Prayer Podcast · Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe

00:00 - Intro (Announcement)
You're listening to Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe from TORCH, the Torah Outreach Resource Center of Houston. This is the Prayer Podcast.

00:09 - Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe (Host)
All right, welcome back everybody to the Prayer Podcast. We are going to learn today a little bit about Elokei Neshama, my God, the soul that you have placed within me. And we are in the Wasserman edition, siddur, page 18 and 19. Elohai, I'm going to read it now in Hebrew and then translate it in English, and then we're going to go on to explain it. Elohai nishama shenosato bi tehorahi. Elohai nishamo shenosato bi tehorohi ato veroso, ato yitzarto, ato nefakhto bi ve'ato mishamro bikir bi ve'ato osid litlo mimeni u lahachaziro bi losid lovoi kol zeman shah. Nishamo bikir bi moideh ani lefonecho adaynoi. Elohai ve'layhe avoysay riboin kol hamasim adayn kol ha-nisham, my God. My God, the soul you placed within me is pure. You created it, you fashioned it, you breathed it into me. Pure, you created it, you fashioned it, you breathed it into me. You safeguard it within me and eventually you will take it from me and restore it to me in time to come. As long as the soul is within me, I gratefully thank you. Hashem, my god and the god of my forefathers, master of all works, lord of all. What a powerful blessing.

01:58
So last week we talked about the body, we talked about the magnificent perfection of our bodies in the blessing of Asher Yotzar. But we know that life is not about physical pursuits, so we can't leave a blessing just praising Hashem for the physical body. We immediately connect it to a blessing that praises Hashem for the physical body. We immediately connect it to a blessing that praises Hashem for the lofty soul, the pure soul that he has infused within our body. What is the purpose of that soul? Why give us a lofty, holy soul if we're in this world for physical pursuits? If we're in this world for physical pursuits? So our sages teach us, god infused the holy, lofty soul into our bodies so that we pursue spiritual, lofty goals in our lifetime and we have a body to take us from place to place to do those things, meaning that we can infuse every single physical action with spiritual holiness. Every single action that we perform we can infuse with holiness. It's not just an ordinary action. Yes, we can build a sukkah. Yes, we can eat matzah. Yes, we can light the Hanukkah menorah. Yes, we can eat challah on Shabbos. The regular, ordinary things that we do. They're mitzvahs. But you know what we can do. We can infuse them with a very high level of holiness so that it doesn't remain ordinary, that it becomes uplifted, that it is elevated. We know this from Abraham.

04:02
Abraham bought a field to bury Sarah. And what does the Torah tell us? Vayakam steh Efron, and the field of Efron got elevated. It didn't just remain a field, it was elevated. Why? Because who is Abraham? Abraham is this holy, righteous patriarch of the Jewish people. He infused everything with his holiness. So now it's not just a field that was owned by Ephron, now it's a holy field that was infused with holiness by Abraham.

04:43
Because the world we live in is a world that is completely affected by our status. When we are holy, the world around us becomes holy. When we are holy, our family becomes holy. When we are holy, our lives become holy. Our physical pursuits become holy. So it's not just a physical body. Oh, eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow you'll die. Just get it all in. You're right. You can eat, drink and be merry and elevate it all with holiness. We see this in Torah. We have a mitzvah to sanctify the holy day of Shabbos. What happens? You can drink wine on Shabbos and you eat fine foods. Eat and drink, but make it holy, elevate it.

05:38
We aren't just a physical body that we spoke about last week in Asher Yotzar body that we spoke about last week in Asher Yotzar. Now we are a spiritual soul that's infused in that body. In our prayer today of Eloheinu Shammah, the soul that we have is now. It's like you think of it, like we have a balloon. So you have a regular balloon, but then you have a helium balloon right, the balloon starts getting elevated, it goes up. That's us. When we nurture our soul, we're infusing our physical body with helium, so to speak. We're now elevating this physical.

