Prism of Torah

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Trusting Hashem • Parshas Behaaloscha • Ep. 22

May 31, 2018

9:17

Every parent wonders when a child is ready to leave the shelter. Parshas Behaaloscha ends with Bnei Yisrael leaving Har Sinai like a child running from school, complaining about the man and demanding meat. Why would the generation that saw all those miracles act so badly? And if their reasons were sincere, why was the punishment so heavy? A reading of their motives answers it, and it speaks to how we choose schools, friends and timing for our children. A short mashal about a young tree and a strong wind makes the point.

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The Nazir's Mixed Messages • Parshas Naso • Ep. 21

May 24, 2018

12:00

Is the nazir holy or a sinner? In Parshas Naso the Torah calls him holy, and a few pesukim later he must bring a chatas, and Rabbi Elazar HaKappar says the sin is that he denied himself wine. Yet the Ramban in Kedoshim praises the person who holds back from physical pleasure, with no mention of any sin. How can both be true? Rabbi Asaf Prisman finds a way through, and a young man comes back from a date to tell his Rabbi what impressed him most about her.

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Bitachon in Hashem • Parshas Behar • Ep. 20

May 10, 2018

13:53

Shemitah comes with a promise that seems to reward the doubters. Hashem says "if you ask what we will eat in the seventh year, I will give three times the crop in the sixth." So do only the people who worry get the bigger harvest, and doesn't Hashem already promise we will be satisfied? The Sforno and Rashi read the promise in a way that asks each of us where our own trust stands. Rabbi Asaf Prisman closes with a king's sick son and three brothers who each think they saved him.

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Beyond the Cave • Sefiras Haomer • Ep. 19

May 2, 2018

11:36

Why did Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai bring his son Elazar into the cave when the Romans were only after him? And why do people cut a three-year-old's hair at his kever on Lag BaOmer? A Gemara in Makkos says a mother should have a child like Rabbi Shimon or else not give birth at all, and Rashi softens it into a tefillah. Rabbi Asaf Prisman offers a thought of his own that ties the cave, the haircut and that sentence together, and what it asks of parents who work hard for their children's chinuch.

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Keeping Our Eyes on the Prize • Parshas Emor • Ep. 18

Apr 26, 2018

13:06

On a flight from Toronto to Israel, an elderly woman handed Rabbi Asaf Prisman a small card with three cartoon panels, and it stayed with him. In Parshas Emor, why is the Korban Omer named after a measurement, when the Mincha offering has the exact same volume and isn't called that? And why does the counting to Shavuos begin with it? The Be'er Yosef and a Gemara in Kiddushin turn the question toward how we think about our work and our income.

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Lashon Hara Hurts Your Skin • Parshas Metzora • Ep. 17

Apr 12, 2018

9:54

It is easy to tell yourself that what you said about someone was true, and that you had a good reason. Parshas Metzora gives lashon hara a very specific punishment: tzaraas on the skin. Why that, when Hashem's punishments match the sin? Rav Chaim Shmulevitz points to the Gemara that counts a metzora among those considered as if dead, and the reason says something about connection between Jews. A second idea explains why it appears as a spot. Rabbi Asaf Prisman ends with the Chofetz Chaim in old age, a doctor's advice, and his surprising reaction.

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The Idea Behind Matzah • Pesach • Ep. 16

Mar 30, 2018

8:51

Matzah says two opposite things at the Seder. At the start of the Haggadah we lift it and call it the bread of the poor man in Mitzrayim, and later we lift it again and it means freedom. How can the same piece of matzah stand for poverty and for freedom? The Maharal faces the contradiction head on, and his answer begins with a surprising definition of a slave. It leaves a question to ask yourself about everything you own, before you sit down at the Seder.

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Work Hard, Rest Harder • Parshas Vayakhel & Pekudei • Ep. 15

Mar 8, 2018

12:08

Before Moshe asks for a single donation to the Mishkan, he first talks about Shabbos. The pasuk then says the work of the six days "will be done," as if by someone else. Why does Shabbos come first, why mention the six days at all when the mitzvah is to rest, and why that passive wording? Rashi and the Or HaChaim each give their own reading, and Rabbi Asaf Prisman adds another that speaks to anyone working long hours. A factory owner in Russia and the Chofetz Chaim give it a sharp ending.

