The Shema Podcast for the Perplexed

In this episode of The Power of the Hebrew Months, Rabbi Pill and I explore the avodah of Tammuz: learning to perceive reality through the eyes of Torah. We discuss how the meaning we attach to life's events often shapes our experience more than the events themselves, and how many of our greatest struggles stem not from what we see, but from how we interpret it. Tammuz provides a framework for finding Hashem within moments of confusion, uncovering hidden opportunity within apparent setbacks, and transforming the way we relate to challenges, disappointment, and uncertainty.Join the Conversation! Be part of our growing community—join the Shema Podcast for the Perplexed WhatsApp group to share feedback, discuss episodes, and suggest future topics. Click here to sign up.Get the Companion Guide: The Power of the MonthsThis free resource outlines the spiritual focus of each Hebrew month — including its mazal (zodiac sign), tribe, Hebrew letter, body part, and unique avodah. It also includes suggested actions you can take to align yourself with the energy of the time. Click here to download and keep this month-by-month guide as a tool for your own growth and reflection.  

What was the Korban Chatas really designed to accomplish?Most people view the Chatas as a sin offering, but this episode explores a deeper possibility: that the Korban Chatas was actually a structured framework for personal transformation. Building upon themes from The Structured Path of Deveikus, we examine the thesis that the Chatas follows the same transformational architecture revealed at Krias Yam Suf, a process designed to move Torah from Binah to Daas, from intellectual understanding into lived reality. By walking through each stage of the Chatas process from recognition and investment to ownership, consequence, elevation, and internalization we uncover a remarkable Torah system for transforming knowledge into experience, desire into deveikus, and even failure into spiritual growth.Join the Conversation! Be part of our growing community—join the Shema Podcast for the Perplexed WhatsApp group to share feedback, discuss episodes, and suggest future topics. Click here to sign up.

In this special installment of Strive for Truth, Rabbi Michael Cohen and I step back from our study of Rav Dessler's essays to explore how these profound ideas apply in everyday life. Why do so many people remain stuck despite sincere efforts to grow? How do the stories we tell ourselves, our hidden assumptions, and our internal dialogue shape our relationships, careers, spiritual lives, and personal happiness? Drawing upon both Rav Dessler's teachings and his experience coaching individuals, Rabbi Cohen shares practical insights and real-life examples that demonstrate how greater self-awareness can help us move beyond old patterns, see reality more clearly, and create meaningful change in our lives.Join the Conversation! Be part of our growing community—join the Shema Podcast for the Perplexed WhatsApp group to share feedback, discuss episodes, and suggest future topics. Click here to sign up.Connect with Rabbi Michael CohenReach out to Rabbi Michael Cohen to learn more about his one-on-one coaching work, where he applies the teachings of Strive for Truth to help individuals untangle inner confusion, clarify priorities, and live more grounded, self-expressed lives. To inquire or connect, email him at mailto:[email protected] or connect through LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelcohen101/

What if the wilderness wasn't merely a place, but a stage of life that every person must eventually pass through? In this episode of From Binah to Daas, I explore the Torah's concept of the Midbar as the space between who we were and who we are becoming. Drawing on the journeys of Adam HaRishon, the Jewish people, and our own life experiences, we examine how Torah presents recurring patterns that operate on the level of the individual, the nation, and humanity itself. Along the way, we uncover why transformation requires uncertainty, why the Midbar lasted forty years, what the Golden Calf, the spies, and Korach teach us about navigating major life transitions, and how periods that feel like detours may actually be Hashem's preparation for our next mission. If you've ever felt caught between an ending and a beginning, this episode offers a Torah framework for understanding why.Join the Conversation! Be part of our growing community—join the Shema Podcast for the Perplexed WhatsApp group to share feedback, discuss episodes, and suggest future topics. Click here to sign up.Explore The Art of PrayerDownload a collection of beautifully designed blessings (brachos) including Modeh Ani, Asher Yatzar, Netilas Yadayim and more.  Free to download and perfect for your home by clicking here.  

