New Season Introduction: Seeking Ecstasy

Welcome to the intro episode of the new season of Truths: Jewish Wisdom for Today—“Seeking Ecstasy.” In this kickoff, Rabbi Dr. Levi Brackman explains why the podcast paused, why he’s launching from the holy city of Safed, and what this season is all about: exploring personal Jewish theology and the paths each of us can take to encounter the Divine in ecstatic communion.

🔍 In this episode you’ll discover:

• The story behind the podcast’s brief hiatus and its return
• The two dimensions of Jewish theology—communal mission vs. personal relationship with God
• How Torah figures from Adam to Moses modeled the search for Divine connection
• Why Safed (Tzfat), center of Kabbalistic study, sets the stage for “Seeking Ecstasy”
• A preview of upcoming conversations with thought leaders on mystical pathways

🔔 Subscribe for weekly episodes diving into personal theology, transformative teachings, and fearless critical inquiry.
👍 Like if you’re ready to embark on your own journey toward Divine ecstasy.
💬 Comment below: What does “ecstasy” mean to you in your spiritual practice?

Transcript

0:03

Welcome to Truths the podcast where love for Tyra is real, the Jewish people, and God meets fearless critical inquiry through powerful conversations and thought provoking solo teachings, we explore how timeless Jewish wisdom can ignite 21st century meaning. Drive personal transformation, deepen our connection to God and to one another, and inspire bold action to heal our world. Here's your host, rabbi, Dr. Levy. Brackman. it's La Brackman, with truths, Jewish Wisdom for today. Thank you so much for joining this is a brand new season of the podcast Truths, Jewish Wisdom for today, I'm calling this season Seeking Ecstasy. Now, as you can see, I am not in my regular setting, not in my office, but rather. I am in the Holy city of sva. As you can see, in the background, got the hills of the Galilee, and this is really a very, very wonderful setting and a very, very appropriate place to be launching this new season of this podcast, which I hope will be very informative for you, but also it's a journey which I'm very excited to take. So let me explain to you my audience a little bit about what this season is going to be about and why I'm embarking upon this season. But before I do, I think I perhaps owe an explanation of why this podcast has had a little bit of a hiatus recently, and that is because general in my life, I always look at what my priorities are in any given time. A number of months ago, it became apparent to me that there were other things that were taking priority from doing the podcast. You know, this podcast actually takes a while to film and to prepare for, and therefore, in order to do it right, I need to dedicate time in my week to it. And I found that there were other issues which I had to deal with in other areas of my life related to my businesses that I had to focus on, and therefore, the priorities. Changed. It doesn't mean that the podcast wasn't still a priority, but other things moved up in the priority list and therefore this moved down a little bit. Now those things now are taking a little bit of a lesser priority. And now the podcast is again, a. Higher up in the priority list, and therefore I'm taking the time again to film these episodes. But this season is going to be different. I'm calling it Seeking Ecstasy because what it's really about is trying to figure out Jewish theology. Now, I wanna explained to you what I mean by Jewish theology because there's in my mind, at least two kinds of Jewish theology. They're really one but There's different areas of focus, if you like, of Jewish theology. Very often when we talk about Jewish theology, what people are referring to is the overarching meta theology of Judaism. Like what is Judaism supposed to do in the world? Why is it important and different than perhaps other theologies, maybe other religions, et cetera. What is it that Judaism offers, which is different from a theological perspective than all these other theologies, which are out there? That is not what I'm gonna be focusing on in this season of the podcast. Perhaps. I did focus on that in previous seasons a little bit, not by name, but, in part of what we discussed. But in this season of the podcast, I'm gonna be talking about very much a personal theology of Judaism. And what I mean by that is what are the. Individual personal relationships with God. What does Judaism say and how does Judaism portray the individual relationship with the divine? Certainly if you look at the Torah, and we've spent in this podcast many, many months, every single week going through the Torah portion. If you look in the Torah, one of the things that it seems that comes out from the Torah more than anything else is that all the characters