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Our Reality Vs. The Absolute Truth • Parshas Ki Sisa • Ep. 14

Mar 1, 2018

13:13

Everyone asked the young chassan the same thing: how will you learn all day with no house and no support? His answer sounded like a plan with nothing in it. Years later, it looked very different. The story comes at the end of Parshas Ki Sisa, after Moshe asks to understand why the righteous suffer and Hashem shows him only His back. Why does the Gemara in Brachos tell us to bless the bad with the same full heart as the good, and how can anyone do that?

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Messages We Ignore • Purim • Ep. 13

Feb 28, 2018

10:30

Rashi on the very first pasuk of the Megillah stops at one small word, "he," and says Achashveirosh stayed the same from beginning to end. Why make a point of that, and why single out Achashveirosh when Chazal rarely do this? A comment that sounds like a note about a king turns into a message for Purim, with the help of the Rambam's two things that move a person to change. Purim asks a quiet question about the signals in our own lives.

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When Absence Speaks Volumes • Parshas Tetzaveh • Ep. 12

Feb 22, 2018

13:23

Moshe asked Hashem to erase his name from the Torah if Israel wasn't forgiven, and one parsha, Tetzaveh, is the only one without his name. Why is a man punished for caring so much about his people? And why this parsha, the one about the Kohanim? A Gemara in Zevachim says Moshe lost the role of Kohen Gadol, and that points to two ways of serving Hashem. Rabbi Asaf Prisman closes with Rebbetzin Kanievsky back from the hospital, and a line of women waiting.

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The Way To Do Chessed • Parshas Mishpatim • Ep. 11

Feb 8, 2018

12:35

The Torah doesn't just say to lend money to a poor person. In Parshas Mishpatim it adds that you must not press him, not take interest, and return his collateral at night. Why spell out so much for a mitzvah everyone understands? Rav Chaim Shmulevitz finds a principle behind the details, and the Gemara in Bava Basra gives it numbers. Rabbi Asaf Prisman brings a Chofetz Chaim story about an innkeeper, a guest and a glass that did not go where you would expect.

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Listen, Internalize & Act or Else • Parshas Yisro • Ep. 10

Feb 1, 2018

12:48

Most of us have walked out of a powerful shiur saying "wow" and changed nothing by Monday. The Zohar in Parshas Yisro asks why the whole world heard about the splitting of the sea and shuddered, yet only Yisro came. Rashi says he heard of Kriyas Yam Suf and the war with Amalek. Why those two, and why does his arrival sit right before Matan Torah? Rabbi Asaf Prisman adds the story of a man in a sandwich line in Israel, and a memory that stopped him in his tracks.

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Hakaras Hatov • Parshas Beshalach • Ep. 9

Jan 25, 2018

14:52

What did the sea see that made it split? The Midrash in Yalkut Tehillim says it saw the coffin of Yosef, and compares the sea to Yosef running away. But why would Hashem need such an open miracle at all, when Bnei Yisrael could have fought Mitzrayim? The Ksav Sofer's answer touches how we treat people who did us both good and harm. A short scene from Rav Steinman and a doctor closes it, with a few words that stay with you.

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To Do What is Really Right • Parshas Bo • Ep. 8

Jan 18, 2018

13:20

Why would the same garments be a merit in one place and a command in another? In Parshas Bo, Bnei Yisrael are saved in the merit of not changing their clothing, yet Hashem tells them to take clothing from the Egyptians. Three yeshiva boys, a popular band, and a Rosh Yeshiva who gives an ultimatum over something that was perfectly permitted bring the question close to home. Why would a Rosh Yeshiva care so much? It reaches every choice we make about things that are allowed.

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Having The Right Perspective • Parshas Vaera • Ep. 7

Jan 11, 2018

9:33

Hashem tells Moshe how much He misses the Avos, who never complained the way Moshe did. Why is that a fair comparison, when Moshe was crying out for his people and not for himself, as he did again after the Egel? The Dalki Moshe on the Midrash in Parshas Vaera finds the rebuke in one word Moshe chose. It touches what we call good and bad when life hits hard, and Rabbi Asaf Prisman closes with a recent headline that showed how one man lived it.