06:15
So we're not just physical creatures like the animals Animals very interesting. What does it say about animals? It says that the animals were created from the earth, just like man was, but just so animals stay on earth. What does it say about humans? God created man from the earth, but then God infused within us a lofty soul of life. Now we're not just physical. We're physical, we have gravity, we're on earth, but we have a holy, uplifted connection to the heavens.

07:11
The purpose of our lives is to serve Hashem. The body is just a vessel to assist. Okay, now you remember four or five classes ago we talked about the mode'ani. Those are the first words a Jewish person says when they wake up is mode'ani l'fanecha? Thank you, hashem, for restoring my soul within me. That prayer and this prayer are linked, because now we're going to talk a little bit more about that soul. Remember that soul we mentioned just a few minutes ago when we woke up and we rubbed no, we didn't rub our eyes because we didn't wash our hands yet we washed our hands. Now we can say Hashem's name. Now we say Elokei Neshama, that soul that you restored within me. Let's give proper gratitude and appreciation for it. So we say Elokei my God.

08:06
We don't say just God, my God, my God. It's very personal, very direct. You know, there's this concept that we talk about of divine providence, where God puts you exactly where you need to be at the right time. Exactly where you need to be at the right time, exactly where you need to be. You need to hear this. Someone needed to say that you needed to see something Exactly at the right spot, at the right time. We have a personal God. Elokei, you're my direct connection. We don't have intermediaries. No one died for our sins. We don't go through any conduits. We had once a class here. Someone said Rabbi, I need to confess, I'm like wrong religion. That's not what we do. We don't have any conduits through which we connect to God. We don't have any conduits through which we connect to God. We have a direct relationship with God. Elokei, my God, you blew a neshama into me.

09:16
There's a sense of accountability, a sense of responsibility that we need to take for our own doings and lack thereof, and our shortcomings. It's taking responsibility. If I fall short, I can't blame it on my neighbors, on my friends, on my parents. People, today, it's very fashionable to blame your parents for everything. Anything you have. It's my parents. My father this didn't hug me enough. He didn't love me enough. He didn't hold me enough. My mother she was abusive, she was this, she was that. Everything we like to blame on everyone else.

09:50
The Torah tells us we need to take personal responsibility. Yes, it could be the thing. You were affected by circumstances. You're still responsible for your own life. You have personal responsibility.

10:03
Elokai, you gave me my challenges. You gave me my limitations. You gave me all of my shortcomings. It's direct. Now. I can run away from those responsibilities or I can take them and elevate them, uplift myself, uplift my world. It's a you-me relationship. Me, hashem, you and me. We're in this together. You placed that neshama within me. Neshama shinosah tabi. You placed this neshama. What is that neshama? That neshama is all of your traits. You know someone who has a tendency towards anger. You know someone who has a tendency towards patience. You know someone who has a tendency towards kindness. You know someone who has a tendency towards arrogance. Guess what? That's all pre-installed in your neshama. It's all pre-installed in your neshama.

11:02
We get something which is called a chalek elo kamimau, a peace of God, so to speak, within us. Now, god, we know. We declare God's traits, god's perfection in traits. We say this on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Throughout all of the days of repentance, of atonement, we declare God's 13 attributes of perfection. Now we only have a little smidgen of God's, so to speak, of God's spirit within us. God blows that into us. God blows our soul within us Through our nostrils, right Through his nostrils. God infuses us with that soul.

11:50
Now, if we were perfect in all our traits, we write that's God is perfect in all his traits. We're not. We have limitations, we are not perfect in all of our traits and therefore our goal and our aspirations is to attain that level of perfection. Get as godly as we can, bring as much God into our lives. God is within me yes, and there's no messenger. It's direct. We say this at the Pesach Seder, god didn't take the Jewish people out with any messengers. At the Pesach Seder, lo alide malach, lo alide shaliyach, lo alide sorof. God didn't take the Jewish people out with any messengers, not with any angels. God directly. Judaism. You want the definition of Judaism? It's direct relationship with the Almighty, no intermediaries. You're not allowed to believe in a person, into a deity, to a force, a power that's between us and hashem. No, you're not allowed to. We didn't I once.

