The Mishlei Podcast

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text!Mishlei 16:18 - Pride Goeth Before Breaking and Stumblingלִפְנֵי שֶׁבֶר גָּאוֹן, וְלִפְנֵי כִשָּׁלוֹן גֹּבַהּ רוּחַ:Length: 1 hour 24 minutesSynopsis: This evening (12/9/24), in our Monday Night Mishlei shiur, we learned what is probably one of the most oft-quoted well, oft-paraphrased) pesukim in the world. The main thrust was obvious enough. The trick was to find the chidushim (new insights) - and that's what we did! We came up with...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text!Mishlei 15:10 - Bad Mussar (Part 2)מוּסָר רָע לְעֹזֵב אֹרַח שׂוֹנֵא תוֹכַחַת יָמוּת:Length: 47 minutesSynopsis: This morning (12/5/24), in our morning Mishlei shiur, we continued learning yesterday's pasuk and encountered a surprising level of difficulty. Metzudas David didn't give us much to work with. Rabbeinu Yonah was clear, but we couldn't discern a clear and "worthy" chidush. Thankfully, we got a nice idea from the Malbim and an...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text!Mishlei 15:10 - Bad Mussar (Part 1)מוּסָר רָע לְעֹזֵב אֹרַח שׂוֹנֵא תוֹכַחַת יָמוּת:Length: 47 minutesSynopsis: This morning (12/4/24), in our morning Mishlei shiur, we began learning an unusually difficult-to-translate pasuk. It's not uncommon for us to have multiple translations for a given pasuk, but we had SEVEN different ways to translate the first half of this one, and rumor has it that there are more. We came up with a few frui...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text!Mishlei 16:17 - Mesilas Yesharim According to Mishleiמְסִלַּת יְשָׁרִים סוּר מֵרָע שֹׁמֵר נַפְשׁוֹ נֹצֵר דַּרְכּוֹ:Length: 1 hour 29 minutesSynopsis: This evening (12/2/24), in our Monday Night Mishlei shiur, we learned the pasuk from which the title of the classic mussar work "Mesilas Yesharim" is derived. We had a surprisingly hard time coming up with ideas of our own. Surprisingly, we found it challenging to generate our own ideas....