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When Did You Last Check Your Brakes • Parshas Shemos • Ep. 6

Jan 5, 2018

12:16

Moshe asks what merit Bnei Yisrael have to leave Mitzrayim, and Rashi says it is the Torah they will receive. Yet Chazal say it was the blood of Milah and the blood of Pesach. Which was it? Rav Yaakov Galinsky came to the question through a sticker in a taxi in Eretz Yisrael. Rabbi Asaf Prisman shares the cab ride, and a simple warning about cars that reaches much further than the road.

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Living Up Life • Parshas Shemos • Ep. 5

Jan 4, 2018

14:26

When Pharaoh stopped supplying straw but kept the quota of bricks the same, why not just double the quota? Why were their cities called arei miskenos? And what does the Midrash mean when it says Moshe sinned with the word "az" and fixed it with the same word? Rabbi Asaf Prisman starts from a question of Rav Zev Leff and a halacha in the Rambam, then brings a Gemara in Beitzah with the Chasam Sofer. Along the way comes a prisoner in a Soviet labor camp, made to turn a handle in his cell wall for ten years, and what he found out when he was freed. For anyone whose days feel like an endless loop of work and chores, this changes how every ordinary hour looks.

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Efraim & Menashe • Parshas Vayechi • Ep. 4

Dec 28, 2017

10:21

Why do we bless our sons to be like Efraim and Menashe, of all people? Our daughters are blessed to be like the Imahos, so why are our sons not blessed to be like the Avos? Rabbi Asaf Prisman brings an answer from Chazal and the Targum Yonasan, and then a halacha in the Rema that the Vilna Gaon traces back to baby Moshe refusing to nurse from the Egyptian women. It is a talk for every parent thinking about schools, friends and the world our children grow up in. He ends with a mashal of the Chofetz Chaim about travelers on their first train ride, who paid for good seats and then followed the wrong crowd, and what it says about remembering who we are.

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Being in Control of Ourselves • Parshas Vayigash • Ep. 3

Dec 21, 2017

13:29

Why was Yosef holding himself back from revealing who he was, and what do the words "in the presence of all who stood before him" add to the pasuk? And when Yosef is rushed out of the dungeon, why does the pasuk switch to say he shaved and changed on his own? Rabbi Asaf Prisman builds on the Kli Yakar and the Shem MiShmuel to show what was happening inside Yosef. It is about acting on impulse, in anger or in joy, and the regret that follows. He ends with three gedolim: Rav Chaim Kanievsky on a Chol HaMoed of loss, Rav Simcha Zissel Broide struck by a snowball outside the yeshiva in Chevron, and Rav Steinman locked out by a boy who refused to believe it was him.

221

Oil Your Potential • Chanukah • Ep. 2

Dec 12, 2017

7:06

Why is olive oil the best way to light the Chanukah candles? Why was oil poured on every new king, on Aharon the Kohen Gadol, and on the vessels of the Mikdash when they were first put to use? And what do the letters of the word shemen share with the neshama and with the number eight? Rabbi Asaf Prisman shares his own idea about what oil stands for, and why it was the very thing the Greeks fought against. He ends with a mashal of a man lost on a pitch dark night in a raging storm, where every flash of lightning hands him a choice. It is a challenge for anyone who comes out of a Yom Tov asking only how it went.

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Yosef's Dreams & Effects • Parshas Vayeshev • Ep. 1

Dec 6, 2017

14:05

After Yosef's first dream, the pasuk says his brothers hated him. After the second, it says they were jealous of him. Why the change, and what is the difference between sheaves bowing in a field and stars bowing in a circle? Rabbi Asaf Prisman follows the Bais HaLevi, who reads the two dreams closely and finds two very different kinds of greatness hiding in them. From there Rabbi Asaf Prisman turns to how much we let money and possessions define us, and what our children learn when they watch us react to a scratched car or a chipped coffee table. It ends with a man in Israel whose shiny new BMW left him worried about ayin hara, and the short questions Rav Steinman asked him in reply.

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When Bitter Becomes Sweet • Parshas Noach • Ep. 455

Oct 15, 2026

12:42

Of all the leaves in the world, why did the dove come back to Noach with an olive leaf, and why would anyone choose bitter over sweet? The answer takes Rabbi Asaf Prisman from a Gemara in Eiruvin all the way to a struggling young man in the diamond district and two phone calls he never questioned.

