Kabbalah Talk with Rav Yaakov Shepherd

What is the first verse a Jew should know and say? Eric puts the question to Rabbi Yaakov Avraham Shepherd (Rav Yakov Shepherd), and the Rav answers: Shema Yisrael, every morning and every evening, thinking about the meaning of the words each time.
Kabbalah Talk from King David Kabbalah, on the Shema, the unity of Hashem and Jewish meditation.

Why the prayer opens with the word Shema, hear, understand and awaken. How mercy and judgment are joined as One in a single sentence, and what to do on the nights when it does not feel like love. Why we say the Shema in the morning and in the evening, and why we say it again before sleep, when the soul ascends. And how to think about the meaning while saying it: longing, not concentration. The episode ends with the story of Yaakov and his sons.

Have a question for the Rav? Send it in, or request a private session:
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The Rav's weekly Parasha magazine goes through every parasha, a few verses every week: Rashi, the Ramban, the Meirat Einayim, and the Rav's own commentary. Join here:
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Support Yeshivat HaMekubalim Nefesh HaChaim, so we can keep creating this content and publishing it to the world. Whoever gives their tithes to the yeshiva merits that we pray for them on an ongoing basis, at holy places in the Land of Israel. Our emissaries go out all year, each time to a different place, and they always mention the names of our supporters. Give your tithes here:
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Where should someone start if he wants a real connection with Hashem? Pablo on our team sent the question, and Eric puts it to Rabbi Yaakov Avraham Shepherd (Rav Yakov Shepherd). The Rav answered in two words: wash your hands.
Kabbalah Talk from King David Kabbalah, on netilat yadayim, the morning washing of the hands, the thirteen words of the bracha and Jewish meditation.

Why start with the hands, of all places? The Rav explains that washing the hands is the first purification available to everybody, and tells of the man taken to a Roman prison whose one worry was water for his hands. Then the Kabbalistic side: during sleep a spirit of impurity, ruach ra'ah, rests on the hands, the body's main tools of action. The Rav explains what that means, and how water used with the meditation of mercy takes the judgments away.

He walks through the practice step by step: a covered vessel of water at the side of the bed, three pours on the right hand and three on the left, rubbing the hands together, lifting them and saying the bracha. The right and left hand are Chesed and Gevurah, the rubbing is Tiferet, the middle line. The thirteen words of the bracha bring in the thirteen attributes of mercy. These ten minutes set your consciousness for the entire day, and they are the first step of the climb that reaches the Amidah.

Have a question for the Rav? Send it in, or request a private session:
https://kabbalah-talk-feed.pages.dev/ask/

The Rav's weekly Parasha magazine goes through every parasha, a few verses every week: Rashi, the Ramban, the Meirat Einayim, and the Rav's own commentary. Join here:
https://join.mekobalim.org

We are looking for a sponsor for this project. If you can help, you will receive a special blessing from the Rav.

Support Yeshivat HaMekubalim Nefesh HaChaim, so we can keep creating this content and publishing it to the world. Whoever gives their tithes to the yeshiva merits that we pray for them on an ongoing basis, at holy places in the Land of Israel. Our emissaries go out all year, each time to a different place, and they always mention the names of our supporters. Give your tithes here:
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Learn with us on Telegram:
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More Kabbalah books and Jewish meditation at http://KingDavidKabbalah.com

Watch on YouTube:
https://youtu.be/300tWxpyTIM

Parashat Vayeira 5787 with Rabbi Yaakov Avraham Shepherd (Rav Yakov Shepherd): what do people see when they look at you, and what does your soul wear?
Kabbalah Talk from King David Kabbalah, reading the Ramban and the Meirat Einayim on the angels at Avraham's tent, the garments of the soul and Jewish meditation.

At his cousin's wedding Eric wore a white shirt and a black vest, and for forty minutes everybody took him for a waiter. A woman handed him her plate, then the whole table did, and the caterer gave him a tray of salmon. His own uncle asked him for more ice. Only the bride's grandmother looked at his face. So what does anybody see when they look at a person? Rav Yakov Shepherd opens Parashat Vayeira at the entrance of Avraham's tent, where three men stand who are not men.

