YermeYahu (Jeremiah). “Obey My voice,” He told them. They misunderstood – and ignored – the lesson of the ‘sacrifices’ – and STILL DO. But it is the lesson of Ezekiel chapters 8 and 9 that is most pertinent to the idolatry that is so pervasive today! Tzav: “Lots of ‘offerings – ONE Sacrifice – Even More Abomination Now – and Little Discernment” https://hebrewnationonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/WT-CooH-4-4-26-Tzav-Lots-of-Offerings-ONE-sacrifice-LOTS-of-pagan-abomination-but-little-discernment-NOT-easter-special-podcast-xxx.mp3 Service information: Shabbat Shalom Mesa fellowship worship services and teachings are broadcast live every Sabbath, via Paltalk. (www.paltalk.com has both the link, and the app.) The “room name” is “Walking Torah with Shabbat Shalom Mesa,” and can be found via the paltalk search, then bookmarked. Erev Shabbat services begin at 7:00 PM Mountain Time Friday evenings (9 PM Eastern, 8 PM Central) Live Sabbath teachings begin shortly after 11 AM Mountain time on Sabbath day (Saturday). email: mark@markniwot.com The combined two-part reading and Sabbath midrash:

Parsha “Vayikra,” begins the Book with the same Hebrew name, aka “Leviticus” in English. And it’s both too often considered “boring” by much of ‘Sunday Christianity’ – and thus ignored – while at the same time being central to one of THE most misunderstood concepts in Scripture. And at the heart of perhaps THE Greatest Error, as well. Join Mark Call of Shabbat Shalom Mesa fellowship for a provocative two-part look at the parsha, and a discussion that will no doubt offend many (as He did, BTW). Which only makes it more vital to understand. First, the Erev Shabbat reading: https://hebrewnationonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/SSM-3-27-Vayikra-teaching-podcast-xxx.mp3 In the Sabbath Day midrash, Mark again takes a deeper look at the differences between ‘offerings’ and ‘sacrifices,’ and, more importantly, why Scripture emphasizes in such detail the concept of “unintentional” sin. It turns out that ‘deliberate rebellion to YHVH’ is also outlined as well, but in a VERY different way. And that is what makes All the Difference. It’s also why we’re told that such a sacrifice is made only once. But that is a fact generally denied by a ‘church’ which fails to teach the difference! Vayikra: “Is replacing Yahushua with ‘another jesus’ Unintentional Sin – or Worse?” https://hebrewnationonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/WT-CooH-3-28-26-Vayikra-Anothe-jesus-Is-THAT-Unintentional-Sin-or-worse-podcast-xxxx.mp3 Service information: Shabbat Shalom Mesa fellowship worship services and teachings are broadcast live every Sabbath, via Paltalk. (www.paltalk.com has both the link, and the app.) The “room name” is “Walking Torah with Shabbat Shalom Mesa,” and can be found via the paltalk search, then bookmarked. Erev Shabbat services begin at 7:00 PM Mountain Time Friday evenings (9 PM Eastern, 8 PM Central) Live Sabbath teachings begin shortly after 11 AM Mountain time on Sabbath day (Saturday). email: mark@markniwot.com The combined two-part reading and Sabbath midrash:

Parsha “Vayakhel,” Exodus 35:1 through 38:20, in many respects will seem very familiar. Many elements that we just recently read, only about ten chapters earlier, are repeated. Why? And why so much detail, not just once, but twice? Mark has long suggested that any time something is repeated in Scripture, we had better pay attention; it’s virtually certain that it is important. But there is almost certainly more to it as well. For example, the concept of a chiasm, or “atbash” in Hebrew that serves to ‘set off’ what is enclosed in what might be thought of as the equivalent of ‘brackets,’ or even nested parentheses, in English. In a more modern parlance, it might be thought of as a Biblical equivalent of an HTML tag. And in the case of some, like what comes to a conclusion in this reading, a virtual bright flashing red emphasis, in ALL CAPS, too. Join Mark Call of Shabbat Shalom Mesa fellowship for a provocative two-part look at the parsha, and the implications for a world that stands at minimum on the cusp of World War III, potentially with even a nuclear escalation, and a global economic (and fiat reserve currency and debt) meltdown that have both been a long time coming. As for the ‘End Times’ — well, “soon” is a relative concept in prophecy, but we know of a certainly that we are ‘close,’ and what will ultimately come to pass. The Erev Shabbat reading: https://hebrewnationonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/SSM-3-13-Vayakhel-teaching-podcast-xx.mp3 If this repeated, often word-for-word, detail, and the entire concept of first being told WHAT to make, then again WHEN they made it, is the ‘closing bracket,’ or tag, for what comes in between, then what is He emphasizing> Certainly, the ‘Golden Calf,’ and one of the most dramatic failure in Scripture. And there’s even an “atbash within that abash,” as well, concerning His Sabbath. But, this time the explicit reminder is that it’s one of those commandments that carries a death penalty. How can that be ignored? To ‘come out of her,’ remains an imperative. But then what? Vayakhel: “Coming out, coming together – it just starts willing hearts” https://hebrewnationonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/WT-CooH-3-14-Vayakhel-Coming-OUT-Coming-together-wise-willing-hearts-podcast-xxxx.mp3 Service information: Shabbat Shalom Mesa fellowship worship services and teachings are broadcast live every Sabbath, via Paltalk. (www.paltalk.com has both the link, and the app.) The “room name” is “Walking Torah with Shabbat Shalom Mesa,” and can be found via the paltalk search, then bookmarked. Erev Shabbat services begin at 7:00 PM Mountain Time Friday evenings (9 PM Eastern, 8 PM Central) Live Sabbath teachings begin shortly after 11 AM Mountain time on Sabbath day (Saturday). email: mark@markniwot.com The combined two-part reading and Sabbath midrash:

This is perhaps one of the most important, most blunt, most twisted, and certainly – now, particularly – one of most utterly relevant Torah parashot in the Book. Join Mark Call of Shabbat Shalom Mesa fellowship for a provocative two-part look at parsha Ki Tisa, Exodus 30:11 through chapter 34. The Erev Shabbat reading starts with the command to take a head count, and how, and then continues through the infamous betrayal of the ‘golden calf’ — first of many, as it turns out — and the aftermath: https://hebrewnationonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/SSM-3-6-Ki-Tisa-teaching-podcast-xx.mp3 How often do we hear about the idolatry of that ‘Golden Calf’? And the smug dismissal that it was so long ago, but the ‘Church’ is SO much better than that – now. Really? Maybe there’s a lot more to it. And THAT would be why the Whore Church ignores all of that. Ki Tisa: “Why did Moses SMASH the first Tablets?” https://hebrewnationonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/CooH-3-7-Ki-Tisa-WHY-did-Moses-Smash-the-1st-Tablets-podcast-xxxx.mp3 The combined two-part reading and Sabbath midrash:

Join Mark Call of Shabbat Shalom Mesa fellowship for a provocative two-part look at parsha Terzaveh, Exodus 27:20-30:10. The Erev Shabbat reading gives the details, of which there are many: https://hebrewnationonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/SSM-2-27-Tetzaveh-teaching-podcast-x.mp3 The impressive level of detail is this description is certainly again one of the most memorable aspects of this parsha. And yet, as Mark reminds us in the Sabbath day midrash, one more time, there is “no idle word” in His Torah. But THIS time, we need to “Compare and Contrast.” Tetzaveh: “Is This the REAL One?” https://hebrewnationonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/WT-CooH-2-28-26-Tetzaveh-Is-this-the-Real-One-podcast-xx.mp3 The combined two-part reading and Sabbath midrash:

This week’s Torah portion from the annual cycle is a major ‘shift’ from the mainline story of the Exodus. After Moses heads up the mountain, for forty days and forty nights, the focus is now on getting ready to build something. And why? Why now? It’s almost like He knows something, before we get to that part of the story. It turns out, there’s even more to it than that. Join Mark Call of Shabbat Shalom Mesa fellowship for a provocative two-part look at parsha Terumah, Exodus chapter 25 through almost all of 27, which begins with the command from YHVH to “take for Me an OFFERING.” From a specific group of people, of a specific list of items, and for a specific purpose. The Erev Shabbat reading gives the details, of which there are many: https://hebrewnationonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/SSM-2-20-Terumah-teaching-podcast-x.mp3 The impressive level of detail is this description is certainly one of the most memorable aspects of this parsha. It’s also at the heart of what might even be called ‘controversy.’ Why so much detail about a mobile tent in the wilderness? After all, it was later replaced by the temple, twice, and destroyed, twice. Some will again even claim that it’s “Old” testament, and therefore ‘done away with’ – like those temples. We may have even heard it called “boring.” And yet, as Mark reminds us in the Sabbath day midrash, there is “no idle word” in His Torah. Teruman: “That ‘boring DETAIL’ is a Big Flashing Red HTML tag – if we see it” https://hebrewnationonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/WT-CooH-2-21-Terumah-The-ATBASH-around-Idolatry-and-the-Golden-Calf-then-and-Now-podcast-xxx.mp3 The combined two-part reading and Sabbath midrash:

This week we look at our country of the week - Hong Kong; Jimmy Lai;  Iran; Canadian Trans Shooting; The EU and Transwomen;  Silencing anti-abortion campaigners; Deleting justice files in the UK;  Pam Duncan-Glancey and the dangers of being friends with sinners;  Bad Bunny v. Kid Rock; The Winter Olympics - Ilia Malinin; Church of England abandons blessings for SSM couples; Feedback and the Final Word - James 3:13-18with music from Barry White; U2; Don Williams;  Cantonese Psalm 23;  The Proclaimers;  Bad Bunny; Kid Rock ; Fiddlers Dream; Living Word Collective; 

Join Mark Call of Shabbat Shalom Mesa fellowship for a provocative two-part look at what he claims is one of the most fascinating Torah portions in the whole Book, not only because of the variety of topics it covers, but the fact that they are so, let’s face it, HATED by much of society. Not only are they NOT ‘politically-correct,’ but the fact that so many of them ARE so rejected, he argues, helps explain why the “social justice-loving,” humanistic, Progressive Pagan system that has replaced His Word is such an UTTER, undeniable, even Satanic, MESS. The Erev Shabbat reading of the parsha, with some poignant commentary: https://hebrewnationonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/SSM-2-13-Mishpatim-teaching-only-podcast-xxx.mp3 There is a whole lot that could be said about the Sabbath Day midrash and commentary. But, this time, it will simply be more expedient to suggest — listen to it, pray, and make up your own mind. Mishpatim: “His Way is SO Much Better — We Get Instead What We Did NOT Expect”” https://hebrewnationonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/WT-CooH-2-14-Mishpatim-His-Way-is-Better-We-get-instead-what-we-did-NOT-expect-podcast-xxxx.mp3 The combined two-part reading and Sabbath midrash:

Cory Sherman, Founder of Safety Systems Management (SSM), is a pioneering entrepreneur and safety management professional based in Newnan, Georgia. Cory has over 13 years in the construction and safety management industry.  He earned a Bachelor of Science in Construction Management from Georgia Southern University and a Master of Science in Safety, Security, and Emergency Management from Eastern Kentucky University.  Additionally, Cory is a Certified Safety Professional (CSP) as well as a Construction Health and Safety Technician (CHST) from the Board of Certified Safety Professionals. Cory established Safety Systems Management in 2016 while working full-time for top General Contactors.  Despite humble beginnings of working on prototypes out of his garage, Cory's relentless commitment to innovation saw him develop and patent the Mobile Communications Tower, showcasing his ingenuity and dedication to construction safety technology.  Transitioning to full-time entrepreneurship in 2023, Cory has steered SSM to become a leading provider of safety solutions.  With unwavering dedication to excellence, Safety Systems Management has a reputation for delivering comprehensive safety services, safeguarding lives, and driving organizational success.

When the ‘mixed multitude’ comes to Mount Sinai it is clear that another major milestone is at hand, and — as we know it will emerge — another turning point has been reached. But this is set up by several major events documented by this week’s parsha (Yitro, Exodus chapters 18 through 20). Moses’ father-in-law, Yitro (as he is called in this part of Scripture) hears a part of the story, comes to the wilderness, and brings Moshe back his wife, Zipporah, and his two sons. There he hears the “rest of the story,” recognizes YHVH himself, and offers sage advice. In that process, the mixed multitude becomes ‘echad’ as Israel. And one of the most important “downloads” from YHVH Himself follows after that stage is set: https://hebrewnationonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/SSM-2-6-Yitro-teaching-podcast-xxx.mp3 Any reading that includes the ‘Ten Commandments’ certainly must include a look at the specifics. But in the midrash this week, Mark Call of Shabbat Shalom Mesa fellowship suggests that the ‘setup’ that precedes that historic Exposition can help us understand why what Scripture refers to as those ten “Debarim,” or Words, even ‘Sayings,’ have been so…idolized, re-formatted, marginalized, edited, twisted, and, almost unbelievably, even demonized over the intervening centuries. And, as Mark also notes, by men who failed Yitro’s metric: they seem to not only LOVE ‘unjust gain,’ certainly more than Truth, because they don’t “fear YHVH” either. And “reducing His Name to nothingness,” or void, is just one undeniable indication. Many of us have heard the claim that the “law is done away with” — which Mark calls one of the Biggest Lies in Human history — but there is a corollary that crops up this week, which is the claim that the “Ten Commandments” may be the only part that still matters. Well, some of ’em, anyway… Yitro: “Hate Unjust Gain” https://hebrewnationonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/WT-CooH-2-7-Yitro-Hate-UNJUST-gain-essence-of-the-Ten-Debarim-and-other-INSTRUCTION-Still-Extant-podcast-xxx.mp3 The combined two-part reading and Sabbath midrash:

Act II of ‘the Exodus’ (parsha ‘Beshalach,” Exodus/Shemot 13:17 through chapter 17) begins immediately after the last of the plagues, when Pharoah has let the people go; actually – kicked them out, “shalach”, or expelled, is how the Hebrew puts it. And it certainly is the beginning of a whole new phase in the saga. But that central theme of how we are all to know that “ki ani YHVH” – or “I AM Yahuah” – not only continues, but is demonstrated: Graphically, undeniably, and miraculously. As the Erev Shabbat reading outlines: https://hebrewnationonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/SSM-1-30-26-Beshalach-teaching-podcast-xxx.mp3 In the Sabbath Day midrash, Mark Call of Shabbat Shalom Mesa fellowship observes that there are several specific places — and ALL of them PRIOR to the giving of the “Ten Commandments” at Mt. Sinai — where YHVH gives not only a “statute and an ordinance,” but detailed “instruction” (aka ‘torah’). Which is a problem for the “Whore Church” claim that it is only the ‘Ten Commandments’ that still matter — all those others were just for a limited time, or for ‘the jews’, or for any number of constructed excuses for not recognizing what He means when He said that He did not come to change so much as the tiniest bit of His Instruction, any of it, so long as heaven and earth still exist. If we claim to “love Him,” it matters. Beshalach: “And ALL of this is Before Sinai” https://hebrewnationonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/WT-CooH-1-31-26-Beshalach-ALL-Before-Sinai-podcast-xxx.mp3 The combined two-part reading and Sabbath midrash:

The final part of what might be called “Act I” of ‘the Exodus’ (parsha Bo, Exodus/Shemot 10:1 – 13:16) concludes with the final set of the ‘3 sets of 3, plus one’ plagues, and the ‘death of the firstborn. But there is much more, because it also lays out the first of what are the Moedim, or Appointed Times, of YHVH, and what is not only the most dramatic, but so fundamental to all of Scripture, even if much of ‘the church’ may have become disconnected from the ‘why’. It again bgins with what Mark Call of Shabbat Shalom Mesa fellowship contends is THE key understanding in the Book, and of the Creator Himself, “ki ani YHVH,” (no, not “I am the LORD,” but His real Name, and just how he makes very clear what that means.) It is also clear that this final plague is very different from the others that precede it, as the Erev Shabbat reading outlines: https://hebrewnationonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/SSM-1-23-26-Bo-teaching-podcast-xxx.mp3 This is the story of the first Pesach, or Passover. Our fathers’ fathers were supposed to “teach your children.” It was YHVH’s first demonstrated ‘moed,’ or of His ‘Appointed Times.’ And He gave Instruction about it — to remember it, to set it apart, “forever,” and “throughout your generations.” So what happened? The Sabbath Day midrash begins with a question, and it’s one that may even be overlooked today: Bo: “What is all this concern about the Firstborn?” The answer will help a Whole Lot of the pieces to fall into place. https://hebrewnationonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/WT-CooH-1-24-26-Bo-What-is-this-Concern-About-the-Firstborn-podcast-xxx.mp3 The combined two-part reading and Sabbath midrash:

Part II of the story of ‘the Exodus’ (Vayeira, Exodus/Shemot 6:2 through chapter 9) begins with what Mark Call of Shabbat Shalom Mesa fellowship contends is THE key understanding in the Book, and of the Creator Himself, “ki ani YHVH,” and the fact that He will NOW make that known. It is not that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had never heard that Name, just that He did “not make Himself KNOWN” to them as He is now about to do. And that includes the first of the “Ten Plagues” of Egypt, although, they are probably better thought of as the “Three sets of three, plus one,” that is different from the others: https://hebrewnationonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/SSM-1-16-26-Vayeira-teaching-podcast-xxx.mp3 Over a number of years of teaching this parsha, Mark has focused on the intriguing patterns among the plagues, and the progression, all of which may well be a harbinger of what we might see during the prophesied “Greater Exodus” to come, the and fact that the plagues are each ‘judgments’ (or even humiliations) of the fake gods of Egypt by the Real One. He also does not fail to note the “conflation” about Pharaoh’s heart being “hardened,” either by himself, or later on, by YHVH — because there are TWO different Hebrew words used for what happened, but the distinction is often lost in most English translations. But in the Sabbath Day midrash this time, Mark suggests that current events, including things we have already seen that point to elements of prophecy already making headlines, take us back to the central issue of what makes us human: Free Will. Choice. Did Pharaoh have it? Shaul, or Paul, in Romans chapter 9, addressed the issue with his famous metaphor of the potter, and his clay, which doesn’t get to ask whether it will be formed into a “vessel for honor,” or the equivalent of an ashtray, destined for something very different. And is it just possible that the “closing bracket” set of plagues might end up being directed at what we might think of as an “Artificial Intelligence” version of a Skynet Pharaoh? Does such a creation even have “free will?” Did Pharaoh, at least at some point? And, when did his ‘choice’ become a terminal commitment? Vayeira: When Does “Free-Will” Become Terminal? https://hebrewnationonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/WT-CooH-1-17-26-Vayeira-when-does-free-will-become-terminal-podcast-xxx.mp3 The combined two-part reading and Sabbath midrash:

The weekly Torah portion reading this week is the first in the story of the Exodus, aka “Shemot” in the Hebrew, which also begins the story of the life of Moses (Moshe) — Exodus/Shemot 1:1 through 6:2. And these few chapters seem to cover a period of over two centuries, a descent into “cruel bondage” from a life of plenty in the land of Goshen, and fully two-thirds of the life of the man “drawn from the water.” https://hebrewnationonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/SSM-1-9-26-Shemot-teaching-podcast-xxx.mp3 Mark Call of Shabbat Shalom Mesa fellowship, in the Sabbath Day midrash, notes up front that this story picks up after what is generally recognized as at least two centuries of silence from Scripture. And the story hinges on the advent of a new king, who “knew NOT Joseph.” And even after some genealogy, the stunning (to some, certainly!) story of midwives who didn’t read Romans 13, and a few verses about the birth of Moses, and his salvation by being “drawn out of the water,” it’s also true that the first eighty years of his life are given only a little ink in the Book, compared to the detail about what follows, in just the final third of his life. So it’s fascinating to examine just WHAT Scripture has us focus on during those years. There are things said, things that have a startlingly similar pattern, and things UNSAID, but which still resonate, because we can arguably see the concerning parallels right now. And there’s a question that emerges, too. Shemot: Where are the MEN? https://hebrewnationonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/WT-CooH-1-10-26-Shemot-Where-are-the-MEN-podcast-xxx.mp3 The combined two-part reading and Sabbath midrash:

It's a new year and a new issue of Sega Saturn Magazine! As the last of the big three lands on Sega Saturn in the UK, SSM is bullish in its optimism, and deservedly so as a bumper January 1996 issue contains early previews and reviews of some huge Saturn hits. Download a copy and read along: https://retrocdn.net/images/8/87/SSM_UK_03.pdf

Torah parsha ‘Vayechi’ (Genesis/Bereshiet 47:28 – End) this week is the final reading in the Book of Genesis, and not only concludes the stories of the life of Yakov, and his son Joseph in particular, but sets the stage for the Exodus to come. The Erev Shabbat reading lays out the story, and also the final adoption – literally – of Ephraim and Manasseh, and the structure of the ‘twelve tribes’ that underlie the rest of Scripture, both historically and prophetically: https://hebrewnationonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/SSM-1-2-26-VaYechi-teaching-podcast-xxx.mp3 The Sabbath Day midrash this week addresses the ‘elephant in the room,’ that follows so many of the aspects of this story of Genesis as it concludes: – Yakov/Jacob “adopts” the two sons of Joseph, not only giving him their ‘double-portion’ in the inheritance, and replacing Reuben in that place, but setting up the second (after Judah) in what will be the line of kings, in this case of the Northern Kingdom, and so much of what seems to follow in later history. – After the death of Jacob, the brothers STILL don’t seem to “get it,” and understand that Joseph did not intend to punish them for their treachery so many years earlier. But that theme also resonates later – in that “there arose another king in Egypt,” who “did not know Joseph.” And Mark Call, of Shabbat Shalom Mesa fellowship, outlines why THAT is still ever so true! VaYechi: They STILL Don’t ‘Know Him’ https://hebrewnationonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/WT-CooH-1-3-26-VaYechi-They-STILL-Dont-Know-Him-podcast-xxx.mp3 ADDENDUM: The normal Q&A that largely follows the midrash is a bit different this week, since the stunning attack on Venezuela and capture of the communist dictator Maduro happened overnight, and was largely complete by the time the Sabbath session took place. It doesn’t ‘flow’ with the majority of the Torah reading, but is important, and will be of interest, as it was to those in the room, and so is included here. There are also MAJOR aspects most Americans have NOT been informed about: https://hebrewnationonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/SSM-1-3-26-VaYechi-QnA-Venezuela-attack-Maduro-Smartmatic-special-podcast-addendum-xxx.mp3 The combined two-part reading and Sabbath midrash:

The Torah reading this week is the final installment in the ‘cliffhanger’ series, of the story of Yosef, or Joseph, where he reveals himself to his brothers, afterJudah ‘mans up.’ Join Mark Call of Shabbat Shalom Mesa fellowship for a two-part look at parsha “VaYigash,” Genesis chapters 44:18 – 47:27: https://hebrewnationonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/SSM-12-26-25-VaYigash-teaching-podcast-xx.mp3 The Sabbath Day midrash begins with the climax of that historic test. But Judah seems to complete it in a way that astounded even Joseph. And Mark suggests that is what is so significant here. Neither of them, nor the other brothers, knew how it would turn out, or even what was expected. Only YHVH, Who brought it all together, in His time. But that is one way of understanding what a “double-blind test” is: If any of the direct participants really know what is going on, that might affect the behavior, and thus the outcome of the test. How’s that for a metaphor? And, if you think about it, that is the very OPPOSITE of the concept of Chess! But it’s “part and parcel” of the Spiritual War in progress, and clearly a vital understanding on the path ahead. VaYigash: Double-blind tests Outright War’ https://hebrewnationonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/WT-CooH-12-26-25-VaYigash-THE-Double-Blind-Test-and-a-Murky-Divided-Pagan-World-podcast-xxx.mp3 The combined two-part reading and Sabbath midrash:

The Torah reading this week continues the story of Yosef, or Joseph, where it picks up in prison, after he has interpreted two dreams, for Pharaoh’s chief butler, and baker. Join Mark Call of Shabbat Shalom Mesa fellowship for a two-part look at parsha “Miketz,” Genesis chapter 41 through 44:17, where, after two full years, the story begins with a pair of dreams that Pharaoh himself has. The Erev Shabbat reading: https://hebrewnationonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/SSM-12-19-25-Miketz-teaching-podcast-xxx.mp3 The Sabbath Midrash explores the nature of ‘tests’. The parsha starts with “after two full years,” suggesting that Joseph was required to wait on YHVH, and the rest of the story is replete with tests. Which is where we are now. Miketz: Tests – of Faith, of Leadership, and Those Who Would Be His https://hebrewnationonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/WT-CooH-12-20-25-Miketz-Tests-of-Faith-of-Leadership-and-of-gods-Real-and-fake-podcast-xxx.mp3 The combined two-part reading and Sabbath midrash:

This edition of “Golf With Jay Delsing” features Carlton Blood of Five Iron Golf and Matt Minder of the Amateur Players Tour. We also visit with Rose Nevins of SSM and the show will have all the latest news and notes from throughout the world of golf.