12:55
I was once approached by one of the local community rabbis and he said I I listened to one of the lectures that we had on our YouTube channel and the lecturer who spoke referred to the Christian deity as JC. So the rabbi wrote to me and he said I think it's just disrespectful. He says I love the lecture, don't get me wrong. I love the lecture, I love everything the rabbi said, but to refer to their God as JC is just, it's just disrespectful. How would you like if someone called Moshe Rabbeinu MR? I said, actually I have no problem with that, but I met with the rabbi and I said, actually I have no problem with that. But so I met with the rabbi and I said to him I'll tell you why the rabbi didn't say the name. And that is because it's prohibition in the Torah In Exodus, towards the end of the portion of Mishpatim, it says and the names of other gods shall not be on your lips. So first the rabbi said there's no such verse, but then when I showed it to him inside, he's like whoa, I just never saw that. So we're not allowed to say that's not the way that you know.

14:17
We have nothing about Moshe Rabbeinu. Moshe was a messenger of the Almighty to share the words of Torah with us. But we don't serve Moshe, we serve Hashem directly. We don't serve any prophet, we serve Hashem directly. We each have a unique mission, a personal mission. We have a set of unique traits.

14:46
When you look at somebody else and you're like, oh, look at their spouse so much better than my spouse. They look at their children so much better than my children. Look at their financial situation so much better than mine. Look at their character traits so much better than mine You're looking at all the wrong things. You're the only unique you there will ever be. Everything that you have, your composite of who you are, is the gift that Hashem has personally crafted for you so that you reach your perfection. You don't have to reach someone else's perfection. We look and we think like look, they've got everything. I've got nothing. No, you've got everything. You've got everything you need to succeed.

15:31
Then we say it's pure. You've seen that the neshama is unadulterated. It's simple, it's simply pure. Our job is to maintain its purity. Our job is not to purify it. It's pure already. It's godly, it's a godly soul. It doesn't need our purification, but our job is to protect it from being defiled. Our job is to protect it. That's why I've said this numerous times I don't agree with any of these things like oh, it's inappropriate for children to see they have these ratings.

16:11
Oh, this is inappropriate for children or children of a certain age. What do you mean? If it's inappropriate for the soul of a child, it's inappropriate for the soul of an adult. What changes your adult neshama? Your adult soul is just as vulnerable, is just as impressionable as a child's soul and therefore we have to protect. We have to protect our neshama. We have to protect our soul like we are a child, because our neshama is just as sensitive and just as delicate as a child's neshama.

16:50
We are on a mission to be godly, bring God into our lives, into our world. We say this in the end of our prayers. Every single day we are asking, we are praying that God's presence be visible, be recognized in this world, to move all idolatry, to move all of the corruption, to remove all of the things that we mistakenly put as idols, whether it be money, whether it be fame, whether it be recognition. We put all of these stumbling blocks. God, remove them all, because once you have this big, bright light of Hashem, it removes all of that other impurities. You know, we say the Talmud says in Tractate Brachot, it says five times in Psalms King David has that my soul shall praise you, my soul shall praise you.

17:56
Our sages tell us that. What are these five times that our soul shall praise us? The Talmud says that there are five comparisons between the neshama, the soul of a person and God, and those are number one is that God fills the entire world with his presence. So too the neshama fills the entire body. The God is not visible. So too, our soul is not visible. God sustains the world. So too the neshama sustains the body. Hashem is pure, our neshama is pure. Hashem sits deep within the world, deep embedded into creation. So too the neshama sits deep embedded in man. These are the five comparisons the Talmud says between the neshama and God.

