PODCAST · education
The Neshamah Project
by Rabbi Ben Newman
Rabbi Ben is a teacher of esoteric Wisdom, kabbalistic and musical.
Episodes
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Neshamah Project Podcast Episode 123: A Practice for Sukkot--Entering What Is Here
What can a sukkah teach us about meeting difficult emotions? This week, Rabbi Ben Newman shares a simple practice: let the story rest, enter the feeling, and notice what unfolds. Alongside an interpretive reading of Kohelet (Ecclesiastes), we explore Sukkot, Buddhist insights into impermanence…
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Neshamah Project Podcast Episode 122: Riffin' with the Rabbis
In this episode of The Neshamah Project, Rabbi Ben Newman revives Riffing with the Rabbi with longtime friend Marcia Salter, joined along the way by Rabbi Shoshana Leis, for a wide-ranging conversation about what it means to truly listen—to one another, to uncertainty, and to the “still, small...
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Neshamah Project Episode 121: 52 Gates/September Both/And
In this episode of The Neshamah Project, I read “September, Both/And,” a reflection from my book 52 Gates: Reflections on Living. September carries its own kind of wisdom: the light softens, the leaves begin to turn, and beauty arrives alongside the knowledge that everything changes. This piece...
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The Neshamah Project Podcast Episode 120: Sweetening the Judgements
In this teaching from the Degel Machaneh Ephraim, righteous judgment becomes an act of creation. Through the shofar, harsh judgment is transformed and integrated into compassion.
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The Neshamah Project Podcast Episode 119: Taste it, Find it, Choose it
This week on The Neshamah Project, we explore three teachings from the Or HaChayyim on the opening words of Parashat Re’eh: “See, I place before you today blessing and curse.” These teachings unfold as a spiritual progression. First, Moses invites us to taste the deeper fulfillment of spiritual...
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The Neshamah Project Episode 118: One Stone at a Time
In this episode, Rabbi Ben explores two teachings from the Degel Machaneh Ephraim about how spiritual transformation unfolds. Every action becomes a stone: one act leads to another until, almost without noticing, we have built a mountain. Teshuvah, prayer, and generosity offer ways to change...
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The Neshamah Project Episode 117: Interview with Professor Shaul Magid
Professor Shaul Magid (Harvard Divinity School) joins me for a conversation about spirituality and the political. We trace his path from the seventies counterculture into the yeshiva and Bratslav worlds of Jerusalem, his relationship with Reb Zalman Schachter-Shalomi — including their final...
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The Neshamah Project 116: Living with Mystery
In this episode, Rabbi Ben explores the mystery of the red heifer through the teaching of the Or HaChaim. Rather than treating mystery as a problem to solve, the Torah invites us to practice wonder, humility, and openness before realities larger than our understanding. Sometimes mystery is not…
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The Neshamah Project Podcast Episode 115: Spiritual Maturity
This week on The Neshamah Project, Rabbi Ben Newman explores three mystical commentaries on Korach—from the Moroccan kabbalists Abir Yaakov and Or HaChayim, and the Degel Machaneh Ephraim—on spiritual gifts, ego, leadership, and holy disagreement.
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Neshamah Project Podcast Episode 114: Being and Nothingness
Rabbi Ben Newman is joined by Rabbi Shoshana Leis for a lively exploration of a Hasidic teaching on ayin and yesh—emptiness and being. Together they reflect on spiritual leadership, ego, creativity, perception, and the possibility of infusing ordinary embodied life with sacred awareness.
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Neshamah Project Podcast Episode 113: The Goal is Unity
In this episode of The Neshamah Project, Rabbi Ben explores a teaching from the Noam Elimelech on the Menorah as a symbol of spiritual integration. At the beginning of the path, we may need many practices, disciplines, and supports. But over time, those many lights are meant to become one light…
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The Neshamah Project Podcast Episode 112: Pleasure as a Crown for the Divine
In this week’s episode of The Neshamah Project, we explore a teaching from the Noam Elimelech on Nasso about wonder, desire, and sacred participation in the world. The Torah’s phrase yafli—to make a special vow—is read through the lens of pele, wonder or miracle. The teaching reminds us that...
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Neshamah Project Episode 111: Humility and Renewal
A teaching from R' Elimelekh of Lezhinsk, Noam Elimelekh, on BaMidbar, Numbers 1:1, 2:1 on humility and renewal.