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The Main Ingredient That Makes a Mensch • Parshas Bereishis • Ep. 454

Oct 8, 2026

12:16

If Hashem didn't want Adam and Chava to eat from the Eitz HaDaas, why plant it at all? And why right in the middle of the garden, where they would pass it every single day, when any loving father would push the danger into a corner? Rabbi Asaf Prisman opens the new cycle with a chiddush of the Tiferes Shlomo on one small word in the pasuk, and why the creation of Chava comes right after it. From a crown on a king to a lifeguard's summer job, this one changes how you look at every limit in your life.

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Do You Earn Your Gifts? • Sukkos • Ep. 453

Sep 24, 2026

15:56

Why is Sukkos in Tishrei? The Clouds of Glory first surrounded us in Nissan, when we walked out of Mitzrayim, so the festival that commemorates them should really fall in the spring. The Tur asks it, and the Vilna Gaon answers it in a way that quietly rewrites what the whole Yom Tov is about: the Clouds we sit under are not the first Clouds at all.To bring it to life, I share the story of a young man who drove to his warehouse at two in the morning, in his pajamas, and watched every dollar he had ever earned dissolve in front of him. That night he nearly gave up entirely. What he did the next morning made his own workers think he had lost his mind, and it is the reason a certain kind of jeans exists in the world today.How it all ties together is in this week's episode.

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The Prison Sentence That Saved His Life • Parshas Haazinu • Ep. 452

Sep 17, 2026

13:24

Why does Hashem say "I" twice in Haazinu? What is the sin of "timhon levav" that we confess every Yom Kippur? And why would the seforim call the holiest day of the year "a day like Purim"? In this week's episode, Rabbi Asaf Prisman follows the Kli Yakar and Rav Gedaliah Schorr into a concept that is basic to these days of Aseres Yemei Teshuva, as we prepare for Yom Kippur. He ends with a remarkable story of how this idea shows itself, sometimes in a very unusual way: how going to prison for a crime he never committed turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to one man.

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The Worst Thing You Can Do to a Picasso • Rosh Hashana • Ep. 451

Sep 10, 2026

11:50

What is the single worst thing you could do to a priceless Picasso? Slashing the canvas ruins the picture, but it doesn't destroy the value. In this Rosh Hashana episode, Rabbi Asaf Prisman uncovers why our calendar seems completely backwards. Rosh Hashana is the Day of Judgment and Yom Kippur is the Day of Forgiveness, so why are we judged before we are cleansed? Should we not come into the Day of Judgment with a clean slate? The answer reaches why Hashem refuses to audit your failures on the Day of Judgment, and the hidden royal signature inside every single soul that no mistake on earth can ever erase.

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The Inheritance You Cannot Fake • Parshas Nitzavim • Ep. 450

Sep 3, 2026

13:48

Why does the Torah tell us to choose life so that both we and our children will live? Why should a parent's choice determine what the next generation wants? Rav Moshe Feinstein finds a startling warning in the wording: a person can keep every mitzvah and still fail to pass Torah on. A father preparing for his son's bar mitzvah faced five stranded yeshiva students and made a choice that turned an entire feast into something his son would never forget. This episode asks what children truly inherit when they watch our avodas Hashem, and why the feeling they see may matter as much as the actions themselves.

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Are You Chasing It, or Is It Chasing You? • Parshas Ki Savo • Ep. 449

Aug 27, 2026

12:55

Ki Savo promises that the blessings will chase you down and overtake you. But who runs away from a bracha in the first place? And what does it even mean that a bracha has to catch you, if Hashem already promised you would get it?Hold that question, and listen to this. A young father in kollel dies, and his nine-and-a-half-year-old son shuts down completely. The specialist's diagnosis runs several conditions long, and the treatment plan costs more money than the family will ever see. So the mother goes to the Rosh Yeshiva of Chibin and asks him to pay for it. He listens to the whole thing, and then he asks to meet the boy, sits down on the floor, and plays a game with him for hours. Months later the therapy is finished, the medication is finished, and the diagnoses are simply gone.See what the story and the pasuk have in common. Two weeks before Rosh Hashana, it changes what you should be asking for.