in the Torah were people who were seeking encounters or communion with God, with the divine, all the way from Adam when he was created from God through to Abraham, through to Moses. And Aaron, and so on and so forth. All these were characters who were seeking communion relationship. They could, if you like, cleaving to God. They were seeking an encounter with God. So how does one attain an encounter with the divine? What does Judaism say about that? There are many different opinions with regard to that. Well-trodden opinions that are found within Judaism and here I've been in SVA over the weekend and one of the wonderful things that happen when one is in a city like spot one encounter on talks and meets lots of different people and one, has the ability to have lots of impromptu conversations with just random people. But the beauty of being inva is that they're not just random people, because most of the people who are here are very deeply spiritually in tuned and specifically in a Jewish way. And so you can walk into a synagogue here and just meet someone who just happens to know the entire shas almost off by heart, and that's just almost a regular occurrence taking place here. People take their Judaism and their spirituality in this city very, very seriously, which is why I wanted to launch this season of the podcast from the Holy City of sva. That is, if you remember, in previous episodes, in previous seasons, I did a whole season on the Kabbalah, specifically the Kabbalah of the Ari. The Ari Kash, the Holy Ari, who taught for three years here in the holy city of sva. I prayed on Shabbat in the synagogue and the Be Madras in the study hall of the Ari, here in sva. So. This is a place where people come for their spirituality, come to be in tune with the divine and seek they could. One of the wonderful things about being here is you can just encounter people and have these wonderful conversations. And I did that multiple times, over the weekend but what one finds is that there are many different views of ku. A personal Jewish theology. So what I intend to do in this season is to have conversations with multiple different people, to ask them what is their personal theology? What do they view one might call it, their de hashem, their methodology, their pathway in the service of the divine. And the way I would put that in English is what is their methodology in order to encounter? Divine in order to have a communion with the divine. How do they reach that? How do they achieve that? And I'm calling this season seeking ecstasy because ecstasy in Hebrew is, and there is, a book written by the second Habad, rabbi Dove Bear known. In Haat circles as the Midler rabbi, the middle rabbi called contrasts his pylos, which means tracked on ecstasy. Its a wonderful translation of that by, Louis Jacobs. And in that he talks about how to reach divine ecstasy or ecstasy on the divine. And then there's different opinions which are also related to that from other people. Chiefly the main rival of Dove Bear, whose name was Aaron from STR or Mr. And he wrote other books, one in particular called Shada, which means the Gateway to Service, meaning Gateway to Divine Service, where he also talks about this kind of ecstasy. And when one reaches some kind of level of communion with the divine, there is some kind of ecstasy, which comes about as a result of that. So that's why I'm calling this season seeking Ecstasy because what ultimately this whole desire or this whole thirsting yearning for the divine should reach in is this kind of ecstasy. So I want to see how people have their own personal theologies in this journey. Of seeking ecstasy. I'm gonna be interviewing lots of thought leaders, people who have thought about this, people who have their own opinions, maybe their own experiences on the path to ku, on the path to ecstasy. I'm really looking forward to the conversations I'm going to be having. From people like Tz Greenberg, all the way to people like, rabbi Yuval Charlo and others along the way, who have opinions about what it means to have an encounter with the divine. I'm looking forward to those conversations and sharing them with you. And also I'll be doing some solo episodes where I'll be sharing ideas that I've studied in relation to this I idea of having a personal theology or what is a personal Jewish theology really all about. So I'm looking forward to this season. I'm here in the holy city of SVA kicking it off because this is, as I mentioned, the appropriate place to do it. I'm really looking forward to it. I hope that you will gain out of it as well along this journey. Again, this has been Lavy Brackman with Truth, Jewish Wisdom for today. Starting off the first episode, the intro episode to the new season called Seeking Ecstasy, and. Until next time, this is your host, Lavy Braman.