Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe Podcast Collection

00:03 - Intro (Announcement)
You are listening to Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe of Torch in Houston, Texas. This is the Prayer Podcast.

00:12 - Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe (Host)
All right, good morning everybody. Welcome back to the Prayer Podcast. Today we are going to begin to hopefully open up a little bit of the wisdom behind the special prayer of Kaddish, a little bit of the wisdom behind the special prayer of Kaddish. Kaddish, we all know, is a tremendous prayer that is recited by mourners, but there are actually five different types of Kaddish. Those of you who have the handouts, those of you who are just listening online or watching this presentation there's a link to our Google Drive. You can download this sheet and follow along with us. There is the Chatzik Kaddish, which is the half Kaddish, which is recited by the Chazen between major sections of prayer service to serve as a brief break or punctuation. We have the full Kaddish, the Kaddish Sholem, recited by the Chazen at the end of a service, after the Amidah, and concludes an added request for peace for the entire community. We have the mourner's Kaddish, which is like the full Kaddish. We'll see that it's a little bit different, a little bit different. We have the rabbi's Kaddish, which is called Kaddish de Rabbanan, which is recited after studying a section of rabbinic text to include a blessing for scholars and their students. There's also part of that rabbinic Kaddish. We're including the Siyum Kaddish, that when someone concludes the full study of a tractate of Talmud or Mishnah, it is recited after concluding a section of Talmud similar to the full Kaddish but has a unique beginning to this Kaddish. And then we have the burial Kaddish, and this is a Kaddish which is specific to a graveside burial a graveside burial, a special Kaddish recited at the graveside during a burial, which is the only version that mentions the resurrection. Now, if you notice, at the end of each of these sections we have numbers, and what I did was, because you have different Kaddishes that include different parts, I didn't print them all separately, I printed one that includes them all. And if you look at the Chatzikadish, the half kadish on top, it is section one, two and five. So if you look at one, two and five, that is the entire half kadish. If you look for the full kadish, it's one, two, five, six, eight. Okay, I hope it's not too confusing. I try to figure out a system that I can include everything on one sheet and not print five different Kaddishs out. But maybe next class I'll do that. But if someone were to recite the mourner's Kaddish, it would be 1, 2, 5, and 8, which is again the common one what is Kaddish?

03:05
What is Kaddish, what is Kaddish? So our sages tell us Kaddish means the word Kaddish, which means holy or sanctified. Kaddish means to sanctify, and what we're saying in the Kaddish, what we're declaring in the Kaddish, is we are proclaiming our belief in Hashem, that he is Echad, that he is one, and our declaration in our understanding, in God's providence. God knows everything that's going on. This is what we're declaring in Kaddish. In Kaddish, what we're doing the number one conclusion that one has to understand when we learn about Kaddish. In Kaddish, what we're doing, the number one conclusion that one has to understand when we learn about Kaddish we're sanctifying God's name. Kaddish means we're declaring out in public Yitgadel vi, yitgadesh shemei rabah In Ezekiel 38, verse number 23.

04:06
V'hizgadilti v'hizkadishti, I will be exalted and I will be sanctified. And then the verse continues V'nodati le'enei goyim rabim v'yodu k'ani Hashem, and I will make myself known before the eyes of the nations, of many nations. Then they will know that I am Hashem. This is Kaddish. Kaddish is about bringing in front of our eyes a clarity that Hashem is the master of the universe, that Hashem is the master of all. So Kaddish is recited at all transition points In prayer.

04:49
We mentioned previously in our prayer podcast that there are four different worlds that we travel through in our prayer, and this point we just concluded. We talked about the morning blessings, we talked about the offerings and now we're about to begin the next phase of our prayer. Remember the four different worlds that we talked about? It's in my notes someplace here but we go from one world to the next world, to the next world, to the next world, to the next world, all the way to the fourth, which the highest, which is the Amidah, and then we slowly go back down, back down to this world, the world that we're living in right here, the Ulama Asiya. So what happens is, each time we transcend and descend from one of those worlds, we recite a Kaddish. Transcend and descend from one of those worlds, we recite a Kaddish. This Kaddish that we're about to recite after the offerings, before we begin the verses of praise, is a bridge between worlds. That's why we recite a Kaddish. We also see a Kaddish when someone passes away. It's also a bridge between worlds, right? So we see that the Kaddish is a transition prayer bridging between worlds. Kaddish is the most powerful praise of Hashem, the most powerful praise.

06:15
Now, many people think Kaddish is something having to do with the deceased. It's not. What we're doing is utilizing this opportunity, this moment of truth where someone passed away. Suddenly people start thinking, oh, you know something, I'm not going to be here permanently, I'm not going to be here forever. You know, life is temporary, it's fleeting. I better do something real. So what do we do? Declare Hashem's name, and it's sometimes a letdown for people. They thought it would be like some memory for their deceased. Instead, we're declaring Hashem's name. Right, that is the greatest elevation we can do for the deceased is reciting a Kaddish is the greatest elevation for their soul.