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Is It Your Nature, or Just Your Opinion? · Parshas Ki Seitzei · Ep. 448

Aug 20, 2026

12:16

Ammon and Moav did not come out to meet us with bread and water. Amalek attacked us in cold blood, and we are commanded to erase their memory. So why does the Torah bar a convert from Moav from marrying into Klal Yisrael forever, while a sincere convert from Amalek may marry right in, and the descendants of Haman himself learned Torah in Bnei Brak?The answer turns on where a nation's failing actually lives, and it changes what you think is fixable about yourself.I also tell the story of a woman who waited two days outside a Berlin office in the late 1930s. She was told the visas were finished. Everyone in that line heard the same words. What she said before she walked away is the reason her great grandchildren are alive.

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The Soldier Who Was Sent Home • Parshas Shoftim • Ep. 447

Aug 13, 2026

14:43

Why does the Torah send a soldier home from the front line — not for cowardice, but for having spoken between his tefillin shel yad and his tefillin shel rosh? Of every aveirah in the Torah, why is that the one that disqualifies him? This week we bring the Tolner Rebbe's approach: the arm-tefillin is a man's own strength, the head-tefillin is his awareness of Who gives him that strength, and the whole avodah is refusing to let the two come apart. A soldier who has already severed them is right to be afraid. And we are all going out to some battle every day.

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Don't Waste Your Tears • Parshas Re'eh • Ep. 446

Aug 6, 2026

13:33

A woman locks herself in her house for months after losing a child, furious at anyone still laughing, still living. Dragged to a wedding against her will, she escapes into an old pay phone just to scream and cry without being watched — and an elderly woman selling nothing but a dollar's worth of tzedaka walks over and tells her she's "wasting her tears." Then that old woman reveals she lost ten children in Auschwitz. What she says next — about where grief is supposed to go — is the whole episode. This is not a Holocaust story. It's a story about what your own tears are actually for.

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Who Is Flying Your Plane? • Parshas Eikev • Ep. 445

Jul 30, 2026

10:01

Hashem asks only one thing of you. Then the pasuk lists four more. So which is it? In Parshas Eikev, Rabbi Prisman opens a question that sits in plain sight in Devarim, and finds the same puzzle again in L'Dovid Hashem Ori, where Dovid HaMelech asks for one thing and then names several. The answer reframes what yirah actually is: not dread of punishment, but awe -- the same letters as re'iyah, seeing. And it explains why Chazal read the word Ma as Me'ah and built a hundred brachos a day on top of it. A man once told Rabbi Yaakov Galinsky he was still researching his surgeon. Galinsky asked him about the pilot.

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The Man Who Stayed Silent — and Lost the Temple • Tisha B'Av • Ep. 444

Jul 21, 2026

13:30

A man gets blamed by the Gemara for destroying Jerusalem — and he didn't do anything. He wasn't invited to the party. He didn't start the fight. He just stood there and watched someone get humiliated and thrown out, and said nothing. That silence, Rabbi Prisman argues, is the real story of the Churban — not hatred, just people who stopped noticing each other. This Tisha B'Av, that's the connection worth making: not just mourning a building, but closing the gap between not hating someone and actually feeling their pain. Ahead of Tisha B'Av, a hard question worth sitting with: if "I don't hate anyone" is the bar you're clearing, is that actually enough?

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The Grudge That Was Blocking a Marriage • Parshas Dvarim • Ep. 443

Jul 16, 2026

15:34

A family did everything to find their daughter a match — every segulah, every school, every tzedakah — and nothing worked. Then a Rav asked one question that had nothing to do with shidduchim: is theresomeone you're holding a grudge against? What they uncovered, and what happened the very next year in their own backyard, is one of the most quietly stunning stories about what's actually blocking our brachos.This episode is about why sometimes the good isn't missing — it's just waiting for us to clear something out of the way first.

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The Sacred Vessel That Made a Promise Come True • Parshas Matos Massei • Ep. 442

Jul 9, 2026

13:31

A chassidish performer made a joking promise to an 18-year-old boy dying of cancer: "Hashem will dance at your wedding." The boy just smiled and said, "maybe in another life." Years later, an invitation arrived from a wedding he didn't recognize — and what happened on that dance floor is why Rabbi Asaf Aharon Prisman says your mouth might be the most powerful thing you own. It all comes back to two words hidden in this week's parsha that most people read straight past.

