Podcasts by Awakening with Rabbi Ami Silver

I Saw an Upside Down World: From 17 Tammuz to Tisha B'Av from 2020-07-14T11:36:58

Thoughts and teachings on the Three Weeks, and the spiritual stance of learning to be with all that is not right.

Sources: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1gIYF4BJ1_e-idp-qyTEUlU1hX_i3...

Into the Unknown: The Death of Moshe and the Mystery of the Torah from 2020-07-03T11:23:05

"Moshe didn't know who was speaking to him..." -- Bamidbar Rabba 14:20

"'And nobody knows Moshe's burial place'... Even Moshe doesn't know where he was buried" -- Sotah 14a

Sources...

Self Beyond Self - Derech Hamelech, Parshat Nasso from 2020-06-26T10:43:35

Dipping into the Torah that can carry us through. This piece from the Piaseczner Rebbe speaks of accessing a Self that exists beyond and within, a point of contact with the Divine in our root, t...

Lag Ba'omer - The Heart of Acceptance from 2020-05-11T21:04:32

In honor of Lag Ba'omer, thoughts on making space for beauty to emerge, for secrets to be noticed and heard, and for love to be sought after.

Sources: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...

Get Out of Your Cave! Hiding and Healing in the Story of Rebbe Shimon Bar Yochai from 2020-05-07T18:46:14

With Lag Be'omer approaching, Rabbi Ami guides us through the story of Rebbe Shimon Bar Yochai, exploring its connections to sefirat ha'omer, the tragedy of Rebbe Akiva's students, the hidden dimen...

BONUS: Pesach - In Every Generation You Must See Yourself from 2020-04-12T12:20:53

On Seder night we’re obligated to “see ourselves in every generation, as if we left Egypt.” This is not just a metaphor - it is offering a practical, experiential guideline to help us engage in ...

"Yaakov Called it a House" - Reflections on Home Shuling from 2020-03-15T21:24:53

Many of us throughout the world are staying home these days due to quarantine and general guidelines around Coronavirus. Here Ami shares some thoughts and teachings about making a spiritual home...

BONUS: Purim - The Wailing Abyss, Finding God in a World Without God from 2020-03-03T08:50:51

Dive into the everlasting nature of Purim, the redemption that takes place in light and shadows.

Sources: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1CsTV0u9iUTSETy28sFk1ixM_6W4t3L2h43aiclKXq2I/e...

Avodat HaTefillah: Bowing and Standing - Falling Into Being from 2020-02-24T13:54:39

Episode 39

In this session we continue our exploration of the postures of prayer with the Maharal and a stunning piece from the Zohar, describing how we fall before God, and are lifted by...

Avodat HaTefillah: Bowing and Standing - Praying with the Bones from 2020-02-17T19:58:48

Episode 38

Is bowing just an add-on to our prayers, a nice ritual that accompanies parts of tefillah? Or is it part and parcel of tefillah itself? What would that look like?

Source...

Avodat HaTefillah: Bracha -The Divine Fountain from 2020-02-11T08:18:30

Episode 37

We are so used to making brachot, to saying blessings as we go through our daily tasks and in our prayers. But what is a bracha? In this class we explore the deeper dimensions ...

Avodat HaTefillah: Stopping to Smell the Flowers from 2020-01-26T15:04:35

Episode 36 

“Tefillah is a space for me to not exist in a splintered reality… a place to unify my reality.. in Rebbe Nachman’s words, ‘to make the entire tefillah one’”. In this epis...

Avodat HaTefillah: Praying With God from 2020-01-19T21:36:23

Episode 35 In the eyes of the Hasidic masters, we do not pray to God—we pray *with* God. Join Rav Ami as he guides us through teachings on tefillah from the Baal Shem Tov, Rav Pinchas of Koretz, R...

Avodah: Three Steps - Opening to Prayer from 2020-01-17T14:30:13

Join Rav Ami as he guides us in a kavanah for taking three steps backward and forward, inward and outward, to enter into prayer in Presence. ***** Please support Rabbi Ami and this podcast by contr...

