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