06:57
Now, if you notice, if you try to read these words, it's in Aramaic, it's not in Hebrew. What's going on? So we have three reasons that I found Three reasons why we say it in Aramaic. Number one is because the angels don't understand it. They don't understand Aramaic. They speak the Hebrew, the holy tongue, lashon HaKodesh. They speak, but they don't understand this, and this allows our growth. It allows our growth in our elevation, because they're sort of disarmed. They don't know what we're saying. The angels don't know. So this allows us to declare and internalize the oneness of Hashem in our Kaddish.

07:40
Additionally, our sages tell us and this is from the Talmud in Brachot, the Talmud says Brachot. The Talmud says this following an amazing story, tanya. It was taught in a Bressa Amr, rabbi Yossi. Rabbi Yossi said I was once traveling on the road and I entered into one of the ruins of Jerusalem to pray Elijah the prophet, may his memory be for the good. He came to me, he says, and he waited for me at the entrance of the rune until I finished my prayer. After I finished my prayer, he said Elijah said to me Peace be upon you, my teacher. And I responded back Peace unto you, my teacher, my master. So Elijah asks him Amorli, tell me, my son, why did you go into this ruin and place yourself into a state of danger? I went in to pray. You should have prayed on the road. Why do you pray in the ruins? It's going to fall, it's going to hurt you, rabbi Yossi says. I told him in response. I was afraid that passers-by might interrupt me. Then you should have prayed a shorter prayer. You should have made it quicker. Before continuing to relate this dialogue with Elijah, rabbi Yossi paused to comment and he said as follows At that moment I learned three things from him.

09:50
Number one I learned that you don't enter into a place of ruin. Why? Because it's a danger. You can't put yourself into a place of danger. I learned that you are allowed to pray when you're traveling on the road. And thirdly, I learned that someone who is praying when they're traveling can pray a shorter, abridged prayer.

10:20
So now Rabbi Yossi continues with his story with Elijah. And Elijah said to me so now Rabiosi continues with his story with Elijah. I heard a heavenly voice that was cooing like a dove and saying Woe to the sons because of whose sins I destroyed my house, woe to my sons, and I burned my sons. But on each and every day, the heavenly voice says exactly that Woe unto my children, woe unto my sons Because of whose sins I destroyed my house. And not only this, only this when the Jewish people enter into the study halls, enter into the prayer halls, and they say, and they respond to the Kaddish by saying may God's name be great, may his name be blessed, hashem's head shakes and Hashem says wow, wow, wow. Fortunate is the king who is praised this way in his house. What is there for the father who has exiled the son? And woe to the sons who have been exiled from their father's table. This declaration from heaven is declared three times a day. You know those three times a day. You know those three times a day Morning, afternoon and evening. Shachras ben Chomayravon. We go to pray and we say Amen, yehei Shemei Rabba. The heavenly voices come out and say, ah, what a king that has so many beautiful children, so many followers who say and sanctify God's name in the world Understand the power of these prayers.

13:24
When we say Yemini, yeheishmei Rabbah, it's not just like oh, this is something I say. We say it in a way, in a way that we can understand. It used to be or sages tell us right. When was this prayer instituted? It was instituted by the men of the Great Assembly after the First Temple was destroyed. After the First Temple was destroyed, it was a time of devastating confusion for the people, and the rabbis instituted this prayer and they spoke Aramaic. That was the language they spoke. They didn't speak Hebrew, they didn't speak the holy tongue, so they recited it in a language that they understand. And finally, the Zohar tells us that, specifically in a secular language, yeheishmei Rabah. Specifically in a secular language, it is recited to elevate it. We have to understand that everything we have in our world is meant for us to elevate it. Here the Zohar teaches us we say it in Aramaic, so we elevate that language. Imagine the language of English is plenty to elevate. We elevate it. When we talk words of Torah In English. We're elevating the language. Because what is it In last week's Torah portion?

14:49
What happened? We had the Tower of Babel, where the people were going to build a huge, huge tower like the Burj Al Khalifa right in Saudi Arabia, in the UAE. They were going to build this massive tower and they were going to fight against God. So what did God do? God got back at humanity and he confused them all. Fight against God. So what did God do? God got back at humanity and he confused them all with different languages. Suddenly, you have people speaking Russian, italian, spanish. Nobody knows what the. This one's speaking German, this one's speaking English, this one's speaking French. Nobody understands what the other guy's talking. They're like you know what I'm out of here, and they all dispersed and one went to the far east and one went to the west and one went to north and one went south, and everyone speaks different languages.

