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.

🎧 Want to experience ideas like this as guided meditation? That's what jMeditate was built for → jmeditate.com
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💬 Join the community & get the free Introduction to Kabbalah course — link in the show notes.