In this episode of the Strive for Truth series, Rabbi Michael Cohen and I explore a powerful essay from Rav Dessler on Emunas Chachamim and the danger of mistaking surface-level events for the deeper reality behind them. We discuss how our personal biases distort not only how we see situations in the moment, but also how we connect cause and effect over time. Through examples from the Purim story, the Holocaust, and everyday life, we examine why Torah teaches us to rely on the wisdom of the sages and how much of what we confidently call “reality” may actually just be the story we’ve constructed in our own minds. Join the Conversation! Be part of our growing community—join the Shema Podcast for the Perplexed WhatsApp group to share feedback, discuss episodes, and suggest future topics. Click here to sign up.Connect with Rabbi Michael CohenReach out to Rabbi Michael Cohen to learn more about his one-on-one coaching work, where he applies the teachings of Strive for Truth to help individuals untangle inner confusion, clarify priorities, and live more grounded, self-expressed lives. To inquire or connect, email him at mailto:[email protected].

In this episode I explore a deeply transformative idea from the writings of the Baal HaSulam regarding the true purpose of Torah and Matan Torah. We often measure spiritual success through knowledge, observance, or identity, but what if Torah was given to accomplish something far deeper within the human being itself? Together we examine the illusion of separateness, the connection between self-love and fragmentation, why Sinai did not permanently transform humanity, and how Torah and mitzvos function as a gradual process of reshaping consciousness from isolation toward connectedness, responsibility, and alignment with Hashem. Join the Conversation! Be part of our growing community—join the Shema Podcast for the Perplexed WhatsApp group to share feedback, discuss episodes, and suggest future topics. Click here to sign up.

In this episode in the “From Binah to Daas” Series, I explore Shiras HaYam not merely as a historical song sung after the splitting of the sea, but as a daily framework for dismantling the illusion that the systems, pressures, and powers we encounter in life operate independently from Hashem. By walking line by line through Az Yashir, we uncover how the Torah trains us to reinterpret moments where reality appears closed, overwhelming, or fragmented, and how Kriyas Yam Suf becomes an ongoing internal experience that transforms intellectual belief into lived awareness. This episode is designed to help listeners deepen their perception of Divine unity, move through fear and uncertainty differently, and understand why Chazal placed Shiras HaYam at the climax of Pesukei D’Zimrah immediately before prayer.Join the Conversation! Be part of our growing community—join the Shema Podcast for the Perplexed WhatsApp group to share feedback, discuss episodes, and suggest future topics. Click here to sign up. 

In this episode, Rabbi Shlomo Pill and I explore the deeper structure of the month of Sivan and why the Torah specifically had to be given during this time. This conversation provides a completely different lens through which to understand Torah — not as something detached from life, but as the blueprint for bringing unity into fragmentation, integration into separation, and deeper meaning into every dimension of existence. If you’ve ever struggled with how to integrate spirituality with work, body with soul, individuality with community, or Torah learning with daily life, this episode will help you see how the Torah was designed to harmonize seemingly opposing realities into a higher oneness.Join the Conversation! Be part of our growing community—join the Shema Podcast for the Perplexed WhatsApp group to share feedback, discuss episodes, and suggest future topics. Click here to sign up.Get the Companion Guide: The Power of the MonthsThis free resource outlines the spiritual focus of each Hebrew month — including its mazal (zodiac sign), tribe, Hebrew letter, body part, and unique avodah. It also includes suggested actions you can take to align yourself with the energy of the time. Click here to download and keep this month-by-month guide as a tool for your own growth and reflection.

In this episode of Strive for Truth, Rabbi Michael Cohen and I explore one of the most unsettling ideas we’ve discussed so far in Rav Dessler’s writings: that the greatest obstacle to truth is not simply bias or flawed reasoning, but the possibility that we are not even perceiving reality correctly to begin with. Through Rav Dessler’s essay The Ego, the Inclinations, the Spirit, and the Soul, we unpack how the Yetzer Hara shapes the very “inputs” we use to interpret situations before our intellect ever begins to reason. Using examples from Avimelech, Avraham Avinu sending Eliezer to find a wife for Yitzchak, and the role of the neshama in accessing truth beyond the ego, we discuss why intelligence alone cannot guarantee clarity, why outside guidance is essential in major life decisions, and how Torah and yiras Shamayim help us step outside our own distortions in the lifelong pursuit of truth.Join the Conversation! Be part of our growing community—join the Shema Podcast for the Perplexed WhatsApp group to share feedback, discuss episodes, and suggest future topics. Click here to sign up.Connect with Rabbi Michael CohenReach out to Rabbi Michael Cohen to learn more about his one-on-one coaching work, where he applies the teachings of Strive for Truth to help individuals untangle inner confusion, clarify priorities, and live more grounded, self-expressed lives. To inquire or connect, email him at mailto:[email protected].