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The Kid With “No Hope” Became This - Parshas Haazinu

Sep 25, 2025

9:54

A boy threw rocks through the window of a bomb shelter where Torah was being learned, and even his father seemed to have no hope for him. Rabbi Yitzhak David Grossman tried yeshiva after yeshiva, watched him fall back again and again, and almost wondered if it was time to stop. But the Steipler's answer, and the boy's future, reveal the hidden message Rav Moshe Feinstein finds in one "extra" Torah detail. The people we give up on may be the very places where one seed still matters.

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The Thing You're Most Attached To Might Be the Thing You Have to Let Go - Vzos Habracha

Oct 1, 2025

9:46

Why does the Torah end its tribute to the greatest leader who ever lived with an act of destruction? Moshe Rabbeinu spent 40 days and nights without food or water to bring down the Luchos — and the Torah's final word about him is that he smashed them. A few centuries later, a Vilna gaon known for his integrity accidentally ruined an innocent man's name for two years, and when the truth came out, an apology wasn't enough to fix it. Both stories turn on the same quiet, uncomfortable question: what are you holding onto that you know, deep down, isn't right anymore?

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The Reward for Doing Nothing - Parshas Vayilech

Sep 25, 2025

6:22

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When Cutting Someone Off Is the Peaceful Thing to Do • Parshas Pinchas • Ep. 441

Jul 2, 2026

14:25

Why does a violent act earn the title “covenant of peace”? And why, in the Sefer Torah, is the very word Shalom in that covenant written with a broken letter — with a gap in the center? Pinchas stopped a plague that had already killed 24,000 people, and Hashem's reward wasn't subtle — it was peace itself. This week we trace that reward back through a strange detail in Maaseh Bereishis, a story about a businessman who refused to take off his kippah before closing a major deal, and a pasuk that tells us which comes first: truth or peace. The answer reframes what “keeping the peace” actually requires.

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The Boxer's Father Who Beat Bilaam • Parshas Balak • Ep. 440

Jun 25, 2026

13:07

Why does Hashem first forbid Bilam from going with Balak's messengers, then on the second delegation tell him he may go, and why does the detail that Bilam is now being paid and honored change the answer? Rabbi Asaf Aharon Prisman builds this question on the Gaon of Vilna's precise distinction between 'imam' and 'itam' and on a game-changing concept from Rav Shimon Schwab about the spiritual DNA of the world.This week's Prism of Torah reveals that an act done with whole and pure intent carries enormous power, which is exactly why pure intent to curse was too dangerous to permit, while money and honor diluting Bilam's intent made it safe enough to allow. He turns the idea to its bright side with Rav Moshe Feinstein's story of the former boxer's father, who labored more than a year to finish a single daf of Gemara, made his siyum the night Rav Moshe came to speak, and never woke up.Listeners walk away understanding that the same pure fire that made Bilam dangerous becomes, turned toward kedusha, the power to acquire a whole world with a single daf.

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Build Your Best Security Net - Chukas

Jun 18, 2026

14:43

Why does Rashi tell us a completely different reason for Aharon's death — that Bnei Yisrael drew close to Eisav's nation — when the pasuk itself says it was Mei Merivah? Rabbi Prisman opens the Sfas Emes to reveal how divine judgment accounts for every life touched by a person. And there's a bonus: how did Aharon's legendary peacemaking between man and wife actually work — if you knew you were at fault, how could you believe Aharon when he said the other side feels terrible and wants to reconcile? Through the unforgettable story of Mrs. Hershkowitz's "insurance policy," we see why being truly needed by others may be the deepest security a person can build.

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When Equality Becomes Chaos- Parshas Korach - Ep. 439

Jun 11, 2026

13:46

Korach's claim that "everyone is holy" sounds noble, but Rabbi Asaf Aharon Prisman explores why Chazal saw it as spiritually lethal. Drawing from the Tolner Rebbe, he shows how Korach's vision of sameness attacked the very structure of creation itself.This week's Prism of Torah reveals how real unity comes not from erasing differences but from each person fulfilling their precise role, like instruments in a single symphony. Rabbi Prisman closes with a moving true story from the Gaza border about painted bomb shelters - and the power of individuality that saves lives.Listeners walk away seeing Shalom not as sameness, but as perfect harmony in difference.

