In this episode, we explore a mystical passage from the Zohar (Pinchas 102:679) that unpacks the ancient Yom Kippur ritual of the two goats—one offered to YHVH, the other sent to Azazel. Through this lens, we reflect on the dual nature of spiritual work: reaching toward unity and compassion while also facing and integrating our inner shadows. Paired with teachings from the Degel Machaneh Ephraim, Meor Einayim, and Maor VaShemesh on the command to "be holy," we uncover a rich tapestry of insights about communal holiness, spiritual humility, and the ongoing journey of becoming. This episode is a deep dive into the paradox of wholeness: that holiness is found not by escaping the world, but by embracing it fully—together.

Neshamah Project Episode 76: The Two Goats: Wholeness Through Shadow and Light

Kade si Mome / Къде си, моме

Colorful Profiles - Lesson 1
Courageous Converts
With Rabbi Ari Sollish
Recorded Live at The Torah Center ATL on Wednesday, May 7, 2025

A Roman prince outwits his uncle to study Torah, an Italian priest studies his way to a new life, and a Polish noble meets an old Jew studying Talmud on a Paris park bench—see their journey to Judaism and what came next.

Colorful Profiles - Lesson 1 - Courageous Converts

We explore a mystical Hasidic teaching from the Degel Machaneh Ephraim on Parashat Emor—how Divine speech becomes healing or harmful depending on how we "combine the letters." Join me for a reflection on sacred interpretation, spiritual responsibility, and the redemptive power of words. I close the episode with an original spoken word poem inspired by this teaching.

Neshamah Project Podcast Episode 77:  How We Read It

"Evil, like a fever in the body, is not a substance but a disarrangement of the elements. When order is restored, the disease disappears." 
--St. Gregory of Nyssa

Distortion Cannot Unmake What Love Has Spoken

Unguard The Serene & Secretmost

Colorful Profiles - Lesson 2
Influential Jews
With Rabbi Ari Sollish
Recorded Live at The Torah Center ATL on Wednesday, May 14, 2025

Spain’s top Torah scholar leads a Muslim Army, an Amsterdam rabbi with a printshop talks England into readmitting Jews, and a rabbi teaches a Catholic scholar and saves Central Europe’s Jewish books—how did they integrate Judaism into their influence?

Colorful Profiles - Lesson 2 - Influential Jews

Dave Brisbin 5.11.25
Our English words patriarchal and paternal descend from the Latin word pater, father. We know about patriarchy—society organized around male domination, often to the point of excluding women—but paternalism is restricting the freedom and autonomy of others under the guise of protecting their own welfare. The US started out patriarchal but not paternal. We didn’t allow women to vote until 1920 but also didn’t collect income tax until 1913, generally leaving people to fend for themselves for better or worse. Today, we’re thankfully much less patriarchal, but much more paternal.

On Mother’s Day, this is something to consider, because the church also been shamefully patriarchal, reflecting the culture around it. But since scripture does appear to portray God as male, is God patriarchal and/or paternal? We may wish God to be more paternal, happy to give up freedom for better risk control…but patriarchal? Male?

Though we won’t find Mother God in the scriptures, the Hebrew mind couldn’t conceive of father without mother. In their very language, father meant “strong house” and mother, “strong water,” the glue that held the family together. There could not be one without the other. God was seen as father in creating the heavens and earth around us, but the Hebrew words for spirit, kingdom, wisdom, presence, were all feminine—spirit was “she” and kingdom was “queendom.” There was no God short of the full spectrum of attributes we see between father and mother, and the wisdom, compassion, intuition, devotion of God is portrayed over and over in both testaments as a God in labor, giving birth, nursing, comforting, caressing.

Jesus always led with mother first, breaking ritual and social barriers in order to establish compassionate relationship before he ever instructed paternally. Father may symbolize strength, but without Mother, there is no reason to be strong. Scripture shows us a necessary and complementary balance, but more essentially, that we will never know Father God until we first experience God as Mother. All of God.

God is an eternal oscillation between mother and father, a paradox we can never resolve.

Restoring Mom

No privation, no shadow, no wound can undo the Word that is. 

The Seeds Of Truth Are Scattered Everywhere

Rabbi Ben is  a teacher of esoteric Wisdom, kabbalistic and musical.

The Torah Center ATL takes pride in offering innovative, inclusive, and impactful educational programs to all. People from a diverse spectrum of life find the Center to be a warm and non-judgmental community in which to experience the richness and authenticity of Jewish learning and heritage. 
~
Support our work!
http://thetorahcenteratl.org/donate

Audio podcasts delivered at theeffect church in San Clemente, CA. theeffect is a community of imperfect people working together to find the emotional recovery and spiritual transformation that is theeffect of God’s love by unlearning limiting perceptions, beliefs, and compulsions, and engaging a first century Jesus in a non-religious and transforming way. See more at theeffect.org.

True North with Dave Brisbin is a podcast about the things that can bring you back to center, whether God, spirituality, community or family or all of them. Never esoteric or abstract for its own sake; always practical and full of common sense, we’re interested in exploring the effect of what we believe on our lives and questioning what we believe in light of the deep connection we’re meant to live. Dave Brisbin is an author, speaker, coach, and songwriter. He is the teaching pastor of theeffect, a faith community and recovery ministry in San Clemente, CA and executive director of Encompass Recovery, an addiction treatment center in San Juan Capistrano. For more on finding deeper spiritual expression free from limiting beliefs and behavior, go to davebrisbin.com.

ambient synth + shortwave theohauntology experiments

New tracks tagged #Mysticism