Avodat HaTefillah: Hashem Sefatai Tiftach - Standing on Impossible Ground from 2020-01-12T14:06:47

Episode 34 Can we really stand in prayer before our Creator? Is it possible to approach God in our humanness, or do we leave our shortcomings behind when we show up to daven? This week, Rabbi Ami ...

Avodah: Meditation - Spiritual Intimacy from 2020-01-09T22:24:48

A meditation on joining together with God, in Presence, based on a teaching from the Piaseczner Rebbe.

*****

Please support Rabbi Ami's teaching and this podcast, designating “Awak...

Avodat HaTefillah - The Inner Experience from 2020-01-05T14:04:05

Episode 34

While much of the language and forms of prayer tend to be outward-directed, tefillah is an invitation to turn inward, to cultivate an internal space in which we can meet oursel...

Avodah: Meditation - Entering Heart Space from 2020-01-02T13:43:02

A guided meditation on opening the space of the heart - makom halev - as the space for prayer. Please support this podcast by contributing here, designating “Awakening”: https://www.paypal.me/shef...

Avodat HaTefillah: Prayer and Prophecy from 2019-12-29T14:33:21

Episode 33

Our primary sources point to prayer as a prophetic practice - the direct meeting between human beings and their Creator. The fixed prayers we have are based on this direct comm...

BONUS: Hanukkah - Meet Me In the Darkness from 2019-12-23T06:41:51

Hanukkah teachings from the Piacezner Rebbe

Avodat HaTefillah: The Place of the Heart from 2019-12-16T00:29:31

Episode 32

This week we continue to explore the entryway into tefilla, and look at the heart as the place of prayer, the locus for encountering ourselves together with the Divine. Listen

Avodah: Makom Meditation - Coming Into Presence from 2019-12-10T13:44:18

Rabbi Ami helps support his teaching from this week with a meditative practice.

Avodat HaTefillah: Makom - Entering Divine Space from 2019-12-08T14:17:22

Episode 31 

The Mishnah teaches that the basic orientation to prayer is to bring ourselves into presence, to align ourselves and let our attention rest in the here and now. Here, Rab...

Avodat HaTefillah: Is It a Mitzvah to Pray? from 2019-12-01T13:47:45

Episode 30 

Prayer is the centerpiece of our daily spiritual practice, and as we’ve been exploring in the previous sessions, it’s at the heart of what it means to be human. But is it...

Avodat HaTefillah: A Living Pray-er from 2019-11-24T15:06:20

Episode 28  

On this episode of Awakening, Rabbi Ami explores prayer as part of our basic identity as human beings. The Jewish tradition teaches that we are born from the prayer...

Avodat HaTefillah: The Roots of Prayer from 2019-11-17T13:20:39

Episode 027

What are the roots of prayer? Where does tefillah come from - in the universe, in the human psyche? The Rabbis identify prayer as emerging from the very fabric of Creation its...

Avodat HaTefillah: What is Tefillah? from 2019-11-10T06:59:47

027

We often translate Tefillah as “prayer”, but what is the meaning of this word in its original form? This class explores a number of uses of this word throughout the Torah, and the way...

An announcement from Rabbi Ami from 2019-11-08T13:19:28

Rabbi Ami announces the new way forward with his focus on prayer.

The Piaseczner Rebbe’s Biography, Background, and the Torah of the Way from 2019-10-25T17:11:58

Episode 026 This is the first class Rabbi Ami ever gave in the Piaseczner Rebbe’s writings. It’s a broad introduction to the Rebbe’s life and writings, including a broad overview of the Rebbe’s va...

BONUS: Hoshana Rabba - Who Will Save Me? from 2019-10-20T03:55:20

In honor of David HaMelech, the end of the seal, prayers for salvation and redeeming the beauty of being alive.

BONUS: Yom Kippur - Transcending Shame, Transforming Shame from 2019-10-06T20:59:07

The central practice of Yom Kippur is vidui - confession of wrongdoings. What is the goal of this? Is it make us feel guilty and ashamed? How does this lead us to teshuva or closeness to God? On th...

BONUS: Rosh Hashana - Hearing the Divine Voice from 2019-09-26T12:56:22

“When we blow the shofar, we ourselves don’t make a sound; we express the breath of our hearts, “the voice of my Beloved is pounding…” it’s the Divine voice within our hearts, screaming to us, t...