The Ramban calls what Avraham saw a created glory, which those who know call a garment. To come down to this world an angel takes a body. Then Eric asks what shape he is under the vest, the shirt and the body, and the Rav answers that the shape of a man was there before the body: the ten sefiros in three pillars, the stamp Hashem created the world with. We gain the garments of the soul by our actions, speech, thought, intention and desire. The good ones remain, the negative ones dissolve, and Hashem in His mercy lends a simple garment even to the naked. Chanoch the shoemaker blessed Hashem each time he pierced the leather, and the blessing reached the angel Matat'. Eric pushes back (forty thousand blessings, and he can't see one of them going anywhere), and the Rav answers with the donor and the poor man who meet one day and celebrate together.

When we do good things, we acquire good garments for our soul.

The Hebrew verses and the Rav's full commentary on Vayeira:
https://kingdavidkabbalah.com/ramban-yada/vayeira/

The Rav's weekly Parasha magazine goes through every parasha, a few verses every week: Rashi, the Ramban, the Meirat Einayim, and the Rav's own commentary. Join here:
https://join.mekobalim.org

We are looking for a sponsor for this project. If you can help, you will receive a special blessing from the Rav.

Support Yeshivat HaMekubalim Nefesh HaChaim, so we can keep creating this content and publishing it to the world. Whoever gives their tithes to the yeshiva merits that we pray for them on an ongoing basis, at holy places in the Land of Israel. Our emissaries go out all year, each time to a different place, and they always mention the names of our supporters. Give your tithes here:
https://www.jgive.com/new/en/usd/collect/donation-targets/171964/amount

Learn with us on Telegram:
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More Kabbalah books and Jewish meditation at http://KingDavidKabbalah.com

Watch on YouTube:
https://youtu.be/Dt8Y94PvvmI

What does it mean to be Jewish? Pablo on our team sent the question, and Eric puts it to Rabbi Yaakov Avraham Shepherd.

The Rav begins with the purpose of Am Yisrael, to pray for the whole creation, and goes on to the essence inside every Jew that is one with Hashem, the Torah as a way to connect and not a history book, and the responsibility that comes with a greater potential.

He also speaks about teaching people who are not Jewish, about the convert as a full part of the story, and about the souls drawn together in Egypt like a magnet.

Have a question for the Rav? Send it in, or request a private session:
https://kabbalah-talk-feed.pages.dev/ask/

The Rav's weekly Parasha magazine goes through every parasha, a few verses every week: Rashi, the Ramban, the Meirat Einayim, and the Rav's own commentary. Join here:
https://join.mekobalim.org

We are looking for a sponsor for this project. If you can help, you will receive a special blessing from the Rav.

Support Yeshivat HaMekubalim Nefesh HaChaim, so we can keep creating this content and publishing it to the world. Whoever gives their tithes to the yeshiva merits that we pray for them on an ongoing basis, at holy places in the Land of Israel. Our emissaries go out all year, each time to a different place, and they always mention the names of our supporters. Give your tithes here:
https://www.jgive.com/new/en/usd/collect/donation-targets/171964/amount

Learn with us on Telegram:
https://t.me/kabbalahNhalacha

More Kabbalah books and Jewish meditation at http://KingDavidKabbalah.com

Watch on YouTube:
https://youtu.be/xdjzNgIdam0

Do you want Hashem to speak to you? Eric asked for a sign at a red light, and then spent a week reading signs into everything: a license plate with his birthday on it, a song in a cafe his father used to sing, a dream he forgot by breakfast. Rav Yakov Shepherd opens Parashat Lech Lecha and shows how it started for Avraham Avinu, because it did not start the way people imagine.

We read the verses with the Ramban and Meirat Einayim by Rabbi Yitzchak of Acco. "Go forth from your land" came to Avraham in a dream of the night. Then Hashem appeared to him in the land, and he built an altar of thanks. Then the word of Hashem came to him in a vision by day. Where prophecy comes from: the Malchus, the Atarah, the Shechinah. Why spiritual sight is a present from the mercy of Hashem, something we may ask for humbly but can never demand. Three levels: prophecy, Ruach HaKodesh and the heavenly voice. And why Avraham saw no angel ruling over Eretz Yisrael, and what it means to face Eretz Yisrael before the Amidah.

If nothing comes, you keep serving. And you can keep asking, humbly. The rest is a present.

The Hebrew verses and the Rav's full commentary on Lech Lecha:
https://kingdavidkabbalah.com/ramban-yada/lech-lecha/

The Rav's weekly Parasha magazine goes through every parasha, a few verses every week: Rashi, the Ramban, the Meirat Einayim, and the Rav's own commentary. Join here:
https://join.mekobalim.org

We are looking for a sponsor for this project. If you can help, you will receive a special blessing from the Rav.

Support Yeshivat HaMekubalim Nefesh HaChaim, so we can keep creating this content and publishing it to the world. Whoever gives their tithes to the yeshiva merits that we pray for them on an ongoing basis, at holy places in the Land of Israel. Our emissaries go out all year, each time to a different place, and they always mention the names of our supporters. Give your tithes here:
https://www.jgive.com/new/en/usd/collect/donation-targets/171964/amount

Learn with us on Telegram:
https://t.me/kabbalahNhalacha

More Kabbalah books and Jewish meditation at http://KingDavidKabbalah.com

Watch on YouTube:
https://youtu.be/A17IVP8tCKg

Why do we wait until it hurts? Eric opens with a question most of us know from our own lives: the thing we keep putting off until it hurts. In this episode of Kabbalah Talk, Eric and Rav Yakov Shepherd read Parashat Noach through that question.

We talk about Noach, about the Shechinah, about the teivah that each of us needs to build for himself, and about the tzaddikim. The episode draws on this week's Ramban Yad'a newsletter.

Whoever gives their tithes to the yeshiva merits that we pray for them on an ongoing basis, at holy places in the Land of Israel. Our emissaries go out all year, each time to a different place, and they always mention the names of our supporters. Give your tithes here:
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More Kabbalah books and Jewish meditation at http://KingDavidKabbalah.com

What does tohu va'vohu actually mean? Most of us grew up hearing it as a word for chaos, the thing your mother said when she opened the door of your room. In this episode of Kabbalah Talk, Eric asks Rav Yakov Shepherd what tohu and bohu mean, and the answer turns out to be a building site, not a mess.

We read the Ramban on Bereishit together with Meirat Einayim by Rabbi Yitzchak of Acco. The Ramban says the raw matter the Greeks called hyle is called tohu in the Holy Tongue: material with no shape yet, ready to receive form. Bohu is the forms built out of it. Yeshayahu speaks of the line of tohu and the stones of bohu, the string a builder stretches across an empty lot to mark the plan before any stone goes in.

If there is something in your life that has no shape yet, maybe it isn't a mess. Maybe it is tohu waiting for its bohu.

The full study, verse by verse, is in this week's Ramban Yad'a newsletter (PDF):
https://kingdavidkabbalah.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/Ramban-Yada-Bereishit-5787.pdf

Whoever gives their tithes to the yeshiva merits that we pray for them on an ongoing basis, at holy places in the Land of Israel. Our emissaries go out all year, each time to a different place, and they always mention the names of our supporters. Give your tithes here:
https://www.jgive.com/new/en/usd/collect/donation-targets/171964/amount

Learn with us on Telegram:
https://t.me/kabbalahNhalacha

More Kabbalah books and Jewish meditation at http://KingDavidKabbalah.com

A forum thread asks three words: "Are we infinite?" Nearly everyone answers yes. Rav Yaakov Shepherd and Eric look at what an old kabbalah book, Shomer Emunim by Rabbi Yosef Ergas, actually says about it, and the answer is more interesting than yes or no: nothing broke off from the Infinite, like a candle lit from a candle, the first flame loses nothing, and yet there is a second flame giving real light.

Support the work, and be included in the prayers of the holiday campaign: https://www.jgive.com/new/en/ils/donation-targets/176166

Leave a name for prayer (graves of the tzaddikim / pidyon nefesh): https://kingdavidkabbalah.com/send-a-name/

Source for today's teaching: Shomer Emunim, Rabbi Yosef Ergas (citing the Tikkunei Zohar for the candle image). Ein Sof as a name of Kether: Ramban on Bereishit 1:1.