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This One Decision Changes Everything - Ep. 438 | Parshas Shelach

Jun 4, 2026

13:55

The first spies saw Eretz Yisrael and collapsed into fear, but Yehoshua's spies entered Yericho and came back protected. Why were they sent in the disguise of kli cheres, plain pottery vessels with no real value beyond what they carry? Rabbi Prisman follows the Sfas Emes into a sharp question about mitzvos, motives, and the quiet danger of bringing your own agenda into Hashem's mission. And when a Shayetet 13 candidate stops in the water to put on tefillin, the idea suddenly becomes very real. What protection does a person find when he is willing to become only the vessel?

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Your Biggest Problem Is You - Parshas Behaaloscha- Ep. 437

May 28, 2026

12:48

Why did the silver trumpets in the Mishkan have to be hammered from a single piece of metal? And what do trumpets used for journeys, war, and Chagim have in common?In Parshas Behaaloscha, Rabbi Prisman uncovers the unifying message of the chatzotzros. Through the story of an elite IDF soldier who never knows where his blacked-out bus will take him - dropped in desert or beach, always on the move - he brings the parsha's "al pi Hashem" to life. Drawing from the Shlah Hakadosh, Rav Hirsch, and the Sefer Hachinuch, he shows that the trumpet is always a wake-up call: in movement, in danger, and in celebration alike.He closes with a story from Rav Elazar Abish about a man whose rebbe mailed back his letter of complaint with every "I" and "me" circled. The message is the same one the trumpet has been sounding all along - are you a Hashem-centric Jew or an egocentric one?

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The Real Prerequisite for Shavuos - Ep. 436

May 20, 2026

15:11

Are you truly ready to receive the Torah, or are you just waiting for the calendar to change? Why did the Jewish people have to wait months after leaving Egypt before getting the Torah? Rabbi Prisman reveals the hidden prerequisite for spiritual growth: absolute, unwavering trust in Hashem. Through a striking story involving Rav Yosef Shalom Elyashiv, discover how true emunah can actually change reality—and even halacha. Tune in to learn how to profoundly upgrade your spiritual receptacles just in time for Shavuos.

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Silence Speaks Volumes - Parshas Bamidbar

May 13, 2026

14:10

Description: What happens when you know you're right, but speaking up may cause more damage? What if silence is not weakness, but the most powerful choice available? In this practical and profound episode, Rabbi Prisman explores Gad, Aharon, Shaul HaMelech, the Sdei Chemed, and a moving story of a melamed who lost his job quietly. A meaningful, eye-opening look at silence in our own lives today.

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Are You Blocking Your Own Blessings? Episode 435 • Parshas Behar-Bechukosai

May 6, 2026

12:50

Do you ever feel like your own anxiety is blocking your success? What if worrying about the future actually cuts off the very abundance you need? This week, we explore a profound insight into the Shmita year and a surprising truth about two very different types of divine blessings. Through the lens of a striking modern-day bakery story, discover how trusting the process can bring transformative peace. Join us for a practical and eye-opening look at unlocking stress-free abundance in our own lives today.

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The Places You Fell Are the Places You're Built - Parshas Maasei

Jul 24, 2025

7:43

Why does the Torah spend an entire chapter listing 42 obscure campsites in the desert — including the places where Bnei Yisrael sinned? Rabbi Prisman reveals a Midrash that transforms how we understand failure, memory, and growth. Then he shares the unforgettable true story of a dying atheist professor who walked back into the classroom that made him — and did the one thing that changed everything.

250

Ambassadors Without a Microphone • Episode 434 • Parshas Emor

Apr 30, 2026

13:33

What if your biggest influence is happening when you are not trying to influence anyone? What if your children, your family, even strangers are absorbing far more than your words? In Parshas Emor, Rabbi Prisman uncovers a practical and profound lesson from the Kohanim, society’s pull, and a powerful Kotel story that reached all the way to Dallas. This episode is packed with parables and stories for our own lives today.

Prism of Torah

Prism of Torah

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