18:59
But what we see is that we need to elevate every single physical experience we have. We know we have five senses. I'm sure we can connect them, but every single physical experience we have can be elevated. You know we have a magnificent mitzvah to perform every Sukkot. We shake the lulav, we shake the species, we combine. There are many different spiritual connections to it, but it's an amazing mitzvah. We take a physical object, four physical objects, we combine them together and we shake them in all different directions. It's a very physical experience, but you know that if we take some time to understand the spiritual connection to it, it now is no longer just a physical experience. It becomes a spiritual, uplifting, connecting experience. We can do that every single day of our lives.

19:59
Eating is physical, but we recite a blessing. What do we do? We take this physical experience and make it lofty and make it holy. That's our job. We take every single physical action and we move it and make it transform it into something which is a spiritual experience. And then we say again the word Ata Ata, barasa Ata Yitzarta Ata, nef Ata Ata Barossa, ata Yitzarta Ata, Nefachta Bi Ata Mishamre, bekir Bi Ata Osidlit Lomimeni.

20:35
We say five times you Hashem, you are the one who created it, you are the one who fashioned it, you are the one who infused it within me, you are the one who protects it and preserves it, and you are the one who infused it within me, you are the one who protects it and preserves it and you are the one who, in the future, will take it from me and then restore it within me. So why do we need to say atah every time? You can just say you fashioned, created that and just give all of them, but instead each one, because every stage we need to remember, every stage of our life, every stage of our involvement in this world, has a personal guided mission by the Almighty, everything that happens. Our sages also tell us that these five are referring to the different levels of creation of our neshama. We have a nefesh, a ruach, a neshama, a chai, a yachida. Each one of these are referring to those five levels of the neshama of the soul. It also, our sages tell us, is the different worlds of creation. We have the world of atzilus, the world of bria, of yitzira and asiya. That's Kabbalistic and we can go to our in-house Kabbalist, rabbi Cohen, to talk more about that.

21:53
But the idea here that there's a personal guarantee of Hashem in everything that we see in this world, there's nothing that happens in this world that isn't the hand of Hashem. You know the concept of Tchiasisra'el, resurrection of the dead. We know that there's a world that we're in right now, that we're all experiencing that we have this physical body that's gifted to us that will soon disappear. Right, we're all, we're all after 120, we take our neshama, or Hashem takes our neshama and takes it back, and now the body is left without that spiritual battery. And then what happens? We die.

22:43
What happens with that body? We bury that body and that body becomes rim over toleah we just mentioned this earlier. It becomes worms and maggots Eat it, eat our flesh, and there's nothing left. One second what happens to the soul? Oh, the soul is in heaven. And what happens to all of the great things we've done? Oh, you're going to get rewarded for it.

23:09
Well, who gets rewarded? The body or the soul? Right, so we think? For sure, the soul. But the body comes to a complaint and says Almighty, this is not fear. It's not fear.

23:18
Who schlepped you out of bed to go pray? You're saying you get reward for the prayers, right, but I was sleeping comfortably in bed and the body got out of bed and the body ran to shul. And the body ran to go work to earn a livelihood so that you can pay for your child's Jewish education. And the body worked hard and toiled to do mitzvahs and to climb up the tree to build the Erev and to do all of the mitzvahs. The body did it. The body says where's my reward?

23:49
God says you're right, I'm going to restore the body and the soul. They will be reunited together. Which is why, just as a side note here, if you know anybody who's even considering to cremate, don't do it. Don't let them do it. It's for the sake of their body that will be restored with the neshama. Imagine the neshama. God says I want to bring that neshama back with the body, but there's no more body because it was incinerated. Now I know the question you're going to ask what happened with the people who died in the concentration camps, who were burned right? Those were not burned willingly. We have an opportunity to help someone in their trias hamesim. It's a very serious thing.