Eric's neighbor isn't going to bed on the night of Hoshana Rabba. Eric thought the sealing was Yom Kippur. He fasted for it, he stood for Ne'ilah, he heard the gates close. So what is still open two weeks later?

Rav Yaakov Shepherd answers from the Arizal: Hoshana Rabba is the second seal, and its night is a continuation of Ne'ilah itself. What was decided has not yet been handed over, and while it sits in the heavenly court it can still be changed. That is the note the Zohar calls the pitka, and why in Jerusalem people wish each other pitka tava, a good note.

From there, the walking. Why one circle each morning of Sukkot and seven on Hoshana Rabba, and what the circle actually does: a surrounding light, drawn down to guard the Shechinah before the union of Shemini Atzeret. You are not circling to get something. You are circling to be a wall.

And the wall does not end on Friday: the hakafot of Simchat Torah, the dancing with the Torah, keep strengthening that same protection.

Then the turn. The siddur has Eric asking two names, Ani vaHo, to save him, and Eric thinks that is exactly the pendant kabbalah the Rav warns against. The Rav takes it apart: where the two names sit inside the seventy-two, why the names cannot save anyone, and what you are really addressing when you say hoshia na. Then a short practice for the night itself: the wall, one deed, and two words said to the light inside the letters and not to the letters.

Recorded in Jerusalem, at the Yeshiva of the Mekubalim, Nefesh HaChaim, at King David's Tomb.

From Erev Yom Kippur until Hoshana Rabba, names are carried in prayer at King David's Tomb, and the same money reaches families as food before the festival. Hoshana Rabba, Friday 2 October, is the last day to join:

https://www.jgive.com/new/en/ils/donation-targets/176166

Hoshana Rabba, Simchat Torah, Sukkot, hakafot, Arizal, Zohar, 72 names, Kabbalah, Jewish prayer, Ne'ilah, Shemini Atzeret, Nefesh HaChaim

The Midrash names three things that stayed a wonder: Pesach, Matzah, and Maror. A fourth thing it
says we never fully grasped: the four species of the lulav. Not the greatest sages. Not Moshe
Rabbeinu himself. Not even Shlomo HaMelech, the wisest of men.

So what is left for the rest of us? Rav Yaakov Shepherd and Eric take up a simple, concrete
meditation from the Magid of Mezeritch for the actual moment of shaking the lulav: forward, to lift
the heart's earthly desire up to the daat; there, to sort it from what is truly desired; back, to
bring that clarity home into the heart. And hidden inside the count of the four species themselves,
the Rav lays out all seven lower sefirot, each with its own earthly pull and its own godly one.

Recorded in Jerusalem, at the Yeshiva of the Mekubalim, Nefesh HaChaim.

This Sukkot the yeshiva is buying a set of the four species, and food for the table, for families
who cannot afford them. Whoever gives receives a real share in the mitzvah of the lulav and etrog
that the money buys. The prayers said at King David's Tomb on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur were
said with this in mind, and they apply to everyone who joins, even now.
https://www.jgive.com/new/en/ils/donation-targets/176166

The ready to print meditation page from this episode is free. It arrives by email the moment you
ask for it here:
https://join.mekobalim.org

Chag Sameach.

Sukkot, lulav, etrog, four species, Kabbalah, Jewish meditation, Magid of Mezeritch, sefirot, Nefesh HaChaim

EREV YOM KIPPUR
The pidyon kaparot comes first, at dawn, following the Arizal. On Erev Yom Kippur in the
afternoon the Rav performs the pidyon nefesh at King David's Tomb, in the old Kabbalistic order
of it, according to the kavanot of the Rashash. Every name sent to the yeshiva is in both, and
you are told the day it was done. The same giving also buys food for families in need, for
Sukkot.

Take part: https://www.jgive.com/new/en/ils/donation-targets/176166

Send a name and the mother's name: https://mekobalim.org/shemot
You do not need to give in order to send a name.