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The Neshamah Project Episode 110: A Taste of Reenchantment
This week on The Neshamah Project, Rabbi Ben Newman explores a visionary teaching from the Meor Einayim, in which Shabbat becomes far more than a day of rest. The Me’or Einayim teaches that Shabbat is a foretaste of the world to come — a glimpse of a future reality in which divine awareness fills...
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Neshamah Project Podcast- Episode 109: Same Letters, Different World
Ephraim on the spiritual power of letters, language, and perception. Drawing on a story of the Baal Shem Tov transforming a harsh decree into “only a trace of fear,” the episode reflects on how the same letters can spell nega, affliction, or oneg, delight. The teaching invites us to ask: what…
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Neshamah Project Podcast Episode 108: Inner Freedom
During the week of Passover, this episode explores the Exodus as an inner journey rather than a distant story. Drawing on Hasidic and mystical teachings, Rabbi Ben guides listeners through reflections and short meditations on constriction, trust, voice, and the possibility of change in real time....
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Neshamah Project Episode 107: The Architecture of Illumination
In this episode we will dive into two comments from the Degel on Parshat Tetzaveh. The Degel reads tetzaveh not only as “command,” but as tzavta — connection — teaching that the purpose of creation itself is conscious relationship: from the world, to Israel, to the tzaddik, to the Divine. He then...
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The Neshamah Project-Epsiode 106: Taking the Infinite Home
In this episode of The Neshamah Project, Rabbi Ben Newman explores the deeper meaning of “Vayikchu li terumah” — not as giving something to God, but as taking the Divine into our own lives. Drawing on Hasidic and kabbalistic teachings, we look at how Torah, sacred language, and sustained practice...
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Neshamah Project Epsiode 105: The Hidden Ledger
A mystical reading of Mishpatim that reframes justice as part of a longer soul-arc. Drawing on the Degel Machaneh Ephraim and the Zohar, this episode explores how moments that feel unfair may be part of a deeper reckoning, not punishment but completion. For modern seekers, it becomes an…
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Neshamah Project Episode 104: Redemption Is Singular, Power That Lifts
his episode of The Neshamah Project explores a Hasidic teaching that insists liberation happens one person at a time, each according to their own inner awareness and capacity. We reflect on Moses as a figure of parental love—one who carries others forward and, like The Giving Tree, gives so…
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Neshamah Project: Tu Bishvat Special | The Great Chain
For Tu Bishvat, I recorded a special episode of The Neshamah Project Podcast that moves from soil to soul. A spoken-word meditation on the four layers of being: doing, feeling, thinking, and simply being. From dirty hands and daily obligations to emotion, insight, and the quiet fire underneath it...
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Neshamah Project Podcast Epsiode 103: The Long Way Around
In this episode of The Neshamah Project, we explore a piercing teaching from the Noam Elimelekh on the Exodus that reframes Pharaoh as the inner force of resistance to change. Drawing on Hasidic psychology, the text examines why stopping harmful behavior isn’t the same as true freedom, and why...
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Neshamah Project Episode 102: Does a Golem Count?
A dream-text from R. Tzadok HaKohen of Lublin wrestles with a haunting question: what does it mean to count as a person in sacred community? Moving through golems, speech, da’at, obligation, and minyan, this reflection probes the line between intelligence and responsibility, creation and…
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Neshamah Project Podcast Episode 101: The Power That Heals or Harms
This week we explore two Hasidic teachings on Parashat Va’era that ask how spiritual power becomes healing rather than harmful. Drawing on the Degel Machaneh Ephraim and the Maor VaShemesh, the episode examines the Torah’s pairing of firmness and compassion, judgment and mercy, showing how the…
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Neshamah Project Podcast: Episode 100-Names in Motion
What if meaning isn’t something we think our way into, but something we do our way into? In this episode of The Neshamah Project, we explore a teaching from Ohr HaMeir on the opening of Shemot, where holy names are not fixed labels but living realities formed through action, movement, and...
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Neshamah Project Podcast Episode 99: The Purpose of Descent
This week we look at two Hasidic readings of Vayeshev that together map the inner life: Siach Chayyim teaches that the soul’s descent into this world is purposeful, an apprenticeship in humility, growth, and learning to say “Here I am” even when we’re afraid. The Meir of Premyshlan adds that...