BONUS: Rosh Hashana - Entering the Frequency of Teshuva from 2019-09-22T15:56:05

Where does Teshuva begin? Where can we turn to draw on faith? In this piece for Rosh Hashana, the Piaseczner reframes Teshuva as tuning into the frequency of life, and Emunah as being a platform...

Hearing My Own Voice from 2019-09-15T13:10:06

Episode 025 Rosh Hashana is a day of awe - the kind of awe that comes from closeness, and a revealed encounter with our Creator. In this piece brought by Rabbi Ami, the Piaseczner Rebbe explores...

Finding Our Way Home from 2019-09-08T13:54:07

Episode 024 

This is a teaching on exile, the exile of the soul, of the world and of the Divine itself. Oftentimes we think that teshuva - the return to God - is about overcoming our...

Praying and Learning (pt. 2): Grasping and Not Grasping from 2019-09-01T17:29:30

Episode 023 

In this continuation of the Piaseczner Rebbe’s teaching on prayer and Torah learning, we explore two kinds of pleasure on the spiritual path - the pleasure of grasping f...

Praying and Learning: The Search for Wholeness from 2019-08-25T12:35:28

Episode 022 

In this piece from Derech Hamelech, the Piaseczner Rebbe guides us on the search for wholeness in our spiritual path. In prayer, we can encounter our wholeness, can expe...

Hashkata: The Practice of Self-Cultivation from 2019-08-18T13:45:29

Episode 21

The Piaseczner Rebbe’s Hashkata meditation is a step-by-step practice with detailed instructions for developing our inner workings (middot). It is the work of quieting the cons...

BONUS: Tisha B’Av - Crying God’s Tears from 2019-08-10T00:37:42

On Tisha B’Av, we ask unanswerable questions. We gaze into the wounds of the world and don’t turn away from the pain. Rather we search for ways to be with it, and find a way to rebuild through i...

Praying with the World from 2019-08-04T18:28:12

Episode 020 

This short piece from the Piaseczner Rebbe’s journal offers us a powerful invitation to experience prayer in intimate connection with the natural world, and all of Creat...

Hidden Teachers: The Women in the Piaseczner Rebbe’s Life from 2019-07-28T15:09:33

Episode 019 A great grandmother who davened in a tallis and received Hasidim looking for brachot and guidance; another whom Hasidim flocked to to listen to her teachings; the Rebbe’s wife who wrote...

Paradigm Shift (pt. 5) : "From My Flesh, I Behold the Divine" from 2019-07-21T13:44:20

Episode 018

"Kabbalah bent the heavens so that a person could glimpse the Divine through their mind and intellect… but Hasidut spread the heavens out even into the street, the house, the ...

Paradigm Shift (pt. 4) : Turning Inward from 2019-07-14T12:52:34

Episode 017 

In the next episode of this series, the Piaseczner guides us to our inner experience as the locus for accessing God. The body, senses and emotions are the primary place ...

BONUS: Hukkat: The Deep Well of Miriam from 2019-07-11T19:20:08

We are honored to re-release one of Rabbi Ami's first episode's as a bonus episode. This is one of the Piaseczner’s final teachings from the Aish Kodesh, which he taught in honor of the yahrzeit...

Paradigm Shift (pt.3) : Speaking to the Universe from 2019-07-07T05:19:42

Episode 016

“... and this world itself and all of its matters, is also a rung and quality of Divine light…”  

“... the spiritual work must not be to merely save the soul and n...

Paradigm Shift (pt.2): Vessels Made of Light from 2019-06-30T12:55:08

Episode 015

 “... and why should the body be considered any less than the mind?... isn’t the primary purpose of Hasidut to reveal the light that is within lowness? To show that it to...

Paradigm Shift (pt.1): The Messianic Evolution from 2019-06-23T20:26:46

Episode 014 

The Baal Shem Tov recorded a conversation with the Mashiach in which he asked, “when will you come?” The answer was not too promising, but it spurred the Baal Shem Tov t...

In Presence from 2019-06-16T20:33:52

Episode 013

There is a Torah that is taught to everyone equally, a Torah that is written in books and can be accessed by all. But there is also a Torah that is a direct communication from...

