Explorez tous les épisodes du podcast Human & Holy

Motherhood is deeply spiritual work, yet many mothers feel inadequate, as if their contribution doesn’t count by the world’s standards of success, or as if motherhood falls outside the spiritual work Judaism so often celebrates.

Today, with guest Miri Lipskier, we explore Jewish and Chassidic teachings on motherhood, including the biblical prophetess Chana’s choice to remain home with her son and the Lubavitcher Rebbe’s teachings on the dignity and sanctity of the private act of motherhood. We explore what the Kohanim's physical service in the Temple can teach us about domestic work, how spiritual meaning can get lost in the daily demands of caring for children, and how mothers can make room for prayer, learning, and support without guilt.

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Miri Lipskier is a wife, mother and shlucha in Chabad Youth of Melbourne, Australia, overseeing educational and community programs for children, teens, and young women. She directs Bnos Chabad, CGI day camps and high school overnight camps, and YLIV, a volunteer organisation of 200 people. With over 20 years of teaching experience, Miri is passionate about mentorship, meaningful relationships, and empowering every individual to grow into the best version of themselves. Contact: miri@chabadyouth.org

To inquire about sponsorship & advertising opportunities, please email us at info@humanandholy.com

To support our work, visit humanandholy.com/sponsor.

Find us on Instagram @humanandholy & subscribe to our channel to stay up to date on all our upcoming conversations ✨

Human & Holy podcast is available on all podcast streaming platforms. New episodes every Sunday & Wednesday on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Google Podcasts.

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TIMESTAMPS:

00:00 “I’m a Mother”: The Feeling of Inadequacy

00:33 A Jewish Perspective on Motherhood

02:33 Meet Miri Lipskier 04:18 Motherhood and Communal Work

06:38 The Lubavitcher Rebbe on Womanhood and Motherhood

08:38 The Spiritual Value of Raising Children

12:18 Chana’s Choice to Stay Home

15:00 Why Chana’s Story Matters Even If You Aren't a Stay at Home Mother

17:20 Motherhood and Society’s Measures of Success

21:08 Can Any Choice Protect Us from Regret?

22:22 The Physical Demands of Motherhood

24:00 A Morning in the Life of a Mother

26:00 Finding G-dliness in the Physical

28:28 The Kohanim and the Holiness of Domestic Work

31:09 When Caregiving Feels Spiritually Disconnecting

33:25 Making Room for Prayer and Learning

36:18 Spiritual Nourishment Without Guilt

38:00 Finding Inspiration Through Motherhood

41:20 Asking for Practical Support

42:03 Building a Joyful Jewish Home Together

43:37 Celebrating Jewish Holidays With Creativity

45:40 Using Music to Shape the Home

46:10 Household Help as an Investment in the Family Unit

47:00 Creating a Personal Home for Hashem

48:51 “I Already Sent Someone”: Recognizing Your Own Strength

50:54 Closing Reflections

How can we experience crushing pain without experiencing it as suffering? Again and again, life brings us to a crossroads: will we hold our pain by ourselves, or let G-d meet us in it?

In this conversation, Chaya Cowen reflects on grief, personal experiences of devastation, and the leap of allowing G-d into moments shaped by self-blame and anger toward Him. She shares how the loss of her first pregnancy, which ended in stillbirth, shaped her relationship with Hashem, and offers a moving reading of Eicha as a journey through self-blame, anger, and the search for connection.

We also talk about how to pass Judaism on with honesty and joy: welcoming children’s questions, meeting the feelings beneath them, and modeling what it looks like to balance exploration with commitment.

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Chaya Cowen is a Sacks Scholar, the Head of Learning & Teaching at Beth Rivkah Ladies College in Melbourne, and oversees a comprehensive high school curriculum and teaches courses in Tanach, Jewish History, and Jewish Philosophy. She has a passion for education with a focus on meaningful, empowered and personalized Jewish learning, and explores the interface between Judaism and the wider world. Chaya resides in Melbourne, Australia with her husband and four children. She can be reached at cowen.chaya@gmail.com

To inquire about sponsorship & advertising opportunities, please email us at info@humanandholy.com

To support our work, visit humanandholy.com/sponsor.