24:35
The resurrection of the dead is something we pray for every single day, three times a day, and it's part of our morning prayer. Every single day we remember that we are temporary here, we're not permanent. Our life in this world is very temporary. I always say that one of the greatest I know you might think it's morbid, but I think a very good gift to give a baby when baby's born, is a clock that counts down from 120 years, like as the baby's born boom clock begins 119 years left, 364 days, 23 hours and 59 minutes and 59 seconds, and it starts ticking down, ticking down, ticking down. Imagine someone comes to visit your house. They're like what's this clock? What in the world? 79 years and 58, right, it's like what's going on over here? 58 minutes and 23 seconds, and it keeps counting down. You say no, no, no. That's how many years I have left to live, in the good case, if we have 120 years, imagine that. I think that that would wake us all up. It'll be like one second. I don't have time for another movie, another show. I got work to do here. I got mitzvahs to do. This is a reminder every single morning.

25:58
Elokai Neshama is a prayer of putting things into perspective. We're not here forever and we recognize that. As we wake up, we say Hashem, thank you for that, neshama. We wash our hands, and as we wake up, we say Hashem, thank you for that, neshama. We wash our hands and now we start getting into details about that neshama. That neshama is very lofty. It's our responsibility to preserve its purity.

26:18
As long as the soul is within me, I can still accomplish, I can still connect. I can still correct. I can change my life. Oh, I'm too old. Look at me, I can't change. I can still correct. I can change my life. Oh, I'm too old. Look at me, I can't change. I can't suddenly become Shomer Shabbos. I can't suddenly change Really.

26:34
If someone was let me ask you an honest question If someone was cheating in their business, you tell them you know, why don't you just stop cheating Me, stop cheating. I can't now stop cheating. No, why not Suddenly, today, decide to stop cheating in your business? We would tell them of course, change your ways today. A person can change like that. We know we take small steps. We talk about this a lot in our Musa studies. We take small steps to change, but we have to be committed to change. Be committed to change. You know it's a very interesting thing.

27:06
Last week we observed Pesach Sheni. Pesach Sheni what's Pesach Sheni? It's a second chance. What happened? The Jewish people were leaving Egypt. You know, not everyone was well, we're not talking about then. But later on you have people who lived far away from Jerusalem. They said we didn't get a chance to be in Jerusalem. We were busy, we had stuff to do, places to go, people to see. We didn't get a chance to properly observe.

27:32
Pesach Hashem says you know, I'll give you a second chance. I don't understand. Every holiday that I've looked at doesn't have a second chance. You don't have Sukkot Sheni. You don't have Rosh Hashanah Sheni. You don't have Yom Kippur Sheini. You don't have Hanukkah Sheini or Purim Sheini. You don't have no other festival. Well, it's Purim Katan, but it's not right. We don't have a Sheini. We don't have a second opportunity, except for Pesach. Because Pesach is about Jewish identity and it is never too late for a person to say I identify. Now. I identify as a Jew. I may have betrayed my relationship with God, I may have neglected my responsibilities of the Torah, but a person can always start again and that's the symbolism of this Pesach Sheni, which is, by the way, in the Torah.

28:22
It's not some rabbinic holiday. It's in the Torah that we have a second opportunity. You know what? You didn't catch the first opportunity to bring about your identity and be proud of it. You have the opportunity to do that 30 days later, a second Pesach. That's what we have every morning. Every morning, we have the ability to say you know what? Hashem, my neshama, I'm going to be focused on preserving its holiness, its purity. Every minute of our life is opportunity. The gift of life cannot be underestimated. We need to utilize life to praise Hashem. What do we say at the end of it? Modeh ani lefonecha, Modeh ani lefonecha, modeh ani lefonecha.

29:11
I thank you, hashem, my God and God of my ancestors. Just the same exact God that Abraham had, helping him through all of his challenges. The same exact God that Isaac had, helping him through all of his challenges. The same exact God that Jacob had and Sarah through all of his challenges. The same exact God that Jacob had and Sarah, rebecca, rachel and Leah and Joseph when he was in the dungeon, and Joseph when he was in Egypt and had nobody to learn, with nobody to grow from. He was it? He was the rabbi, the rabbi of Egypt. Guess what? That same Hashem, who was with him all the time, is the same Hashem that each and every one of us have today. Who's there to listen to our prayers, who's there to answer our call, who's there to always guide us. All we need to do is recognize that Hashem is there, waiting for our prayers, waiting for our words.