BONUS: Shavuot - “So That I May Enjoy You” - Tapping Into Divine Pleasure from 2019-06-06T12:55:34

"In truth, all pleasure and enjoyment in the world, of any kind, are nothing other than God's own joy and pleasure." — The Piaseczner Rebbe In this teaching for Shavuot, the Piaseczner Rebbe invit...

BONUS: From Sefira to Shavuot - Coming Back to Wholeness from 2019-05-30T21:27:56

The path through Sefirat Ha’omer to Shavuot is a process of self-refinement, of coming into contact with the myriad parts of our personality that compose the sum total. But how do we orient ours...

Spiritual Integration - Making it Real (pt. 2) from 2019-05-27T14:04:59

Episode 012 In the second part of this series, Rabbi Ami continues to illustrate the Piaseczna Rebbe’s framework for how Torah, tefilla and spiritual work can serve to lift and support us, and leav...

Spiritual Integration - Making it Real (pt. 1) from 2019-05-19T14:17:04

Episode 011

For many of us, our meaningful spiritual moments seem to exist in a vacuum. They happen to us, and then quickly dissipate, leaving us wondering where they went, and what value...

How to Learn Hasidut: Mapping the Soul (pt. 2) from 2019-05-12T21:24:29

Episode 011

Rabbi Ami continues his exploration of the Piaseczna Rebbe’s essay, “How to Learn Works of Hasidut” with the second part of a two-part series.  There, the Rebbe expands h...

How to Learn Hasidut: Mapping the Soul (pt. 1) from 2019-05-05T20:37:27

Episode 010

Many people are drawn to Hasidic teachings and spirituality, but few are taught how to engage with these texts and what the path of avodah (spiritual work) looks like in pract...

Where Heaven and Earth Kiss from 2019-04-29T03:11:44

Episode 009

Where have all the prophets gone? Where do we hear God’s voice in our day and age? In this piece from Derech Hamelech, the Piaseczner Rebbe probes these questions and offers a...

Enlivening the Body, Enlivening the Soul (pt. 2) from 2019-04-07T20:52:25

Episode 008 

Rabbi Ami continues his teaching of the Piaseczner Rebbe’s framing of mitzvot as a path towards unifying the body and soul. Here the Piaseczner goes deeper into the spir...

Enlivening the Body, Enlivening the Soul (pt. 1) from 2019-03-31T20:11:06

Episode 007

Rabbi Ami begins with a meditation from the Piaseczner Rebbe’s journal on the limits of life in a body, and the potential for the soul to live on by transmitting i...

Teshuva and Transformation from 2019-03-25T21:20:59

Episode 006

The path of teshuva, of returning to God, is inherently fraught. How can a person create change within themselves? Aren’t we ultimately stuck with the same personality and mak...

Accessing the Higher Self from 2019-03-25T21:20:40

Episode 005

In this piece, the Rebbe speaks about connecting to the root of our being, and drawing from the highest Self, from which all “Self” emerges.

Sources: Derech Hamelech, P...

Hukkat: The Deep Well of Miriam from 2019-03-25T21:20:23

Episode 004 

This is one of the Piaseczner’s final teachings from the Aish Kodesh, which he taught in honor of the yahrzeit of his wife Rochel Chaya Miriam (10 Tammuz). In this teach...

Bringing Myself Out of Exile from 2019-03-25T21:20:08

Episode 003

The Piaseczner Rebbe managed to create a monumental work of spiritual potency from within the depths of horror in the Warsaw Ghetto. This piece exemplifies the Rebbe’s courage...

Knowing You From Within from 2019-03-25T21:19:53

Episode 002

We tend to think about Divine revelation as something that comes to people from the outside. But in the Piaseczner’s world, God is revealed to each person in their own unique ...

God-Knowledge and Self-Knowledge from 2019-03-25T21:19:33

Episode 001

What does it mean to “know God?” Where does this knowledge stem from within the individual? This is a radical teaching from the Piaseczner Rebbe in which he lays out a path to...

BONUS: Purim - Redeeming Our Story from 2019-03-18T03:14:08

In the first episode of Awakening, Rabbi Ami explores the centrality of the telling of a story, not only to the holiday of Purim itself, but to awakening to our own lives, through a teachin...