Some years the shofar is not blown at all, and this is one of them. The first day of Rosh
Hashanah falls on Shabbat.

Rav Yaakov Shepherd and Eric work through four questions that open out of that silence. Why the
Sages set aside a mitzvah of the Torah itself. Why Rosh Hashanah is two days in Israel too, when
the reason for two days never applied there. Where the number one hundred comes from, and the ten
that live inside it. And what the shofar of the Jubilee has to do with the one you will hear this
year.

Recorded in Jerusalem, at the Yeshiva of the Mekubalim, Nefesh HaChaim, at King David's Tomb.

Until Hoshana Rabbah, your name is said in prayer at King David's Tomb, at the Kotel, at Meron,
at Amuka and in Uman, through the ten days.
https://www.jgive.com/new/en/ils/donation-targets/176166

You lie down exhausted and your mind picks that exact moment to review everything. The
conversation that went sideways, the email you didn't send, tomorrow's list in order. Your body
lies down and your mind stands up.

Rav Yaakov Shepherd starts from an unlikely place: Yonah, asleep below deck while the storm tears
the ship apart and the sailors throw cargo overboard. The one prophet famous for sleeping too
well. What the tradition says about that sleep is not that Yonah was indifferent. It is that when
Yonah went down into the sea, his soul went up.

Sleep was never switching off. It is handing the day back into the hands of the One who neither
slumbers nor sleeps. You were never meant to carry it through the night. That was never your
shift.

The second half is a guided practice, and you are meant to fall asleep during it. Falling asleep
in the middle is not failing the practice. It is the practice. Lie down, get comfortable, and let
the phone rest far from the bed.

The Rav's guided meditations, ready when you are: https://app.jmeditate.com
Tags: jewish meditation, kabbalah, sleep, insomnia, rav shepherd, bedtime, jonah, hashem, jewish spirituality

Last night, before bed, Eric put his phone across the room so he'd have to get up to shut off the alarm. This morning he got up, shut it off, and climbed right back into bed with the phone anyway. In this episode, Rav Yaakov Shepherd takes that small, familiar failure and turns it into a teaching about Modeh Ani, the two words said the instant you wake. Before your feet touch the floor, before your eyes are even open, there's a choice about who gets your first breath: the screen, or a simple thank You.

When your mind races and your chest tightens, everyone tells you to calm down, but nobody tells you how. Rav Yaakov Shepherd offers a different path than fighting the storm or mastering a clever trick: turning, gently, toward the One who is already holding you. A guided practice in the Jewish contemplative tradition, built around one simple anchor, "Hashem is here, and I am not alone."

Practice being held, every day — the Rav's guided meditations: https://app.jmeditate.com/

A confession: this podcast — the research, the editing, the production — is made with AI. Rav Yaakov Shepherd explains why that doesn't trouble him, and what he hears Heaven asking through it: "Machines can now write, paint, compose — so go and discover what only you can be." Featuring a real exchange with Simon Sinek's "I'm not in the AI business, I'm in the humanity business," the Arizal's shevirat hakelim and kintsugi, and a guided meditation on the one thing no machine will ever have: your own breath, your own presence before Hashem.
Practice being human every day — the Rav's guided meditations: https://app.jmeditate.com/

• Your mind wanders two seconds into meditation — did you fail? Rav Yaakov Shepherd says: nothing went wrong. That is exactly how a mind works. In this episode: the engraving practice of Jewish meditation, why every return of your attention is a repetition of the holiest exercise there is, and the Arizal's teaching that connects the wandering mind to the churban — and to the rebuilding that starts inside. Recorded during the Nine Days.
Learn to meditate with the Rav: https://jmeditate.com/
• Tags: jewish meditation, kabbalah, rav shepherd, mindfulness, tisha bav

Look at your hands — ten fingers, five and five. The oldest book of Kabbalah says they are a map of the ten forces through which the Infinite becomes a world. In this opening episode, Rav Yaakov Shepherd walks from Sefer Yetzirah to the phone in your pocket: the Ten Sefirot as the operating system of reality — and a short guided experience to feel it, not just understand it.

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