30:09
Modani, utilize life to praise Hashem. To praise Hashem. Our sages tell us that the entire purpose of prayer is to thank Hashem. That's it. You want to ask? You can ask also, but the first is to praise Hashem. Give thanks to Hashem. Ribbon kol hamasim.

30:32
Everything in this world is the work of Hashem. Every single thing, yes, even the challenges that the world faces, even all of the things that we might think where was God? You know, there's something that they say in the Holocaust. They said there was something called the God syndrome, where people were saying where's God? Where's God? But if we look in Deuteronomy, the Torah tells us that if you betray my relationship with you, you turn your back towards me, I'll turn my back towards you, and then you'll ask where's God? Well, you're looking in the wrong direction. You'll ask where's God.

31:15
It's frightening to think about that, but we need to know that there's nothing that happens in this world that isn't the hand of Hashem, adon kol ha-nishamos. He's the master of all nishamas, of every single nishama, every single person. Imagine every single person you meet. You're like what a rotten person. No, no, no, no, no. Be very careful. This is a nishama that was created by the Almighty. It could be that they may have been persuaded by their physical. It could be they got persuaded by negative influences, but remember, the nishama is a neshama that was given to them by the Almighty. Our personal neshama is a gift from Hashem.

31:58
Our lifespan is not in the hands of the doctors. Oh, what is the doctor going to say? What does the doctor think? Our lifespan is in the hand of Hashem and Hashem only. Our abilities are gifted by Hashem, and at the end of our lives we'll return to our source. At the end of our lives, we're reunited with that source.

32:29
I want to leave you off with an idea. You know, my father, for many, many years, worked in the diamond industry, 47th Street, and I remember that he would talk about different diamonds to us and he says oh, this one is an enhanced diamond. An enhanced diamond. It had an E next to it. It's like this amount of carats and this was an E. When an E is enhanced, what would happen?

32:56
So we know, if you look at any diamond, there are imperfections. In the diamonds there are imperfections. You look at it very carefully and the better the rating, the better the clarity. Right, the less imperfections are visible. But there are always imperfections. So what do they do? They enhance it. A certain chemical they put infuse into that diamond and it clears some of that cloudiness. It clears some of that imperfection.

33:27
Okay, now, every neshama is a gem from Hashem's crown. Hashem takes a gem out of his crown and puts that neshama right into you. That's a little gem, but it has some imperfections. We have the ability, through our lifetimes, to infuse that neshama with an enhancement, to enhance it, to remove that cloud, to remove that cloudiness, to remove that, so that when we are done, hashem takes that beautiful gem and says, ah, it's such a beautiful, sparkling gem. Now You've cleared away all of those imperfections. Now let me put that back in my crown and let it sparkle.

34:04
We have nothing to fear about death and let it sparkle. We have nothing to fear about death. Death is not. The only thing we need to fear about death is that we lose the opportunity in this world to correct more. Death itself is like a child running into the arms of their parent. It's.

34:22
We're coming closer to Hashem, but because we live in a world that's so physical and so entrenched in physicality and we're convinced that it's all about here, here, this earth, so we think, oh, what's going to happen when I die? I'm just going to leave all of this, I'm going to have nothing. No, you're going to take all of those mitzvahs, those bundles and bundles and bundles of mitzvahs, and that's the beautification of that gem. Hashem's going to look at that beautiful gem. He's going to go wow, I want this right in the top, right in the front of my crown. We're each a jewel in the crown of the Almighty. My dear friends, hashem should always accept our prayers and every single day, we should utilize the time we have to perfect the soul that has been given to us, that is pure already, to elevate every aspect of our lives, every aspect of our connection with Hashem, amen.

35:22 - Intro (Announcement)
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