A rav who teaches the Jewish year
Rabbi Chaim Schabes is a Torah teacher whose recorded shiurim move through the rhythm of the Jewish calendar. His holiday talks carry titles like "The Ir Miklat of Elul," "Chanukah: Repairing the Breaches," and "Pesach: The Time is Now!" — each drawing a practical, timely lesson out of the season at hand. Alongside the festivals he speaks on Rosh Chodesh, marking the renewal built into every new month.
What stands out across these talks is the effort to make each date on the calendar speak to the present moment. A shiur like "The Prelude to Slichot" prepares listeners for the avodah of Elul before it arrives, while "Pesach: Lel Shimurim" draws out the character of the Seder night itself. The result is a body of shiurim organized around the year a Jewish family actually lives.
Halacha for real-world questions
A notable part of Rabbi Schabes's teaching addresses practical halacha, including the kinds of modern questions the classical sources never named directly. His Agudah Convention 2015 talk, "Electric Eyes and Motion Detectors," takes up exactly this — how the laws of Shabbos meet the automatic sensors and cameras woven through contemporary life. It is halacha aimed squarely at the situations people actually encounter.
This orientation runs through his halachic shiurim generally. Rather than treating Jewish law as abstract, he connects rulings to the reasoning behind them and to the settings where they come up. For a listener trying to keep halacha well in an environment full of new technology and new circumstances, that grounded, question-driven approach is much of the appeal.
Marriage, life, and the words we say at the end
Rabbi Schabes also teaches on dating and marriage, offering guidance for building a Jewish home rooted in Torah values. These shiurim speak to the decisions of the years when young people are choosing a partner and setting the tone for a household, treating the subject with the seriousness it deserves rather than as an afterthought and framing the questions around responsibility, character, and shared purpose.
A distinctive strand of his work is the hesped — the eulogy. He speaks about what a hesped is meant to accomplish: honoring the person who has died while moving those who remain to live differently. In a tradition that treats the words said over a life as serious avodah, shiurim that teach how to deliver them thoughtfully fill a real and often overlooked need.
Finding kosher Torah video for your family
FilteredTube is a kosher video service built for Jewish families — every single video is approved against one written standard before it can appear, with no open feed, no comments, and no surprises. It is a calm, safe place to look for the Torah and Jewish music you love.
If your family enjoys teachers like Rabbi Chaim Schabes, search FilteredTube for the speakers and topics that matter most to you. With a daf yomi shelf, a weekly parsha shelf, topic shelves, audio-only listening for the car, and a kids mode with a PIN, kosher Jewish video is easy to reach — and the approved catalog keeps growing every day.
At a glance
Key takeaways
- Rabbi Chaim Schabes's shiurim follow the Jewish year — Elul, Slichos, Chanukah, Pesach, and Rosh Chodesh.
- His halacha talks tackle modern questions, including Shabbos and electric sensors ("Electric Eyes and Motion Detectors").
- He teaches on dating and marriage as the foundation of a Jewish home.
- He gives particular attention to the hesped — the purpose and craft of the eulogy.
- Search FilteredTube for kosher, approved Torah video — the catalog grows every day.