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Neshamah Project Podcast: Episode 98-Two Camps & The Hidden Face: Wrestling with the Inner Esau
This episode explores how our words of Torah, prayer, and intention become “messengers” that protect and guide us when we face our inner Esau, the parts of us that pull us off our path. Drawing on Siach Chayyim, we look at Jacob’s strategy of splitting into “two camps” of awe and love as a model...
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Neshamah Project Podcast Episode 97: The Inner Journey
In this week’s episode we explore commentaries from the Skulyer Rebbe and the Or HaMeir, each offering a fierce little window into inner change—lifting ourselves from old patterns, giving voice to buried truth, and integrating both our hidden and revealed selves.
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Neshamah Project: Episode 96- Mysterious Realms
This episode weaves three Degel teachings from Toldot into one arc: Torah-awareness as the “added hey” that opens new possibilities, the idea that our personal lack mirrors a deeper cosmic wound, and the insight that real change comes not from merit but from aligning with the deeper current of...
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Neshamah Project Podcast: Episode 95- Becoming Sarah/Shechinah
This week we sit with the Degel’s teaching that Sarah—Shekhinah—becomes “whole” in Kiryat Arba, the place where four directions of Divine flow meet. The mystics say wholeness comes when our own inner movements—reaching, receiving, grounding, and envisioning—come together. When they do, we become…
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Neshamah Project Podcast Episode 94: The Body as a Doorway Between Worlds
In this episode of The Neshamah Project, we explore two luminous teachings from the Maor VaShemesh that reveal how embodied life itself can become a vessel for awakening. First, we reflect on Abraham’s transformation into a living conduit of divine presence—his body, breath, and being illuminated...
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Neshamah Project: Episode 93: Go Forth--The Call Beyond Comfort
In this episode, Rabbi Ben Newman reflects on a teaching from the Maor VaShemesh about Abraham’s journey as a metaphor for our own spiritual unfolding. What does it mean to “go forth” from the stories we’ve inherited — from our comfort zones, our expectations, even our own self-image? Drawing on...
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The Neshamah Project Podcast Episode 92: The Tree, Light, and Death
In this episode of The Neshamah Project, we explore a luminous teaching from the Kedushat Levi on Genesis 2:17. Rabbi Levi Yitzhak of Berditchev reimagines the story of Eden not as a tale of sin, but as a lesson in spiritual readiness — about what happens when we try to take in more light than we...
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The Neshamaha Project: Episode 91- All Is Breath: The Maor VaShemesh on Kohelet
In this episode of The Neshamah Project, we explore two luminous teachings from the Maor VaShemesh on Kohelet. First, “All is breath” — a vision of life as sacred exhalation, where every word and action flows from divine intention. Second, “The breath of many voices” — a reminder that when we...
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The Neshamah Project Podcast Episode 90: Sparks of Return
After the death of Aaron’s sons, the Torah places the Yom Kippur service—why there, and why “not at all times” yet “once a year”? Drawing on the Maor VaShemesh, we explore how all souls are one body, how one mitzvah can tip the world, and why true teshuvah requires discernment—opening wide on…
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Neshamah Project Podcast: Episode 89: Desire and the First Fruits of the Heart
In this week’s episode, we explore the mitzvah of bringing the first fruits and the deeper spiritual meaning hidden within it. The Maor VaShemesh teaches that the practice is not only about gratitude, but about desire itself—how we meet our strongest cravings and transform them into offerings of...
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The Neshamah Project: Episode 88 – Returning the Ox, Building the Guardrail
Two Hasidic masters read the portion of Ki Teitzei in strikingly different yet complementary ways. The Maor VaShemesh teaches that “returning a lost ox or sheep” is about guiding a friend back when their awe or love has strayed—while also knowing when silence and patience are the greater acts of...
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Neshamah Project Podcast Episode 87: Rebbe Nachman's Tale of Trust
A Tale of Trust — Rebbe Nachman tells the story of a king who, despite his wealth, discovers true freedom from worry in the joy and faith of a poor fiddler. Again and again, the fiddler’s livelihood is taken from him, yet he adapts with trust, resilience, and song—until even iron itself turns to...
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Neshamah Project Podcast Episode 86: Justice as Sacred Partnership
What if every act of honest judgment made you a partner in the unfolding of Creation? In this episode, we explore mystical and Hasidic teachings on justice from Degel Machaneh Ephraim and Maor VaShemesh. These powerful texts invite us to see righteous discernment—not just in courtrooms, but in…
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Neshamah Project Podcast Episode 85
In this episode of The Neshamah Project Podcast, we explore two teachings from the Maor VaShemesh on Parashat Re’eh. The first reminds us that the fullness of any mitzvah is revealed when practiced in humility and within community, where the “whole commandment” is lived through collective...
