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.
The Neshamah Project
Rabbi Ben is a teacher of esoteric Wisdom, kabbalistic and musical.
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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 life for ourselves. Then, the Or HaChayyim draws on the Zohar’s teaching that each of us carries a…
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 direction by laying down different stones. The episode also considers what happens when Torah becomes more…
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 encounter — and why he stands both inside and at the margins of Jewish Renewal. From there: peoplehood and…
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 the absence of truth, but the beginning of a deeper encounter with it.
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.
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.
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: a life of deeper emunah, wholeness, and achdut. This episode reflects on how modern seekers can move…
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 miracles are not ours to control, yet we can become vessels through which wonder moves. It also offers a…
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.