15:40
All of those languages need to glorify Hashem, and when we say the the Kaddish in a foreign language, we're elevating that language in sanctification of Hashem's name. Kaddish has 10 praises of Hashem, like the 10 songs in Psalms, and we're about to recite those Psalms in our Psuchidizim, in our verses of praise, which follows this Kaddish and this is sort of like the segue for it. The Zohar tells us as well that Kaddish and this is sort of like the segue for it the Zohar tells us as well that Kaddish breaks up all the evil limitations, all the klipot, all the barriers, and breaks the power of all forces of evil. Kaddish has an amazing power, kadesh has an amazing power. It's pure acceptance of whatever happens and the highest level of revelation of Hashem in this world. When we say you know what? We're relinquishing our power to Hashem. We have no power. We convince ourselves that we have power, but when we're saying everything was created in Hashem's will Exactly how Hashem wants it, that means that I don't have the power, I don't have the ability. It's all in the hands of Hashem. And I say my hands are up and I'm saying I'm not in control, hashem is in control, it's all Hashem. By us declaring may Hashem's name be great, may Hashem's name be elevated, we are binding, we are elevating ourselves to Hashem's will and we reveal Hashem's ultimate will to the entire world.

17:44
We say the Talmud says Someone who says, someone who says Yehei Shemei Rabba, mivarach La'olam U'olmi Amaya, may his great name be blessed forever and ever. When we say this, we are forgiven of all of our sins, even the sin of idolatry. Our sages tell us that the Garden of Eden, gan Eden, is open before a person who recites Amen, yehe Shmei Rabba, with all of his strength, with all of his strength, yehe Shmei Rabba. This phrase, these seven words, have 28 letters. What's the numeric value of 28? Koach strength. Our sages tell us Koach, with all of your strength, yehei Shemei Rabbo, screaming on top of your lungs, the gates of heaven open up, all the gates of mercy, all forgiveness, everything opens up. Why? Because what we're doing is but what does it mean with? So? Our sages say, some say physically, with all of our strength, but others say with all of our intention, with all of our focus, with all of.

19:15
By the way, when the 10 days we add, we add an extra word. So what we do is, instead of saying, we say because you have to adjust for that word. We mentioned this many times previously in our prayer podcast that the number of words have very, very significant meaning, and when there's 28 words, it needs to remain 28 words. You can't just add a word. If you add a word, you're going to have to merge another word right. And that's why when we say le'elah, typically we'd say le'elah min kol, which is three words. But now we're adding le'eila, u'le'eila, and the min kol becomes mi kol. It's very important to remember that.

20:05
Okay, so now Chazal instituted Kaddish seven times daily, seven times a day. We should recite, we should hear, we should recite Kaddish, three in the morning, two in the afternoon, two in the evening. All right, so we have seven Kaddishes Now. On a typical day, if you have a mourner, someone who's within the first year, or someone who has a yard site, you will say you'll have Kaddish many more than seven times just in the first year. Or someone who has a Yartzeit, you will say you'll have Kaddish many more than seven times. Just in the morning. You'll have one before Psuket HaZimra. You'll have one before the blessings of the Shema, you'll have one right after. You'll have one after reading the Torah. You'll have one after Ashrei Uvaletzion. You'll have one after Elenu, you'll have one after Hayom Yom, you'll have one after the Kaveh, you'll have seven right there just in the morning, and sometimes even more, sometimes you'll add even more, but you have three, two, two. That's the bare minimum of a day in a Jewish life is three Kaddish in the morning two by Mincho, one before the Amidah, one after the Amidah and by Mariv, one before the Amidah, one after the Amidah and by Mariv, one before the Amidah and one after the Amidah. Why? Because the verse in Psalms tells us Sheva b'yom, hilal ticho, seven times a day. I will praise you. This is Psalms 119. Now, the original Kaddish was the half Kaddish, but later our sages added to it the Tiskabot Zaloson, which is to accept our prayers. Al Yisroel Val Rabanon, we praise our scholars. Yehe Shlomarit, there should be peace During the Gaonic era. These were added. Now Kaddish is a Dover Shabektushah. We mentioned this previously.

21:56
Whenever you have something which is called an element of holiness, you need to have a minimum of 10 people. A minimum of 10 people, 10 adults, and only recited with 10. Why? Because Hashem dwells with a minimum of 10. We see this in the I believe it's next week's Torah portion where Abraham is negotiating with God. Where God tells him I'm going down to Sodom to destroy it, god says whoa, whoa, whoa. If there are 50 righteous, will you save them? 45, 40, 35, 30, 25, 20, 15, 10, and then less than 10, god can't. God dwells where there's 10. And that's the secret number. All things of holiness, all matters of holiness, are with a minimum of 10 adults.