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Neshamah Project: Episode 84- A Torah Too Vast for This World
In this episode, Rabbi Ben explores the Maor VaShemesh’s teaching on Parashat Eikev, revealing a Torah so vast it had to be compressed to fit into our world. We journey from the primordial origins of Torah, teshuvah, and Eden to the promise of their full unfolding in the world of soul. Along the...
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Neshamah Project Episode 83: Light Through Contrast: Korach, the Firmament, and Thriving in Imperfection
In this episode we explore the Noam Elimelekh’s radical insight that the very presence of darkness makes our light shine brighter. Beginning with Korach’s act of “separating himself” and the Genesis image of the rakia—the luminous firmament that divides the waters—we uncover how contrast…
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Neshamah Project Episode 82: Choosing Light
In this episode, we explore a luminous teaching from Kedushat Levi on Parashat Sh’lach: that the glory of the Divine isn’t revealed through perfection or purity, but through our very human capacity to choose goodness in the face of struggle. Drawing on the mystical insight that free will is what...
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Neshamah Project Podcast Episode 81- Raise the Light: Aharon, Integrity, and the Menorah
Why does Rashi praise Aharon simply for not deviating from a command? In this episode of The Neshamah Project, we explore a deep teaching from the Degel Machaneh Ephraim on Aharon's unwavering integrity. We reflect on what it means to live in alignment so deeply that peace and flexibility become...
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Neshamah Project Podcast: Episode 80: The Blessing of Light Seen
This week we dive into the Degel Machaneh Ephraim’s luminous reading of the Priestly Blessing, unpacking what it means for grace to be both given and recognized. You’ll hear an inclusive, gender-neutral translation of the text, a fresh reflection on why our inner radiance so often goes unseen…
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Neshamah Project Episode 79: Quiet Greatness
In this episode, we explore the Maor VaShemesh’s teaching on how true spiritual maturity moves from loud, visible striving to quiet, inward devotion. Drawing on Torah, prayer, and lovingkindness, we reflect on the path from struggle to deep, silent connection — and how, as Shavuot approaches, we...
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Neshamah Project Podcast: Episode 78: Stranger in a Strange Land
This week, we explore teachings from Degel Machaneh Ephraim on Parashat Behar, offering guidance for modern spiritual seekers. What does it mean to be a “sojourner” with the Divine? How can we redeem the holiness hidden in our daily lives? From sacred exile to grounded truth, these Hasidic…
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Neshamah Project Podcast Episode 77: How We Read It
We explore a mystical Hasidic teaching from the Degel Machaneh Ephraim on Parashat Emor—how Divine speech becomes healing or harmful depending on how we "combine the letters." Join me for a reflection on sacred interpretation, spiritual responsibility, and the redemptive power of words. I close…
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Neshamah Project Episode 76: The Two Goats: Wholeness Through Shadow and Light
In this episode, we explore a mystical passage from the Zohar (Pinchas 102:679) that unpacks the ancient Yom Kippur ritual of the two goats—one offered to YHVH, the other sent to Azazel. Through this lens, we reflect on the dual nature of spiritual work: reaching toward unity and compassion while...
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Neshamah Project Episode 75: Words Create Worlds
A soul-stirring teaching from Rabbi Menachem Nachum of Chernobyl (the Me’or Einayim) on Metzora — how our words create worlds, how harmful speech diminishes Divine joy, and how Torah can heal and restore the sacred power of speech. A deep reminder: Every word we speak is sacred ground.
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
Rabbi Ben is a teacher of esoteric Wisdom, kabbalistic and musical.
HOSTED BY
Rabbi Ben Newman
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does The Neshamah Project have?
The Neshamah Project currently has 500 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is The Neshamah Project about?
Rabbi Ben is a teacher of esoteric Wisdom, kabbalistic and musical.
How often does The Neshamah Project release new episodes?
The Neshamah Project publishes regularly with 500 episodes available. Check the episode list for the typical release schedule.
Where can I listen to The Neshamah Project?
You can listen to The Neshamah Project on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts The Neshamah Project?
The Neshamah Project is created and hosted by Rabbi Ben Newman.
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