Find us on Instagram @humanandholy & subscribe to our channel to stay up to date on all our upcoming conversations ✨

Human & Holy podcast is available on all podcast streaming platforms. New episodes every Sunday & Wednesday on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Google Podcasts.

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TIMESTAMPS:00:00 The difference between pain and suffering

00:15 Welcome and the episode’s central question

03:35 Meet Chaya Cowen, educator and mother

05:13 Choosing a relationship with Hashem through life’s challenges

08:57 Fertility, loss, and facing what we can’t control

11:26 Reading Eicha as a journey through grief

17:31 Why we blame ourselves after tragedy

18:37 What happens when anger turns toward G-d

21:16 The leap of letting G-d into our pain

23:02 Drawing strength from ancestors and Jewish stories

24:42 The story of Zusha and a different view of suffering

26:04 Finding a way to express and process grief

28:01 How to acknowledge pain without being alone in it

30:58 How to support someone who is grieving

34:23 The lasting mark of pain and asking it for a blessing

36:14 Helping children build a relationship with Hashem

37:11 The educator as a “midwife” to Torah

41:10 Welcoming students’ questions without judgment

45:12 Balancing exploration with commitment

46:28 Modeling beauty and meaning in Jewish practice

49:34 Teaching Torah with joy and continued learning

52:25 Finding a personal path into Jewish life

54:33 Bringing joy, Shabbos, and questions into the home

55:21 Chaya’s closing message

Get a free download of Human & Holy's conversation cards for your Sukkah by becoming a monthly supporter of Human & Holy at humanandholy.com ❤️

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The sukkah is called the "shade of faith," but what happens when we sit inside it and feel nothing? What if we are entering Sukkos feeling more tapped into the uncertainty of life's winds, than the certainty of G-d's hug?

Today, we explore Sukkos as a full-body experience of faith, absorbed simply by showing up to be there. Shoshana shares how she envisioned herself in the Sukkah's embrace when she was curled up inside the radiation machine for cancer treatment, and teaches the deeper Torah behind how we can carry the Sukkah's lingering touch through the inevitable joy, uncertainty, illness and hiddenness that we experience in daily life.

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Shoshana Judelman is passionate about learning and growing through Chassidus. She is the founder of Nekaveh Lecha women’s seminary. She gives shiurim in Chassidus for women across Israel and in Midreshet Rachel V’Chaya in Jerusalem. Her shiurim can be found on Spotify and SoundCloud (Shiurim with Shoshana Judelman). Shoshana is also a guide at Yad Vashem and leads journeys to Poland and other countries for JRoots. She can be contacted at shoshanaj613@gmail.com

To inquire about sponsorship & advertising opportunities, please email us at info@humanandholy.com

To support our work, visit humanandholy.com/sponsor.

Find us on Instagram @humanandholy & subscribe to our channel to stay up to date on all our upcoming conversations ✨

Human & Holy podcast is available on all podcast streaming platforms. New episodes every Sunday & Wednesday on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Google Podcasts.

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TIMESTAMPS:

00:00 — Introduction

01:48 — Welcome to Human & Holy

02:24 — Why Sukkos is Shoshana’s favorite holiday

03:25 — Entering the sukkah and reenacting the Clouds of Glory

05:17 — How lockdown changed the way Shoshana’s family celebrates Sukkos

06:19 — Intellectual versus embodied knowing

08:27 — Why do we celebrate Sukkos after Yom Kippur?