22:43
And it's composed, as we mentioned previously, by the Anshek, neses Agdolah, by the men of the Great Assembly, after the destruction of the first temple, during exile, and it's sourced, like we mentioned, in chapter 38, verse 23 of Ezekiel, striving for restoration of Hashem's name, that we recognize that Hashem is master of all, and all the nations need to know this. Hashem is the master, hashem, creator of heaven and earth, the one who took us out of Egypt. Yeah, that God, that God is the power and it's the only God there is. The rest are deities, the rest are idols. They're not real. We have to remember this. Hashem, creator of heaven and earth, didn't take a coffee break and hasn't left us for a moment. He's one and only one Master of the universe. All of the nations need to get to the point of knowledge. This is our job to bring this to the world.

23:48
Kaddish is such a powerful prayer. Kaddish reminds us of our responsibility to make a Kiddush Hashem. Our job is to restore God's name in this world, to be a representative of God in this world, not to be taken lightly A very, very powerful responsibility. For this, we also recite Kaddish at the Siyam of a conclusion of a tractate or after any Torah study. When there's 10 adults studying Torah together, we recite a Kaddish as well.

24:21
Because what we're doing is we're saying it's not enough to just learn. You have to share what you learn. You have to sanctify God's name, not only within yourself, to all of those around you, to all of those that you can influence and utilize all of these pieces of technology. We have Podcasting, we have videos, and it goes to platforms that some of you may never even have heard of. Right, why? Because this is our job to sanctify God's name. This is our responsibility.

24:53
What we're doing right now, sharing this with the world, is our responsibility. God says bring my name to the entire world so the entire world knows that I am Hashem. My dear friends, we cannot achieve sanctification alone. We cannot be on an island and achieve sanctification of God's name. This is the reason why it's important for us to be part of a community, to pray with others. We can't be in isolation. Isolation is not a Jewish thing. Unity is a Jewish thing when we all come together and when we pray in unison, when we join together in synagogue.

25:41
And it's fine for us to have multiple synagogues, that's great. It doesn't have to be one, but each one should have at least 10 men. There has to be. That's why there's almost like a in a way. It's a big challenge because there are many people who think that it's a biblical obligation for us to go to synagogue. It's not true. It's a rabb, a biblical obligation for us to go to synagogue. It's not true. It's a rabbinic obligation for us to go to synagogue.

26:05
But people want to forego a biblical prohibition of driving on Shabbos to do a rabbinic, of going to Shul. It's off. It's off, it's not appropriate. There's a commandment to observe the Shabbos. This is a biblical commandment to observe the Shabbos. This is a biblical commandment to observe the Shabbos. The rabbis instituted prayer in public from all the things that we've learned from the Torah. But it's not a biblical obligation. We can pray at home. Prayer is a biblical obligation. Prayer in temple, in synagogue. That is a rabbinic decree. That's rabbinic decree. That's rabbinic in nature. So we can't forego a biblical for a rabbinic.

26:55
If you don't live close to a synagogue, move close to one. Join a friend for Shabbos who lives in a community that's walking distance to a synagogue. It's a desecration of God's name. If there is a sign in a synagogue which says that the parking spot is reserved for the rabbi seven days a week, that's a desecration of God's name. I've seen them, sadly. You walk to synagogue, so it'll be inconvenient when it rains, it'll be inconvenient when it's hot, so what Move? Walk to synagogue, so it'll be inconvenient when it rains, it'll be inconvenient when it's hot, so what? Move closer to synagogue.

27:30
The entire Jewish history has been Jews ready to let go of everything to just be next to a synagogue so that they don't need to desecrate Shabbos. This is our calling, my dear friends. Let's go and let's sanctify the name of Hashem every single minute, every single day. God willing, next week we'll go into the translation of the Kaddish so we can understand the words that we're reciting and be elevated from it. My dear friends, thank you so much. Have a magnificent week.

28:01
The Halacha says that you should stand during the Kaddish, during the recitation of Kaddish. Why? Because you're sanctifying God's name, you don't remain sitting. You stand up A time of honor. Now, in Sephardic synagogues that's not the case. In Sephardic synagogues, they sit by Kaddish, they sit by Kaddish. That's their custom. That's the way they sanctify. You know, in different places they had different customs of, for example, was it honor for the rabbi to sit and the students to stand, or the students to sit and the rabbi to stand? That was different in different locations, you understand. So the honor is different in different places.

28:40
Now, what happens if someone who's not Sephardic is praying in a Sephardic synagogue? Do they stand or do they sit? Our sages tell us that you don't stand out from the congregation and if the congregation sits, you sit. If the congregation stands, you stand. So a Sephardic who's in an Ashkenaz synagogue will stand and an Ashkenaz who's in a Sephardic synagogue will sit. You follow the congregation, you're part of the congregation. So it's important to remember that. My dear friends, this is a real honor, a real privilege. Have a fabulous, beautiful, amazing, terrific week.

29:15 - Intro (Announcement)
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