The Torah reading this week begins the story of Yosef, or Joseph, favored son of Yaakov. Join Mark Call of Shabbat Shalom Mesa fellowship for a two-part look at parsha “Vayeshev,” Genesis chapters 37 through 40, where the story begins, and builds on dreams. The Erev Shabbat reading: https://hebrewnationonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/SSM-12-12-25-Vayeshev-teaching-podcast-xx.mp3 While this parsha contains a number of ‘nuggets’, or memorable elements, images, and component lessons, the midrash suggests that even the structure of the story is all about a ‘long-term’ plan of YHVH. This reading itself is only just the beginning of a series of what might be called “cliff-hangers,” where we see, as do Yosef and his brothers, that structure being put in place for what is to come. In any number of ways… Vayeshev: ‘Two Dreams, Two Witnesses – Who can BUT Prophesy’ https://hebrewnationonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/WT-CooH-12-13-25-Vayeshev-Two-Dreams-Two-witnesses-Who-can-BUT-prophesy-podcast-xxx.mp3 The combined two-part reading and Sabbath midrash:

"Golf With JAy Delsing" features the following guests: Carlton Blood, Five IronGolf, Matt Minder, Amateur Players TourRose Nevins, SSM. Also, the show will have all the latest news and notes from throughout the world of golf.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Join Mark Call of Shabbat Shalom Mesa fellowship for a two-part look at parsha “Vayishlach,” Genesis 32:4 through chapter 36) the story of Yakov/Jacob as he finally returns to Beit El, and a ‘reunion’ with his estranged brother, Esau. The Erev Shabbat reading: https://hebrewnationonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/SSM-12-5-25-Vayishlach-teaching-podcast-xxx.mp3 That story has lessons enough, but there is an extended genealogy of Esau’s side of the family that might seem out of place, given the reminder that “Yakov I have loved, Esau I have hated,” says YHVH. And there are certainly a number of prophecies – arguably yet to be fulfilled – about the ultimate demise of the descendants of that line. So who, or what, is Esau? As Mark Call of Shabbat Shalom Mesa documents in the midrash, there are no shortages of opinions on that score. But we have certainly been warned. Vayishlach: ‘The Long Genealogy of Esau – and Two Houses’ https://hebrewnationonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/WT-CooH-12-6-25-Vayishlach-Two-houses-and-Edom-podcast-xxx.mp3 The combined two-part reading and Sabbath midrash:

Join Mark Call of Shabbat Shalom Mesa fellowship for a two-part look at parsha “Vayetzi,” Genesis 28:10-32:3) the story of Yakov/Jacob as he journeys to the land of his father’s family, is told first-hand of his birthright and the promises, and acquires his own wives and family. The Erev Shabbat reading: https://hebrewnationonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/SSM-11-28-25-Vayetzi-teaching-podcast-xx.mp3 Mark’s Sabbath Day midrash probably raises more questions than it answers. Most of which are, at best, ambiguous from what we are told in the story. But these are human beings, of course — flawed people, who make mistakes — and thus more interesting and even relevant to where we find ourselves today. Yakov married daughters of Laban. While certainly not Canaanites, Laban himself is hardly a saint. And why did Raqel/Rachel steal his teraphim, fake gods? There is a lot of setup here: The man who is forced to leave home to escape his own brother’s wrath soon comes to a place he’s almost certainly HEARD about, but suddenly – He sees first hand and KNOWS about those promises. What was hypothetical is Real. And yet there are still struggles ahead, and the man who asked for, and received, the place of the firstborn is deceived himself, because “it is not done so here,” to put the younger in place of the first-born. Ultimately, Laban seems to take advantage of his son-in-law. There is animosity. He is, after all is said and done, still a pagan. And that, too, is just as relevant now as ever. Vayetzi: ‘Flawed people and Hard Questions: Do you Love Messiah more than Bacon?’ https://hebrewnationonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/WT-CooH-11-29-25-Vayetzi-Labanite-xtians-do-you-love-Yahushua-more-than-bacon-podcast-x.mp3 The combined two-part reading and Sabbath midrash:

Join Mark Call of Shabbat Shalom Mesa fellowship for a two-part look at parsha “Toldot,” Genesis 25:19-28:9)… The Erev Shabbat reading – and thus the title of the parsha – begins with “These are to ‘toldot’, or generations, of Isaac…” …but it is really the beginning of the story of Yakov, or Jacob, and the father of the nations, Israel: https://hebrewnationonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/SSM-11-21-25-Toldot-teaching-podcast-xx.mp3 Mark’s Sabbath Day midrash is a deeper look at what has been called “enigmatic.” There are certainly elements, of this story in particular, that have been regarded as “problematic,” even, in terms of things done by characters we might be inclined to emulate. For example, why does Rivkah (Rebeccah) decide to deceive her husband? Why does Yiztak/Isaac apparently FALL for it? Or even merit possibly BEING deceived? And, why is Yakov accused to being a ‘supplanter,’ or even “stealing” the birthright? Some of those questions are certainly easier with the benefit of hindsight. But there are others that, even in being asked, give us a greater insight into what is REALLY happening than we might otherwise imagine. “Toldot: What’s With Isaac? https://hebrewnationonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/WT-CooH-11-22-25-Toldot-Whats-with-Isaac-Enigmatic-until-hindsight-podcast-xxx.mp3 The combined two-part reading and Sabbath midrash:

Join Mark Call of Shabbat Shalom Mesa fellowship for a two-part look at parsha "Vayera," Genesis chapters 18 through 22) and the central part of the story of the first Patriarch, Abraham, from his storied 'dickering' with YHVH Himself concerning the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, to the 'binding of Isaac,' known as 'the Akieda,' that prefigures another parallel act on that very same spot, many centuries later. It is perhaps THE "Biblical-level" Act of Faith. First, the Erev Shabbat reading: https://hebrewnationonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/SSM-11-7-25-Vayera-teaching-podcast-xxx.mp3 The Sabbath Day Midrash is about not only that "Act of Faith," but what it says to BOTH of those two houses, still in exile, who each believe the story prophecies the Messiah Himself, but can't seem to recognize His character in the process! "Vayera: 'Your son, your only son...Who?" https://hebrewnationonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/WT-CooH-11-8-25-Vayera-Your-son-your-only-Son-podcast-xxx.mp3 The combined two-part reading and Sabbath midrash:

The team caught up with Scholastica Jacob to discuss a recent book she edited, The Letters of Herbert Kelly and Dorothy L. Sayers. She came on to discuss Kelly and Anglican religious life in this episode from 2024.Scholastica is the librarian and archivist of St Anthony's Priory Durham, which is run by the Society of the Sacred Mission (SSM). Formerly a member of Stanbrook Abbey, and before that a lawyer specialising in charity law, Scholastica has a PhD in church history from the University of Durham. As well as managing the library and working on the SSM archives, she also has a leading role in the development of the Herbert Kelly Institute for Anglican Religious Life.You can email us at holycofe@gmail.com or follow us on X at @holycofe1.

Join Mark Call of Shabbat Shalom Mesa fellowship for a two-part look at parsha "Lech Lecha," Genesis 12:1-`7:27) -- which might be considered the original "come out" teaching in Scripture -- where the first Patriarch, Abram (later Abraham) is told to "get thee OUT" of your country, leave what you have known, and "go to the land that I will show you." It's a historic, literally "Biblical-level" Act of Faith. But that is where the story of the life of one of the most important men in Scripture, and the 'Father of our Faith," only begins. Here's the Erev Shabbat reading: https://hebrewnationonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/SSM-10-31-25-Lech-Lecha-teaching-podcast-xxx.mp3 This parsha lays out several truly 'fundamental' elements. One, referenced often in the Apostolic Writings (aka 'Old' Testament) is that the man re-named Abraham in this story "believed YHVH," and his actions repeatedly made that clear, and He "counted it to him for righteousness." (Genesis 15:6, referenced by Paul/Shaul in Romans 4.) Mark begins the Sabbath midrash with what some might consider a surprising understanding, given that is counter to what many may have heard, as he notes, "twisted," and it lies at the heart of this story: Galatians has been taught "backwards." What does Hagar, 'the Egyptian,' represent? And if Paul, as he said, wrote to the former pagans in Galatia that he was worried that they were already "turning away" from that faith demonstrated by Abraham to the "weak and beggarly elements" from which they had been delivered, what does that mean? And, ultimately, just who is the 'son of the bondwoman'? Once you see through the lies we have been fed - "inherited from our fathers" (some more literally than others) - it will be unseen. Please share this one if you find it valuable. "Lech Lecha: Twistings - from THAT 'sign' to the Real 'Son of the Bondwoman'" https://hebrewnationonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/WT-CooH-11-1-25-Lech-Lecha-Who-is-the-real-son-of-the-Egyptian-Bondwoman-podcast-xxx.mp3 The combined two-part reading and Sabbath midrash:

Parsha "Noach" (Genesis 6:9-11:32) is actually the second, and concluding part of the story of the "days of Noah," and is the reading that contains the most well-known (and also sometimes LEAST known!) elements of the story of The Flood. But there's more, too, because it also includes the "Tower of Babel," and the intro to the first of the Patriarchs. https://hebrewnationonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/SSM-10-24-25-Noach-teaching-podcast-xxx.mp3 Mark begins the Sabbath midrash with the observation that the 'days of Noah' spanned not only the time prior to the Flood when "the thoughts of men's hearts was only evil continually," but also many years thereafter, and certainly through the time of Nimrod, and up to the story of Babel. And that is particularly key when it comes to understanding the somewhat enigmatic story of His 'confounding the language' to deliberately ensure that mankind is NOT "one people," and NOT able to 'work together for the common good.' The fact that so much of today's 'One World' propaganda pushes exactly that goal should be concerning, at minimum, given that YHVH explained His concern by saying the reason for His actions was that once they learned to work together, and seemingly plot to thwart His potential plans, "THIS is what they begin to do." "Noach: Maybe 'coexist' is NOT the best motto - then or now" https://hebrewnationonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/WT-CooH-10-25-25-Noach-Am-Echad-And-THIS-is-What-they-Begin-to-DO-podcast-xxx.mp3 The combined two-part reading and Sabbath midrash:

Parsha "Bereshiet" (Genesis 1, through 6:8) is the first reading in the new cycle of the Torah, from "in the Beginning" to the first part of the "days of Noah." And as Mark Call, of Shabbat Shalom Mesa fellowship, noted last week, it's just too much to try and cover responsibly in just one week. And since the interesting of reading from the last parsha, at the end of Deuteronomy straight through into the first Book, since we never really finish our study of His Instruction, means we read and studied into the first few chapters of Genesis/Bereshiet last week, Mark did exactly that, and spent some time on the first three chapters then. So, this week, after a brief recap of the story of the 'nacash' and Eve/Chava's deception in chapter 3, and the "first two lies", the Erev Shabbat story and reading picks up there: https://hebrewnationonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/SSM-10-18-25-Bereshiet-continued-teaching-podcast-xxx.mp3 Even beyond the First Two Lies, is the one that actually is NOT in Scripture, but does permeate the Whore Church: That "jesus did away with the Law," "nailed it to the cross," and somehow did what the Real Messiah promised repeated He would NOT. The Sabbath Day midrash is all about the EFFECTS of those "Big Lies," especially in the presence of the level of Evil seen then - "as it was in the Days of Noach" - and again, now. Are we there yet? What can we now begin to see that looks like? And the repeated and urgent message is "see that you are not deceived!" Mark takes another look at the progression, the prophecy of Matthew 24, and where the Big Lies may lead next. It's time to not only 'connect some dots,' but even extrapolate a bit. https://hebrewnationonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/WT-CooH-10-18-25-Bereshiet-pt-2-See-That-You-are-NOT-Deceived-podcast-xxx.mp3 The combined two-part reading and Sabbath midrash:

Parsha "V'zot HaBerakhah" (Deuteronomy (chapter 33 through the End of the Book, and the entire Torah) is the final reading in this cycle, and the life of Moses. The Erev Shabbat reading begins there: https://hebrewnationonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/SSM-10-10-25-V-zot-HaBerakhah-teaching-podcast-xx.mp3 This Sabbath Day midrash comes during the week of Sukkot, or the Feast of Tabernacles -- not only the actual time of the birth of the Messiah, but the heart of the yet-to-be-fulfilled prophecies of the Greater Exodus, the Revelation, and the Wedding Feast. It's also when the annual Torah cycle readings conclude, and begin again. V'zot HaBerakhah: This is the Blessing - the Cycle Begins Anew https://hebrewnationonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/WT-CooH-10-11-25-V-zot-HaBerakhah-cycles-into-Bereshiet-podcast-xxx.mp3 The combined two-part reading and Sabbath midrash:

Parsha "Ha'azinu" (Deuteronomy (chapter 32) is the second-to-last reading in the Torah, and the life of Moses. It is, specifically, the second "Song of Moses," that he sings, as a "witness against" them, and us, immediately prior to his death. It's also a warning that hits as close to home now as it ever has. The Erev Shabbat reading begins there: https://hebrewnationonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/SSM-10-3-25-Ha-azinu-teaching-podcast-xx.mp3 This Sabbath Day midrash comes just after the 'most holy' day of the year, Yom Kippur, and right before the final, climactic week of the Fall Feasts, the time of Sukkot, aka the Feast of Tabernacles, or booths, or even 'mangers.' Mark Call of Shabbat Shalom Mesa notes that the confluence of this reading, and the Song of Moses, at this time at the heart of the Fall Feasts should suggest two major admonitions from Scripture: "Know the times and the seasons," and that, furthermore, "NOW is the time!" Sukkot is almost certainly the time when the Messiah, Yahushuah, was actually born. But how many of us have heard, "I don't care - I love Xmas anyway," and similar excuses for accepting what we "know or should know" is a lie. Is this the year to stand on Truth? We also know, or should, that the word "jesus" never even existed until about 16 centuries as the Messiah walked the earth after that birth. No one EVER, not once, called Him by that name. And it thus cannot be (Acts 4) the "only name" by which we can be saved. Does that matter? Most of us have again heard, "I don't care," or "what difference does it really make?" So, if His birthday doesn't really matter, nor does His real Name, what about His Doctrine? Did He "do away with the law," or is that - as Mark strongly suggests - perhaps the Biggest Lie in all of human history? Does His Doctrine matter? Did He change it? Did He really change His Instruction about His moedim [appointed times], His Sabbaths, food, money, marriage - and just about anything else men decided they didn't like from His Word? Ha'azinu: When Does it Finally START to Matter? https://hebrewnationonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/WT-CooH-10-4-25-Ha-azinu-WHEN-Does-it-Start-to-Matter-podcast-xx-1.mp3 The combined two-part reading and Sabbath midrash:

Why should we challenge the assumption that the Greek magical text, the Hygromanteia, is really the source of the Key of Solomon? Why is Frankenstein's Monster a better way to look at the collection of ‘Solomonic' manuscripts? What is a ‘Solomonic network' with ‘genes', ‘nodes' and ‘clusters'? Dr. Gal Sofer - scholar, medical doctor and translator - discusses his first book, Solomonic Magic: Methodology, Texts, and Histories (Brill 2025), answers your Patreon supporter questions and more!⇓ ⇓ ⇓►⚡Dr. Sofer's ‘Solomonic Magic' tome - https://brill.com/display/title/64906►✅Dr. Sofer's Academia page: - https://bgu.academia.edu/GalSofer ►▶️Dr. Sofer Lecture: Wisdom and Command | The Magical Seals of Solomon - https://youtu.be/iu5lPccZLyw?si=XdTw7iZwA2bUV9UP ►▶️Dr. Sofer Lecture: From Seals to Pentacles| The Magical Seals of Solomon - https://youtu.be/zgjeysr5OK0?si=SLSiY04YxDt5U2mm ►Email Dr. Sofer - gal.sofer1@gmail.com ✦

Parsha "Vayelekh" (Deuteronomy (chapter 31) is one of the final chapters in the Torah, and the life of Moses. It includes the 'charge' given to Yoshua/Joshua as he prepares to take over leadership of the mixed multitude, to "Kazakh!" - or, "Be strong, and of good courage." It's also a poignant warning about the "End of Days" - arguably, now. The Erev Shabbat reading begins there, and also sets the stage for the final "Song of Moses": https://hebrewnationonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/SSM-9-26-25-VaYelek-teaching-podcast-xxx.mp3 During the Sabbath Day midrash, Mark Call of Shabbat Shalom Mesa focuses on a prophecy that now seems to be at minimum, 'in-progress': "You will do evil in the sight of YHVH, and provoke Him through the work of your hands." But it is no coincidence that this portion is read during the time of His Fall Feasts, and we are now - or should be - preparing for the singular moed of His Appointed Times about which He warns so clearly, do it - or else! Warning: Some will again be offended. They will say His Feasts are 'old', and "done away with." As if He preferred the pagan replacements, and couldn't manage to say so. YHVH certainly made the reason for His anger, and our continued exile, abundantly clear. And in this case, the warning and importance could not be clearer. Even if we have been lied to about it! Vayelekh: This is the Year to Make SURE you 'Know the Season' https://hebrewnationonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/WT-CooH-9-27-25-VaYelek-The-SEASON-is-Vital-to-Know-and-DO-podcast-xxx.mp3 The combined two-part reading and Sabbath midrash:

Parsha "Nitzavim" (Deuteronomy (29:9-thru chapter 30) is the parsha that Mark Call almost always says is not only a vital, undeniable, and not-yet-fulfilled, prophecy of our future, but contains the most succinct two-word summary of His Torah in the Bible. And it begins with that enigmatic introduction, "Nitzavim," or "you are standing" - all of you, THIS DAY, before YHVH your El... ...and here we are now, THIS DAY (ha yom) doing exactly that - again. The Erev Shabbat reading begins there, and the specifics, to set the stage: https://hebrewnationonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/SSM-9-19-25-Nitzavim-teaching-podcast-xxx.mp3 During the Sabbath Day midrash, Mark Call of Shabbat Shalom Mesa begins with a theme that has been on many of our minds this last week or two, and the phrase "doctrines of demons," from Paul's first letter to Timothy, 4:1. It is certainly encouraging that Charlie's execution/martyrdom has encouraged many people to look at his lifetime body of work, and his testimony for faith in the Living Elohim. No doubt many - particularly young and college-aged people - are considering a 'turn' toward the teachings of Scripture. And yet, Mark suggests, the popular reaction of just "go back to church," is but a pitiful small step in what might be the right direction. After all, many LEFT 'the church' because of it's demonstrated, Scripturally-condemned, failure to "teach my people the difference," between the holy and profane, clean and unclean. Simply returning to what already failed, and got us here, is not a real solution. And yet, Deuteronomy 30 gives us both a clear razor for Truth, and a bold promise of why we MUST turn! Warning: Some will be offended. YHVH certainly made the reason for His anger, and our continued exile, abundantly clear. But so is the Promise. Nitzavim: BOTH The Blessing AND the Curse https://hebrewnationonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/WT-CooH-9-20-25-Nitzavim-BOTH-the-Blessing-and-the-Curse-RE-turn-podcast-xxx.mp3 The combined two-part reading and Sabbath midrash:

Parsha "Ki Tavo" (Deuteronomy (26:1-29:8) is almost certainly the most famous, and foreboding, set of blessings and cursings in the Bible. But, notably, it begins with "when you have come into the land," and a set of instructions, such as the 'Bikkurim' or offerings of First Fruits, that are to take place there. But we remain in exile, have been "shalach"-ed for cause. So what does that mean about those curses? The Erev Shabbat reading begins there, and the specifics, to set the state: https://hebrewnationonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/SSM-9-12-25-Ki-Tavo-teaching-podcast-xxx.mp3 During the Sabbath Day midrash, Mark Call of Shabbat Shalom Mesa addresses exactly that question. But it begins with an observation: The plagues are certainly - undeniably - "well deserved," not just by the US, but the world. And many, at least, already seem to be in progress. Yet we are told, repeatedly, in Scripture, to "have no fellowship," with the unfruitful works of darkness. To "flee from idolatry." And not to 'keep company' with, or even eat with, the kind of people who commit the kind of perversions we routinely see promoted on CNN. Or taught in the public 'schools.' Mark argues that we have been told to "come out of her," to not participate with those sins, so as to - hopefully - avoid the promised plagues. The prophet Amos tells us that, unless they are agreed, it's difficult for two people to "walk together." And we saw this week there are, unquestionably, a large demonic army of people with whom reasoned dialogue, discourse, debate, and now arguably even peaceful coexistence have been demonstrated to be impossible. So, do those plagues in Deuteronomy 28 still apply? Or not? Isn't it relevant that the FIRST three plagues in Egypt hit everyone? But, during the fourth, of flies, YHVH "put a difference," made a distinction, between the pagan Egyptians and His people? The promised plagues are here, and we're already in exile. So what now? Ki Tavo: The Plagues are OPTIONAL https://hebrewnationonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/WT-CooH-9-13-25-Ki-Tavo-Plagues-are-OPTIONAL-podcast-xxxx.mp3 The combined two-part reading and Sabbath midrash:

This show is brought to you by the Online Scrum Masters Summit, taking place virtually on June 17-19, with more information at: http://www.onlinescrummasterssummit.comWhat if the most powerful tool for driving agile transformation isn't a framework or a ceremony—but a dashboard?Today's guest believes data may be the most underused lever for agility in large organizations. Gabrielle Wieczorek is a Scrum Master and Certified Agile Coach and a speaker at the upcoming Online Scrum Masters Summit, where she brings over 14 years of experience blending agile frameworks with data science, analytics, and stakeholder trust-building. About Gabrielle WieczorekGabrielle Wieczorek is an adaptive transformation leader with over 14 years of experience helping teams and organizations unlock the true potential of business and personal agility, especially in times of uncertainty. An enthusiastic Scrum Master, Certified Agile Coach (A-CSM, SSM), Product Owner (CSPO), and technical Senior Systems/Data Analyst, Gabrielle excels in leading teams through change and complexity, focusing on continuous improvement and delivering tangible results. Known for delivering engaging talks that make innovative agile concepts obtainable, Gabrielle has a knack for turning abstract ideas into real-world impact. Whether facilitating dynamic workshops or sharing insights in a lightning talk, Gabrielle empowers others to elevate their Agile practices and drive meaningful change in today's fast-paced, ever-evolving environments where efficiency and innovation are essential to success. RESOURCES This show is brought to you by the Online Scrum Masters Summit, taking place virtually on June 17-19, with more information at: www.onlinescrummasterssummit.com Catch the future of e-commerce at eTail Boston, August 11-14, 2025. Register now: https://bit.ly/etailboston and use code PARTNER20 for 20% off for retailers and brandsOnline Scrum Master Summit is happening June 17-19. This 3-day virtual event is open for registration. Visit www.osms25.com and get a 25% discount off Premium All-Access Passes with the code osms25agilebrandDon't Miss MAICON 2025, October 14-16 in Cleveland - the event bringing together the brights minds and leading voices in AI. Use Code AGILE150 for $150 off registration. Go here to register: https://bit.ly/agile150Connect with Greg on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregkihlstromDon't miss a thing: get the latest episodes, sign up for our newsletter and more: https://www.theagilebrand.showCheck out The Agile Brand Guide website with articles, insights, and Martechipedia, the wiki for marketing technology: https://www.agilebrandguide.com The Agile Brand is produced by Missing Link—a Latina-owned strategy-driven, creatively fueled production co-op. From ideation to creation, they craft human connections through intelligent, engaging and informative content. https://www.missinglink.company Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What if the most powerful tool for driving agile transformation isn't a framework or a ceremony—but a dashboard? Today's guest believes data may be the most underused lever for agility in large organizations. Gabrielle Wieczorek is a Scrum Master and Certified Agile Coach and a speaker at the upcoming Online Scrum Masters Summit, where she brings over 14 years of experience blending agile frameworks with data science, analytics, and stakeholder trust-building. About Gabrielle WieczorekGabrielle Wieczorek is an adaptive transformation leader with over 14 years of experience helping teams and organizations unlock the true potential of business and personal agility, especially in times of uncertainty. An enthusiastic Scrum Master, Certified Agile Coach (A-CSM, SSM), Product Owner (CSPO), and technical Senior Systems/Data Analyst, Gabrielle excels in leading teams through change and complexity, focusing on continuous improvement and delivering tangible results. Known for delivering engaging talks that make innovative agile concepts obtainable, Gabrielle has a knack for turning abstract ideas into real-world impact. Whether facilitating dynamic workshops or sharing insights in a lightning talk, Gabrielle empowers others to elevate their Agile practices and drive meaningful change in today's fast-paced, ever-evolving environments where efficiency and innovation are essential to success. RESOURCES Speaker, Online Scrum Masters Summit: https://onlinescrummastersummit.com/ https://onlinescrummastersummit.com/ This show is brought to you by the Online Scrum Masters Summit, taking place virtually on June 17-19, with more information at: www.onlinescrummasterssummit.com Catch the future of e-commerce at eTail Boston, August 11-14, 2025. Register now: https://bit.ly/etailboston and use code PARTNER20 for 20% off for retailers and brandsOnline Scrum Master Summit is happening June 17-19. This 3-day virtual event is open for registration. Visit www.osms25.com and get a 25% discount off Premium All-Access Passes with the code osms25agilebrandDon't Miss MAICON 2025, October 14-16 in Cleveland - the event bringing together the brights minds and leading voices in AI. Use Code AGILE150 for $150 off registration. Go here to register: https://bit.ly/agile150Connect with Greg on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregkihlstromDon't miss a thing: get the latest episodes, sign up for our newsletter and more: https://www.theagilebrand.showCheck out The Agile Brand Guide website with articles, insights, and Martechipedia, the wiki for marketing technology: https://www.agilebrandguide.com The Agile Brand is produced by Missing Link—a Latina-owned strategy-driven, creatively fueled production co-op. From ideation to creation, they craft human connections through intelligent, engaging and informative content. https://www.missinglink.company