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text!Mishlei 15:9 - Hashem's Love and Loathing in Mishlei (Part 2)תּוֹעֲבַת י"י דֶּרֶךְ רָשָׁע וּמְרַדֵּף צְדָקָה יֶאֱהָב:Length: 47 minutesSynopsis: This morning (11/28/24), in our morning Mishlei shiur, we set out to clarify and develop the different approaches we came up with yesterday. I THOUGHT we were going to learn the meforshim, but the only one we ended up learning was R' Yitzchak ben Sheshes Gerondi. After much discussion, we end...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text!Mishlei 15:9 - Hashem's Love and Loathing in Mishlei (Part 1)תּוֹעֲבַת י"י דֶּרֶךְ רָשָׁע וּמְרַדֵּף צְדָקָה יֶאֱהָב:Length: 46 minutesSynopsis: This morning (11/27/24), in our morning Mishlei shiur, we started learning a pasuk which appears to be connected to the previous one, which also speaks of an "abomination of Hashem," but we decided to approach this on its own. We quickly uncovered several overlapping possibilities and two dis...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text!Mishlei 16:16 - Forget Gold and Silver; Invest in Chochmah and Binahקְנֹה חׇכְמָה מַה טּוֹב מֵחָרוּץ, וּקְנוֹת בִּינָה נִבְחָר מִכָּסֶף:Length: 1 hour 16 minutesSynopsis: This evening (11/25/24), in our Monday Night Mishlei shiur, we learned a pasuk that - unlike the last six pesukim - was NOT about kings! At least, not according to us. We attempted to learn this pasuk on our own. We didn't realize that so many of our go-to meforshim ...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text!Mishlei 16:15 - The Nature of the King's Favorבְּאוֹר פְּנֵי מֶלֶךְ חַיִּים, וּרְצוֹנוֹ כְּעָב מַלְקוֹשׁ:Length: 1 hour 10 minutesSynopsis: This evening (11/18/24), in our Monday Night Mishlei shiur, we learned the last pasuk in the local cluster of pesukim about kings. Once again, I was worried that we would have difficulty seeing past the cliche surface level - and once again, we did! We ended up with several really nice approaches ...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text!Mishlei 15:8 - Tefilah and Korbanos in Mishlei?! (Part 2)זֶבַח רְשָׁעִים תּוֹעֲבַת י"י וּתְפִלַּת יְשָׁרִים רְצוֹנוֹ:Length: 46 minutesSynopsis: This morning (11/14/24), in our morning Mishlei shiur, we turned to the meforshim. We encountered some nice ideas, but also found that their approaches overlapped to the extent that it was difficult to tell where one distinct idea ended and another one began. By the end, we pulled together a ...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text!Mishlei 15:8 - Tefilah and Korbanos in Mishlei?! (Part 1)זֶבַח רְשָׁעִים תּוֹעֲבַת י"י וּתְפִלַּת יְשָׁרִים רְצוֹנוֹ:Length: 46 minutesSynopsis: This morning (11/13/24), in our morning Mishlei shiur, we began working on a pasuk which looks like it belongs in Tehilim or the Neviim more than in Mishlei. We worked on one approach, then set it aside to review Rabbeinu Yonah's definition of "yashar." Tomorrow (בג"ה) we'll attempt our own a...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text!Mishlei 16:14 - Calming an Angry Kingחֲמַת מֶלֶךְ מַלְאֲכֵי מָוֶת, וְאִישׁ חָכָם יְכַפְּרֶנָּה:Length: 1 hour 28 minutesSynopsis: This evening (11/11/24), in our Monday Night Mishlei shiur, we learned another pasuk about kings. This one also seemed simple, but we ended up stumbling upon some surprising approaches - especially when we saw meforshim who applied this pasuk to the King of kings! And, not surprisingly - given the recent el...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text!Mishlei 15:7 - The Lips of the Wise vs. the Heart of Fools (Part 2)שִׂפְתֵי חֲכָמִים יְזָרוּ דָעַת וְלֵב כְּסִילִים לֹא כֵן:Length: 47 minutesSynopsis: This morning (11/7/24), in our morning Mishlei shiur, we reviewed and refined yesterday's approaches, which translated יזרו as "spread" or "scatter." Today we focused on two other translations: "winnow" and "crown." Not only did we come up with some nice ideas, but we unwittingly stumb...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text!Mishlei 15:7 - The Lips of the Wise vs. the Heart of Fools (Part 1)שִׂפְתֵי חֲכָמִים יְזָרוּ דָעַת וְלֵב כְּסִילִים לֹא כֵן:Length: 46 minutesSynopsis: This morning (11/6/24), in our morning Mishlei shiur, we learned a "classic" sounding Mishlei pasuk about chachamim, ksilim, speech, and knowledge. The pasuk proved to be surprisingly rich in questions and we developed three approaches based on one of the two translations. Tomorrow, we...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text!Mishlei 16:13 - The Kind of Speaker (that Should Be) Favored by Kingsרְצוֹן מְלָכִים שִׂפְתֵי צֶדֶק, וְדֹבֵר יְשָׁרִים יֶאֱהָב:Length: 1 hour 20 minutesSynopsis: This evening (11/4/24), in our Monday Night Mishlei shiur, we learned another pasuk about kings. I was a little worried because so many of our go-to meforshim had such little to say, but we ended up developing some nice approaches on our own and we learned a few from the mefo...

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text!Mishlei 15:6 - The Blight of the Rasha in the Bayis and the Sadeh (Part 2)בֵּית צַדִּיק חֹסֶן רָב וּבִתְבוּאַת רָשָׁע נֶעְכָּרֶת:Length: 46 minutesSynopsis: This morning (10/31/24), in our morning Mishlei shiur, we began by reviewing, clarifying, and developing some of the approaches we took yesterday. We then learned three new approaches from the meforshim: R' Sheshes ben Yitzchak Gerondi (our newly published friend!), Rabbeinu Yonah...