09:09 — The Golden Calf and the departure of the Clouds of Glory

10:21 — Yom Kippur, forgiveness and returning to relationship with Hashem

11:39 — The deeper embrace that follows rupture and repair

13:09 — Sukkos as a bridge between Yom Kippur and ordinary life

15:50 — A mitzvah rooted in presence rather than constant action

16:36 — Learning to see life through the lens of Hashem’s reality

18:00 — Building a reservoir of emunah for a random Tuesday in February

20:11 — The storm that destroyed Shoshana’s sukkah

22:42 — How the community rebuilt the sukkah within hours

24:00 — What a temporary structure teaches us about uncertainty

25:22 — The sukkah as the shelter of trust and haven of faith

27:33 — When it feels as though the Clouds of Glory have holes

28:02 — Life as a spiritual training ground

30:25 — Can painful experiences really be understood as expressions of love?

31:31 — Turning the sukkah into an “emunah gas station”

33:19 — Receiving a breast cancer diagnosis shortly before Sukkos

35:53 — Carrying the sukkah’s embrace into treatment

37:11 — Did Shoshana feel Hashem’s presence during radiation?

38:31 — The different “flavors” of Hashem in celebration and hiddenness

39:30 — “I don’t like it, but I know that this is also You”

40:55 — Practical ways to experience the sukkah more deeply

41:25 — The spiritual meaning of the arba minim

43:34 — Drawing embodied knowledge into the heart

44:28 — Bringing Divine love into our eyes, speech, posture and emotions

47:11 — How deeper Torah transforms our experience of a mitzvah

48:54 — Slowing down and using imagination while shaking the lulav

50:04 — Spending more time in the sukkah without pressuring ourselves to feel

52:11 — Shoshana’s message: believe that you can grow and change

53:05 — Growth is happening even when we cannot see it

54:02 — Carrying hope into the new year

55:00 — Closing and ways to support Human & Holy

A short excerpt from this week's Human & Holy pre-Yom Kippur morning in New Haven, CT. A poem, a conversation with Sara Rosenstein about returning to Hashem after years of disconnection, original music by Rivka Fenton about finding safety in leaning into God, and personal notes on being carried by God by our host, Rosie Gurevitch.

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To inquire about sponsorship & advertising opportunities, please email us at info@humanandholy.com

To support our work, visit humanandholy.com/sponsor.

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Human & Holy podcast is available on all podcast streaming platforms. New episodes every Sunday & Wednesday on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Google Podcasts.

A conversation about Teshuvah through the dual lens of clinical attachment theory and Torah sources. We explore why perfect attunement in any relationship is a myth, and how the rupture and repair cycle of Teshuvah is actually what deepens our connections, rather than threatening it. Rus Devorah walks through how our early attachment styles get unconsciously projected onto our relationship with God, and offers concrete practices for moving toward a more secure, honest connection with Hashem during this season of return.

Rus Devorah Wallen is the founder and owner of Torah Therapeutics. She is an accomplished musician, performer, social worker, psychotherapist, administrative consultant, lecturer, and community leader whose work bridges psychology and Torah wisdom. Find out more at toratherapeutics.com.

Article referenced in this episode: https://substack.com/@toratherapeutics/p-212834537

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To inquire about sponsorship & advertising opportunities, please email us at info@humanandholy.com

To support our work, visit humanandholy.com/sponsor.

Find us on Instagram @humanandholy & subscribe to our channel to stay up to date on all our upcoming conversations ✨

Human & Holy podcast is available on all podcast streaming platforms. New episodes every Sunday & Wednesday on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Google Podcasts.

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TIMESTAMPS:

00:00:00 ---- "Back to the future," not back to who you were

00:00:18 ---- Host intro

00:01:33 ---- Rupture, Repair, and the God We Think We Know

00:02:42 ---- The myth of perfect attunement

00:04:46 ---- Why rupture & repair creates a more stabilized relationship

00:05:07 ---- Attachment

00:07:55 ---- Projecting childhood attachment templates onto God

00:09:44 ---- Is it trauma,or is it truth?

00:10:49 ---- The HALTS acronym

00:13:12 ---- "The prisoner can't free himself from his own cell"

00:15:20 ---- Mapping secure / anxious / avoidant attachment onto our relationship with God

00:15:50 ---- What secure attachment looks like relationally

00:19:30 ---- Bringing the secure-attachment framework into relationship with Hashem

00:20:19 ---- Avoidant attachment with God

00:23:09 ---- Moving from an unhealthy attachment pattern toward a more secure connection with God

00:24:23 ---- Step one: learning to love yourself unconditionally

00:25:26 ---- The shofar's sounds (tekiah, shevarim, teruah) as a metaphor for inner emotional release

00:27:12 ---- "Back to the future" — becoming fuller, not returning to a former self

00:30:35 ---- Teshuvah as "a descent for the sake of an ascent"

00:34:12 ---- The difference between reunion and real repair — Rambam's stages of teshuvah

00:41:31 --- Controlled stress as models for growth

00:42:44 ---- Starting with the smallest possible action

00:43:48 ---- Practical example: rebuilding belief in God one tiny step at a time

00:45:22 ---- Finding an outside perspective to guide the process

00:45:48 ---- Secure attachment with God makes room for doubt

00:47:00 ---- Coming to God honestly, without whitewashing pain

00:48:31 ---- Needing secure human relationships first

00:52:13 ---- Reconciling a loving, all-seeing God with the felt experience of suffering

00:52:59 ---- Her stroke story; trusting there was a purpose in crisis

00:55:26 ---- Teshuvah creates something new, not a return to a childhood faith

00:56:52 ---- Holding childlike wonder within an adult relationship with God

00:58:23 ---- Using imagination and visualization to access sweetness

01:00:20 ---- What if your childhood has no sweet memories to draw from?

01:03:26 ---- Building everyday resilience through imaginal rehearsal

01:04:16 ---- Bringing our full, imperfect selves to God

01:06:40 ---- Avinu Malkeinu: God as both King and Father

01:07:25 ---- Closing question

01:08:01 ---- Host's outro

What is Rosh Hashanah, the birthday of the world, inviting us to? In this recording of our Human & Holy Rosh Hashanah event in LA, we sit with powerful Torah sources to look at the opportunity available right now to co-create a new year with G-d.

This episode explores why Rosh Hashanah is a relationship story, this time of year as a renewal of our capacity for choice, why being fully seen by Hashem can fill us with safety rather than dread, and why the mitzvah of the shofar has no single "right" sound, because the sound it's supposed to produce is whatever it produces in you.

Join us on Youtube to follow along with the slideshow of sources.

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To inquire about sponsorship & advertising opportunities, please email us at info@humanandholy.com

To support our work, visit humanandholy.com/sponsor.

Find us on Instagram @humanandholy & subscribe to our channel to stay up to date on all our upcoming conversations ✨

Human & Holy podcast is available on all podcast streaming platforms. New episodes every Sunday & Wednesday on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Google Podcasts.

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TIMESTAMPS:

00:00–01:44 Capacity for choice & waking up from sleep

01:45–03:56 Breath and the Shofar

03:57–07:25 Moving to a shorter line

07:26–07:53 Judgment or compassion?

07:54–12:09 Being fully seen by Hashem

12:19–14:07 What if you have a fear of being seen?

14:08–16:38 Teshuvah as ongoing relational repair

16:40–20:13 Hour by hour of the first day of creation

20:14–24:22 Ayeka: where are you?

24:41–29:36 What if.I bring no intention to Shofar?

29:37–30:16 Only the individual can say "You are my King"

32:31–35:15 What does the Shofar's sound produce in you?

So...how are we doing?

We're ringing in the new Jewish year with a Jewish State of the Union: where have we been this last year and where are we headed?

Today, I sit down with four people who each have a finger on a different pulse of Jewish life. ChayaLeah Sufrin, executive director of Beach Hillel and host of the Ask a Jew podcast, walks through the year's defining global stories, reflects on what this moment is asking of the Jewish people and gives us some predictions for the year ahead.

Comedian Chani Lisbon joins for a lighter, faster cultural check-in: why comedians are having a moment, what the whole Jewish world got obsessed with this year, and a rapid-fire round of "in or out" on everything from Pesach programs to WhatsApp statuses.

Rivki Rabinowitz, a beauty influencer and interior designer whose work has been featured in Architectural Digest, The Wall Street Journal and more, gives modest fashion the real trend report it deserves: what's replacing slip skirts, her one unforgivable fashion sin, and how she holds beauty and depth as the same thing, not opposites.

Closing with a brilliant bang is writer and culture shaper Mimi Hecht's reflections on language: why the term "Hashem" is having a comeback, why words like "healing" and "capacity" have worn thin, the return of words like service and collective, and why specificity is rising in our culture's choice of words.

Underneath every conversation, one thread kept showing up: this is the year where every Jew just wants to feel like a Yid.

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To inquire about sponsorship & advertising opportunities, please email us at info@humanandholy.com

To support our work, visit humanandholy.com/sponsor.

Find us on Instagram @humanandholy & subscribe to our channel to stay up to date on all our upcoming conversations ✨

Human & Holy podcast is available on all podcast streaming platforms. New episodes every Sunday & Wednesday on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Google Podcasts.

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TIMESTAMPS:

00:00:00 Segment 1— ChayaLeah Sufrin: The Jewish Year in Review

00:03:31 The five biggest Jewish stories of the year

00:07:35 How to stay informed without living in fear

00:12:54 What is this moment asking of the Jewish people?

00:13:36 A worry people should let go of

00:16:16 What Israel needs from Diaspora Jews right now and vice versa

00:21:18 ChayaLeah's predictions for the new year

00:24:44 Young Jews seeking authentic, substantial Judaism

00:27:00 Segment 2 — Chani Lisbon: A Cultural State of the Union

00:27:59 Why comedians are having a cultural moment right now

00:29:16 Top cultural moment of the year

00:30:06 What everyone got obsessed with this year

00:32:43 Hot take: Why Chani doesn't want a "trendy" rabbi

00:36:15 Rapid-fire "In or Out": pickleball, WhatsApp status, and group tours to Kazakhstan

00:43:11 What people are actually craving

00:45:00 Segment 3 — Rivki Rabinowitz: The Modest Fashion Report

00:46:43 How social media made modest fashion mainstream and immediate

00:52:27 The current "modest girl uniform"

00:52:46 Fashion predictions for the year ahead

00:55:46 Modest makeovers by profile

00:57:01 Rapid-fire

01:00:12 Can aesthetics and depth coexist?

01:04:58 What modesty invites her into creatively

01:09:01 Segment 4: Mimi Hecht on the State of words

01:09:10 Returning to the word "Hashem"

01:15:02 Why we reached for substitute language in the first place

01:18:18 Choosing specific Jewish language as an act of confidence

01:19:34 Why is our culture tired of the word "healing"?

01:26:04 A generational shift in language from self-focus back toward giving

01:32:11 Rapid-fire "Replace the Word"

01:36:29 Defining Chassidic terms in plain language: neshama, mitzvah, and kelipah

01:45:02 Why the term Avodas Hashem makes Mimi emotional

01:46:55 Using words honestly

01:48:43 Host's Outro

Human & Holy is on a season break for the rest of the summer! During this time, we're airing your favorite moments from the past few seasons. This episode is an impactful moment extracted from the original conversation. Watch the episode in full here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VuF9NwQt8o

Rebbetzin Rachel Jacobs built a Jewish community in Birmingham, UK from the ground up: a Chabad house, a Torah Tots nursery, a Hebrew school, and a role as the only Jewish studies teacher in a school of 160 students. In this excerpt, we explore what happens when you feel called to build something and no one shows up, and how she learned to measure success by relationships instead of numbers. Rachel shares the Torah teaching that convinced her to start a Hebrew school with just six kids, and what it felt like years later watching those same kids read fluently from the Torah at their own bar and bat mitzvahs. A conversation about faith, community building, Jewish education, and redefining what success actually means.

Rachel Jacobs, originally from Los Angeles, California, currently serves as Rebbetzin of Singers Hill Synagogue in Birmingham, England. She is also the Educational Director of the Torah Tots nursery school, the Cheder, and the Jewish studies program at the local King David Primary School. Over the past 20 years, Rachel has gained recognition as an inspiring Jewish speaker, with a particular focus on women’s issues and marriage. Her warmth, charisma, and insightful teachings have touched the lives of Jewish women across the United States and Europe. You can contact Rachel via rachelcjacobs@aol.com and on instagram @Rachelcjacobs.

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To inquire about sponsorship & advertising opportunities, please email us at info@humanandholy.com

To support our work, visit humanandholy.com/sponsor.

Find us on Instagram @humanandholy & subscribe to our channel to stay up to date on all our upcoming conversations ✨

Human & Holy podcast is available on all podcast streaming platforms. New episodes every Sunday & Wednesday on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Google Podcasts.

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TIMESTAMPS:

00:00 — The ache of being called to something and hearing crickets back

00:23 — Rachel on the early, hardest days of building a Chabad house

04:03 — The real question underneath it all: are we measuring success by numbers?

04:21 — Starting Torah Tots with six kids: "affecting children from a young age is infinite"

05:41 — The reality now: down to two kids, and showing up anyway

05:53 — Called into King David School as the lone Jewish voice for 11 students among 160

07:35 — Leading through bureaucracy and red tape: "you have to go back to your why"

09:23 — Redefining the metric of success: deep impact on one person over reach to many

09:50 — Rachel's husband and the minyan he shows up for every night, no matter the count

12:53 — The Torah source that named her calling: Matos Masei and the tribes who chose to build

12:54 — Starting Cheder Club with five boys and one girl

14:56 — Years later: those same kids reading fluently from the Torah at their bar and bat mitzvahs

16:04 — "It's the positivity. People want to be part of success."

16:14 — Outro

Human & Holy is on a season break for the rest of the summer! During this time, we're airing your favorite moments from the past few seasons. Watch the original episode in full here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FhnlNd2zd2w

In this excerpt from a past episode with Devori Nussbaum, we explore healing a blocked heart, rooted in Tanya and Chassidic thought. We explore why arrogance and honesty are opposites, the Torah's real definition of humility, and the difference between grief and depression. Devori shares how the animal soul keeps us "small, safe, and in control" and the exact language for asking G-d for help from wherever you honestly are, not where you think you should be. If you've been feeling numb, disconnected, or far from Hashem, this episode is a way back in.

Devori is an integrative psychotherapist who has trained in many different healing modalities including body psychotherapy, imago therapy, logotherapy, the energetics of food, quantum touch, breathwork, CBT, NLP, EMDR, IFS, inner child work and somatic modalities. She is also passionate about teaching Chassidus in a way that is accessible, relevant and embodied, showing people that these teachings are not just nice ideas, but a description of our reality. Get in touch with Devori and find out more about her work on www.devorinussbaum.com.

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To inquire about sponsorship & advertising opportunities, please email us at info@humanandholy.com

To support our work, visit humanandholy.com/sponsor.

Find us on Instagram @humanandholy & subscribe to our channel to stay up to date on all our upcoming conversations ✨

Human & Holy podcast is available on all podcast streaming platforms. New episodes every Sunday & Wednesday on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Google Podcasts.

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TIMESTAMPS:

0:00 — The antidote to the desire to be "transformed"

0:15 — Presencing your block: how to begin when you feel numb or disconnected

1:09 — Why honesty is what unlocks connection to Hashem

1:40 — The Tanya's teaching on the oneness of God and the kelipah (shell) of separation

2:57 — Pain vs. suffering: the difference between what hurts and the story we tell about it

4:08 — The void as a portal: Ayin (nothingness) as the source of infinite potential

5:09 — Bringing G-d's presence into your darkness: how tears open the way to joy

5:30 — The classic teaching: "To open hearts, to know what one sees and hears"

6:59 — Seeing past people's defenses to "the light behind their eyes"

8:22 — Living in constant one-on-one conversation with G-d

9:14 — Why we judge the external shell before we ever see the soul underneath

10:22 — The frequency of oneness: hearing it like a heartbeat, an undercurrent

11:49 — Clearing the noise: expanding your capacity to notice the sacred in ordinary things

13:31 — Where blocked hearts really come from: unacknowledged grief

14:12 — Grief, attachment, and learning to move through the seasons of life

17:25 — Is being present with pain against Jewish values?

17:56 — Merirut vs. atzvut: the Tanya's distinction between grief and depression

19:26 — Moving through the cycle of grief back into joy

21:41 — "Ask for help from where you actually are"

23:04 — Arrogance and honesty as opposites, and what true humility actually means

24:00 — Moshe Rabbeinu, humility, and the honesty of naming your own greatness

25:28 — "Small, safe, and in control": the animal soul's real agenda

26:26 — Living from the divine soul: success and failure as opportunities, not identity

28:20 — The real cost of letting go of an identity you've outgrown

30:22 — Peeling away the layers: why every threshold in life asks you to release something

31:51 — Closing thoughts

Human & Holy is on a season break for the rest of the summer! During this time, we're airing your favorite moments from the past few seasons. Watch the original episode in full here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3u2c4ErF-4

In this excerpt, we discuss why being "chosen" isn't a status, but a responsibility to model moral clarity for a world that's lost it. Why the Lubavitcher Rebbe called Shabbos candles a campaign, a mitzvah, an army, and why that language matters more after October 7th than it ever has before. Why the Haggadah spends almost no time on our slavery and nearly all of it on our freedom, and what that says about the story we choose to live inside of right now. This is an episode about the difference between reporting on darkness and building light, and why Inbal chooses the second one, every single day.

Inbal Levin is a writer, former fashion model, and social media director for Chabad on Campus. You can connect with her via instagram @itsinbal.

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To inquire about sponsorship & advertising opportunities, please email us at info@humanandholy.com

To support our work, visit humanandholy.com/sponsor.

Find us on Instagram @humanandholy & subscribe to our channel to stay up to date on all our upcoming conversations ✨

Human & Holy podcast is available on all podcast streaming platforms. New episodes every Sunday & Wednesday on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Google Podcasts.

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TIMESTAMPS:

00:00 — Being chosen means holding up a mirror

07:21 — The Seven Noahide Laws and moral clarity for everyone

09:02 — The Baal Shem Tov's answer to "Moshiach, when are you coming?"

11:24 — Trusting Hashem in the long security line and the delayed flight

14:15 — How every Jewish girl, age three and up, started lighting Shabbos candles

18:03 — The menorah they wouldn't let into Auschwitz

20:14 — Why the Rebbe used military language for mitzvahs

23:25 — Choosing to build light instead of reporting on darkness

26:15 — What Dara Horn's People Love Dead Jews gets right

26:56 — The Rebbe never said the word "antisemitism": what the Haggadah teaches about what you choose to emphasize

30:53 — Closing thought: you're not just living a story, you're choosing which one it is

Human & Holy is on a season break for the rest of the summer! During this time, we're airing your favorite moments from the past few seasons. Watch the original episode in full here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_0i0EAAC_4

This excerpt with Chanie Krasnianski explores the Jewish view on sexual intimacy and marriage. We explore the soul-level magnetism between men and women that is sourced in the creation of the world, and talk honestly about the lived experience: what it means when attraction shows up outside your marriage, why halacha starts to feel like a checklist the second you lose the relationship underneath it, and what it looks like to reclaim the mikvah as an immersion into light instead of one more item on the list.

We also sit in the places that don't resolve as cleanly: religious guilt, growing spiritually at a different pace than your spouse, wanting closeness during niddah and not always getting it, and navigating personal discomfort around immersion in the mikvah.

Mrs. Chanie Krasnianski is the shlucha in the Upper East Side in Manhattan, NY and a seasoned educator and Torah teacher. Contact Chanie at ckrasnianski@gmail.com.

