The Tefilah Podcast
My name is Rabbi Matt Schneeweiss, and this is the hub for all of my shiurim (classes) on Tefilah (Prayer) and related topics, such as Tehilim (Psalms) and Berachos (Blessings)! The shiurim I upload here are given in a variety of formats with different lengths and intended for different audiences. The common theme which unites all of these shiurim is our focus on strengthening our relationship with Hashem through Avodah she'ba'Lev (Service of the Heart). If you have any questions feel free to email me at rabbischneeweiss at gmail. Thanks for listening!
Episodes
Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text!
Length: 1 hour 9 minutes
Synopsis: Last night (5/29/24), in our Wednesday night Tehilim shiur, we attempted to "land the plane." Since it had been two weeks since our last shiur, we began by reviewing everything - the translations, the questions, and the approaches - and then set out to get as many individual ideas as we could. The ideas were great, but I wasn...
Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text!
Length: 1 hour 3 minutes
Synopsis: Last night (5/16/24), in our Wednesday night Tehilim shiur, we dove into our in-depth analysis of this perek, raising a bunch of questions, making a bunch of observations, and following our intuition. We discussed a few ideas from the meforshim - most notably, Radak's interpretation of the grammatically anomalous word: יִרַדֹּף - ...
Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text!
Length: 1 hour 2 minutes
Synopsis: Tonight (5/8/24), in our Wednesday night Tehilim shiur, we began a new and unfamiliar perek. I selected it because it's clearly about David's struggles with his enemies and (unfortunately) that theme continues to be relevant to Jews in Israel and in the Diaspora today. The translation-work was difficult and we didn't get...
Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text!
Length: 1 hour 5 minutes
Synopsis: This evening (4/17/24), in our Wednesday night Tehilim shiur, we concluded our relearning of Tehilim 113 with the commentary of the Abravanel - and boy did he deliver! I think we ended up in a similar place to where the Radak took us last time, but we arrived there through a classically nuanced Abravanelesque reading of the pesukim. Wi...
Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text!
Length: 58 minutes
Synopsis: This evening (4/3/24), in our Wednesday night Tehilim shiur, we continued our relearning of the first chapter of Hallel. After reviewing our translation, our questions, and our approach - which we developed a bit - we decided to start learning the Abravanel's explanation in his haggadah commentary. We only got through the first three pe...
Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text!
Length: 1 hour
Synopsis: This evening (3/27/24), in our Wednesday night Tehilim shiur, we began a new project: re-learning Hallel! (or at least, the first two chapters) The last time I gave shiur on Hallel was three years ago, and there's been enough distance and enough natural forgetting that I feel like I can learn everything with a relatively fresh mind. And eve...
Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text!
Note: You are advised to at LEAST listen to Part 2 before this one, but in a pinch, you'll probably still gain if you just listen to Part 3, since we begin with a review of everything we covered in Parts 1 and 2.
Length: 1 hour 2 minutes
Synopsis: This evening (3/20/24), in our Wednesday night Tehilim shiur, we had one objective: to "land the plane&qu...
Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text!
Tehilim 22: Al Ayeles ha'Shachar (Part 2: Developing an Approach)
Note: In this case, you do NOT need to have listened to Part 1 in order to follow Part 2
Length: 1 hour 4 minutes
Synopsis: This evening (3/13/24), in our Wednesday night Tehilim shiur, we had a LOT of work to do, since we barely got any analysis done last time. I was hopeful but wo...
Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text!
Length: 1 hour 3 minutes
Synopsis: This evening (3/6/24), in our Wednesday night Tehilim shiur, we began a new perek: the somewhat lengthy and exceedingly difficult-to-read chapter 22. We chose this because Chazal hold that it's about Esther, but we'll follow our usual approach and attempt to learn it on its own before delving into that approach. We ended up n...
Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text!
Length: 1 hour 8 minutes
Synopsis: This evening (2/28/24), in our Wednesday night Tehilim shiur, we aimed to wrap up our analysis. After a thorough review of what we covered last time, we read the Meiri's commentary on the final six pesukim. This drew us into the esoteric vortex-like topic of God's Omniscience. We spent as much time on that as we needed (and p...
Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text!
Length: 1 hour 3 minutes
Synopsis: This evening (2/21/24), in our Wednesday night Tehilim shiur, we continued our analysis of Tehilim 139. After reviewing our translation, our questions, and our approaches from last week, we began learning the Meiri's beautiful pasuk-by-pasuk commentary. We covered the first section of the perek, and decided to stop at the pivot po...
Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text!
Length: 1 hour 3 minutes
Synopsis: This evening (2/14/24), in our Wednesday night Tehilim shiur, we began a new perek, and was it a DOOZY of a perek! Lengthy, poetic, filled with cryptic words and phrases and the abrupt pivot-point of them all. Daunting as it was, we raised a bunch of good questions and mapped out several approaches which look like they have potential. ...
Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text!
Length: 1 hour 8 minutes
Synopsis: Tonight (2/7/24), in our Wednesday night Tehilim/Tefilah shiur, we continued our (unprepared) exploration of the berachos said at a bris milah, with a focus on the third berachah. We read through the commentaries of the Rambam (in one of his tshuvos), Rashi (on the Gemara), and the Abudarham, and while we weren't able to go TOO i...
Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text!
NOTE: I made a mistake in my translation of the response to the 2nd berachah, according to the Rambam. It should be: "just as YOU brought him into the covenant, so should you bring him to Torah, to chuppah, and to good deeds."
Length: 1 hour 3 minutes
Synopsis: This evening (1/31/24), in our Wednesday night Tehilim shiur, we had a last-minute change ...
Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text!
Length: 1 hour
Synopsis: This evening (1/10/24), in our Wednesday night Tehilim shiur, we set out to answer our two most pressing Tehilim questions: (1) What is the main idea of the perek? (2) What is the purpose? Thanks to the commentary of R' Elia di Nola (a.k.a. Shiurei R' Ovadyah Sforno) we did just that! Even though it looked like this perek was more abou...
Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text!
Length: 1 hour 3 minutes
Synopsis: This evening (1/3/24), in our Wednesday night Tehilim shiur, we began learning a new perek that I had never seen before. I was drawn to it because it promises to shed new light on the familiar themes of lashon ha'ra and trust in Hashem. Tonight we translated the perek, raised a bunch of questions, and began theorizing. Next week (...
Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text!
Length: 58 minutes
Synopsis: This evening (12/13/23), in our Wednesday night Tehilim shiur, we reviewed what we did last time, took a couple of hesitant steps to explain the perek on our own, and then decided to let me Malbim "spoon-feed" us. We read through his commentary, then stepped back to analyze it, and BAM - we came up with a theory for the main idea a...
Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text!
Length of the article: 7 pages
Length of the audio: 20 minutes 36 seconds
Synopsis: This is the audio version of the 7-page article I published on rabbischneeweiss.substack.com/ on 12/10/23 (originally published on Kol ha'Seridim on 12/15/20), entitled: Asking for Miracles on Chanukah: Updated for 2023, in Light of the War with Hamas. Most versions of Al ha&apo...
Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text!
Length: 1 hour 3 minutes
Synopsis: This evening (12/6/23), in our Wednesday night Tehilim shiur, continued working on our perek. After reviewing the translation, the questions, and the moves we made last time, we learned a bit of Tehilim methodology from Ibn Ezra, then introduced a critical fact we were missing last time which shifted the way we approached the perek. Af...
Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text!
Length: 1 hour
Synopsis: This evening (11/29/23), in our Wednesday night Tehilim shiur, we took up Al Naharos Bavel. After an introductory "myth-busters" mini-shiur on the REAL minhag of Shir ha'Maalos (which most people do NOT follow) and a methodological interlude from William Hazlitt, we translated the perek, identified the pivot point, and began raisi...
Popular Podcasts
The Podium: An NBC Olympic and Paralympic podcast. Join us for insider coverage during the intense competition at the 2024 Paris Olympic and Paralympic Games. In the run-up to the Opening Ceremony, we’ll bring you deep into the stories and events that have you know and those you'll be hard-pressed to forget.
In The Village will take you into the most exclusive areas of the 2024 Paris Olympic Games to explore the daily life of athletes, complete with all the funny, mundane and unexpected things you learn off the field of play. Join Elizabeth Beisel as she sits down with Olympians each day in Paris.
Listen to the latest news from the 2024 Olympics.
The 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris are here and have everyone talking. iHeartPodcasts is buzzing with content in honor of the 33rd Olympic Games and you can follow Paris Summer Games to stay up to date on all things Olympics. We’re bringing you episodes from a variety of iHeartPodcast shows to help you keep up with the action. Follow Paris Summer Games so you don’t miss any coverage of the 2024 Olympic Games, and if you like what you hear, be sure to follow each Podcast in the feed for more great content from iHeartPodcasts.
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations.