TORAH 101 - With Rabbi Yaakov Wolbe
Rabbi Yaakov Wolbe
- 57 minutes 3 seconds#108: The Power of Pre-Sin Adam + 2026 TORCH Campaign Pitch
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Adam was created in the image of God. He was given vast influence over God’s creations. What is the mechanism of this power? What is the mechanism of Adam’s ability to influence God’s creations? How is Adam able to move worlds? The answer gets to some of the deepest secrets of them all. Not all of God’s creations are created equal. Some are spiritually loftier than others. What is the relationship though of all of God’s creations? How are they connected? In this podcast, we learned the secret of the concatenation of God’s creations and discover the lofty nature of Adam with its enormous ramifications.
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22 March 2026, 5:58 pm - 52 minutes 26 seconds#107: Created in the Image of God + 2026 TORCH Fundraiser
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“And God made man in His image. In the image of God (Elokim) He made him.” The majority of the secrets of the Kabbalistic esoterica are hidden in these cryptic words, but the magisterial work, Nefesh HaChaim, authored by Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin, begins by explaining a profound understanding of these words. There is indeed some overlap between man and God. God is the source of all power, the source of all vitality, and He endowed man with some of that power. We have the ability to move worlds. We have the ability to make cosmic transformation. In this very special episode, we begin our study of this fundamental work of Torah philosophy. What we learn radically reshapes our perspective of what man is and what impact man has.
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19 March 2026, 2:41 am - 55 minutes 4 seconds#106: Mishnah Commentary, Heuristics, and Appendices + 2026 TORCH Fundraiser
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As a very young man, Rambam wrote a commentary on the entire Mishnah. He prefaces his commentary with a sprawling and magisterial introduction which covers vast subjects related to Torah, oral and written, the history of the transmission, and the mechanism of Mishnah and Talmud. He ends his introduction with an explanation of the rationale behind his commentary and a fascinating set of appendices and heuristics.
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15 March 2026, 7:27 pm - 48 minutes 8 seconds#105: Post-Mishnaic Development of Oral Torah
The Mishnah was at the end of the canonization of the Oral Torah. The Tosefta, the Sifra and Sifri soon followed. 300 years after Rabbi Judah the Prince canonized the Mishnah, the Babylonian Talmud was canonized. In this penultimate episode on Rambam’s magisterial introduction to Mishnah, we learn all about the Talmud: how it was written, how it was canonized, and what it includes. We learn the four objectives of the Talmud and the secret as to why some of the teachings in the Talmud are very difficult to decipher.
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9 March 2026, 12:09 am - 45 minutes 49 seconds#104: Sixth Order of Mishnah (Purity)
The Order of Purity is the longest of the Six Orders of Mishnah and by far the most foreign to us. The overwhelming majority of the laws of this order of Mishnah are only applicable in Temple times. different sources of impurity although our overview will be very brief, we will learn about the various different degrees of impurity, the various different means of conveying that impurity, the various different ramifications of each level of impurity, and the various different ways to remedy the impurity. We will not be fully educated about all the different laws of purity and impurity. But we will definitely be a little bit less ignorant.
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16 February 2026, 3:20 am - 43 minutes 31 seconds#103: Fifth Order of Mishnah (Sacrifices)
Unfortunately, none of us have ever witnessed or participated in a sacrifice. Ever since the Temple was destroyed more than 1,950 years ago, our nation has been bereft of a central component of our religious life. Our nation, and truly the whole world, can only be in an optimal state when the presence of God resides in our midst. We hope and pray that the Temple will be restored and rebuilt on Temple Mount in Jerusalem very soon. Then we will merit to offer sacrifices: communal and personal, obligatory and optional, daily and episodic. In this edition of this podcast, we learn about the Fifth Order of the Mishnah: The Order of Sacrifices. Given that the subject may be quite foreign to us, the podcast begins with a brief survey of the various different explanations and rationales offered by our sages regarding why the Almighty instituted animal sacrifices as such a central component of the Torah. Listen and be informed.
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9 February 2026, 4:43 am - 58 minutes 18 seconds#102: Fourth Order of Mishnah (Damages)
Human interactions can often times get messy. There are myriads of circumstances that require courts and judgements. The Fourth Order of Mishnah contains the books of law and judgement and, surprisingly, the authoritative work on ethics: Chapters of the Fathers (Pirkei Avos). This podcast will help you gain a brief overview on the Books of this Order, but never forget that this overview is barely scratching the surface. Very talented, intelligent, and diligent scholars in the yeshiva toil for years and years over a single one of these books. There is an infinite amount of wisdom in each one of these books. We are just getting the briefest of introductions.
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4 February 2026, 4:30 am - 1 hour 6 seconds#101: Third Order of Mishnah (Women)
A great corpus of Torah law governs the relationships between men and women. The Second Order of Mishnah contains books on the initiation of marriage, on marital responsibilities, on the annulment of marriage via divorce, on the suspected adulteress, and on levirate marriages. The Order also contains two seemingly unrelated books: a book on vows and oaths and a book on the laws of a Nazir. In this podcast we explore the nature of these books, and earn some basic literacy in this massive portion of Oral Torah.
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1 September 2025, 3:04 am - 1 hour 5 minutes#100: Second Order of Mishnah (Festivals)
The Jewish calendar is studded with days of great importance. Each week we relive Genesis by celebrating the holy Shabbos. At half-year intervals are the mega festivals of Sukkos and Pesach (Passover). There’s also Shavuos, Rosh Hashanah, and the Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur. The second Order of Mishnah orients around all these days of importance. In this podcast we learn about the content of the 12 books of this Order, and also sample a teaching from each book.
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11 August 2025, 3:11 am - 45 minutes 59 seconds#99: First Order of Mishnah (Planting)
The Mishnah is a massive, sprawling, and utterly comprehensive canon of Torah law. Spanning 60+ books over 6 Orders, the Mishnah includes all the laws of the Torah. To study it all would take a very long time. To know it all, takes a lifetime. In this podcast, we try to gain an appreciation for the general concepts of Mishnah, beginning in the Order of Planting (Agriculture).
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21 July 2025, 3:07 am - 1 hour 3 minutes#98: Components of Oral Torah
What makes up Oral Torah? What are the different types of information included in the Mishnah? In part 3 of the authoritative, magisterial, and comprehensive introduction to Mishnah offered by Rambam, we learn about the five different components of oral Torah, two that come all the way back from the times of Moshe, and three components developed by the Sages over the centuries since. Since. We also learn about the origin and the nature of disputes, and how those disputes do not indicate gaps in tradition or forgetfulness. We learn about the nature of laws deemed “laws from Moshe at Sinai”, and how they differ from the accepted explanations from Moshe at Sinai. We also learn why dissenting opinions that are overruled are still included in in the Mishnah. In short, a delightful and profound exploration of the Oral Law included in the Mishnah.
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DONATE: Please consider supporting the podcasts by making a donation to help fund our Jewish outreach and educational efforts at https://www.torchweb.org/support.php. Thank you!
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