In this episode, Rabbi Yaakov Wolbe and I explore one of the deepest questions in Judaism: what is tefillah actually doing? If Hashem already knows everything, why do we need to ask? Does prayer change reality, change us, or both? We discuss why tefillah was built into creation itself, why structured prayer matters, how hishtadlus and bitachon fit together, and what it means when tefillos seem unanswered. If you’ve ever struggled to connect to davening or wanted a deeper understanding of what Chazal believed tefillah truly is, this conversation will fundamentally reshape how you think about prayer.Join the Conversation! Be part of our growing community—join the Shema Podcast for the Perplexed WhatsApp group to share feedback, discuss episodes, and suggest future topics. Click here to sign up.

Why does the Torah include both detailed laws and extended narratives? In this episode, we explore how the Torah is not just a system of instructions, but a complete process designed to transform us. The stories teach us how to interpret what’s happening in our lives and recognize Hashem’s role within it, while the commandments train us to respond to that reality consistently. Without both, growth either doesn’t stick or never truly changes us. This episode reframes how we read the Torah and how we begin to move from simply understanding to actually living it.Join the Conversation! Be part of our growing community—join the Shema Podcast for the Perplexed WhatsApp group to share feedback, discuss episodes, and suggest future topics. Click here to sign up.

In a world that feels more advanced than ever, why does everything also feel more unstable? In this episode, we learn from Rabbi Michael Cohen as we explore a powerful insight from Rav Dessler that challenges the assumption that progress leads to improvement, and instead reveals how our intelligence, success, and achievements can either elevate us or quietly pull us off course. This conversation will help you think more clearly about your own life, not just what you’re building, but what it’s doing to you, and whether your efforts are aligning you with truth or simply amplifying what’s already inside. We also examine what it means to live in a generation that has rebuilt so much, while asking the deeper question of whether something more subtle still needs rebuilding within ourselves.Join the Conversation! Be part of our growing community—join the Shema Podcast for the Perplexed WhatsApp group to share feedback, discuss episodes, and suggest future topics. Click here to sign up.Connect with Rabbi Michael CohenReach out to Rabbi Michael Cohen to learn more about his one-on-one coaching work, where he applies the teachings of Strive for Truth to help individuals untangle inner confusion, clarify priorities, and live more grounded, self-expressed lives. To inquire or connect, email him at mailto:[email protected].

Our Siddur is replete with prayers for the coming of Moshiach. It is something that for millennium we have anticipated. After listening to Rabbi Yaghobian speak on this matter, I felt like a character from the 90’s movie Pulp Fiction; a woman who was overdosing from a heroin, only to be brought back to life via an adrenaline shot through her sternum into her heart.  Rabbi Yaghobian’s words were like that adrenaline shot, causing me to wake up and see, that the Era of Moshiach is no longer an idea for some distant future, but the reality we live in today, as we are now living in the Era of Moshiach.WARNING: Listening to this episode will create an insatiable desire to learn Torah, do mitzvos with intention, improve ones’ character traits and help out their fellow Jews by supporting Jewish Outreach organizations.

In this episode, I delve into a profound teaching from Rabbi Nachman that underscores the importance of aligning our knowledge (Daas), compassion (Tiferes), and foundation (Yesod). This alignment serves as a powerful conduit for channeling blessings from Hashem into the world. It involves the skillful use of prayer, likened to a finely honed spiritual sword. These insights hold universal relevance and can guide us into the upcoming year, ensuring that you not only attract but also receive a bountiful supply of spiritual and material blessings for both you and your loved ones.