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To inquire about sponsorship & advertising opportunities, please email us at info@humanandholy.com

To support our work, visit humanandholy.com/sponsor.

Find us on Instagram @humanandholy & subscribe to our channel to stay up to date on all our upcoming conversations ✨

Human & Holy podcast is available on all podcast streaming platforms. New episodes every Sunday & Wednesday on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Google Podcasts.

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00:00 — The soul-level reason for attraction between husband and wife

04:05 — Attraction outside your marriage: where it's really coming from

07:23 — Halacha as relationship, not checklist

10:32 — When the framework feels restricting, not freeing

12:44 — "We're human, not angels"

13:58 — Trust in Hashem, and the mikvah as immersion into light

20:18 — Bare minimum vs. growing on purpose

22:11 — Why halacha is freedom, not restriction

24:16 — Body image and privacy at the mikvah

26:30 — The headstand story

29:18 — Checking in with yourself when you won't call a rabbi

30:35 — Why none of us are objective about our own lives

37:53 — Calling a rabbi on a different continent — privacy and permission

40:05 — Religious guilt and "you're not your spouse's rabbi"

43:30 — Growing faster than your spouse — baby steps, not pressure

47:07 — When you're the one resisting your spouse's growth

48:49 — Your spouse as your mirror — the Adam-and-Eve reframe

50:49 — Does absence really make the heart grow fonder?

52:25 — Marriage as decades of weather

55:49 — Closing reflection and outro

Human & Holy is on a season break for the rest of the summer! During this time, we're airing your favorite moments from the past few seasons.

In this excerpt, Shternie describes the way she moves through the world: not with a basket she guards, protecting what's "owed" to her, but with an empty one, open-handed, saying thank you every time something lands in it.

Shternie Rosenfeld went through what she calls her own tsunami: a devastating divorce that cracked her open completely. In this conversation, she shares what actually got her through: a relationship with Hashem that is raw, honest, and full of open gratitude.

We talk about the difference between feeling entitled to goodness and feeling worthy of it and about how gratitude isn't whitewashing our pain, but allowing it to live in the same body that is screaming, grieving, and being honest with G-d.

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Shternie Rosenfeld has spent more than 25 years in Jewish education and community leadership, teaching everyone from preschoolers to seniors. She spent 15 years as director of the Chabad Fox Chapel Jewish Center, building its Hebrew School, summer camp, and adult education programs from the ground up. She went on to found The Jewish Spark, a nonprofit running weekly Kabbalah classes and community Shabbat and holiday programming, and now serves as Program Director of the Yonah Foundation, where she supports 38 community centers worldwide and empowers women to lead Torah classes globally. She has also taught at Yeshiva Schools, Hillel Academy, and Tzohar Seminary. Find out more at shternie.com

To inquire about sponsorship & advertising opportunities, please email us at info@humanandholy.com

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Human & Holy podcast is available on all podcast streaming platforms. New episodes every Sunday & Wednesday on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Google Podcasts.

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00:00 — What got her through divorce

02:16 — Talking to Hashem like a best friend

03:55 — A real relationship, not a performed one

05:02 — Seeing kindness as Hashem's hand

05:40 — The basket metaphor

10:36 — Entitlement vs. worthiness

11:41 — What to do when you feel shortchanged

13:54 — Gratitude in the tiny things

15:08 — Modeh Ani as the daily reset

16:40 — The Torah source on what is owed to us

18:29 — Is gratitude ever dishonest?

19:28 — "There's room for both"

20:40 — Day by day

22:41 — Marriage as a mirror for Hashem

23:30 — Outro

Human & Holy is on a season break for the rest of the summer! During this time, we're airing your favorite moments from the past few seasons.

How do you instill Jewish values from a young age, while leaving space for a child to grow into them on their own? In this conversation, we talk about why Judaism has to start as routine for young children before it becomes relationship, why “yes, unless you have a value to say no” changes everything with a teenager, the importance of physical touch in raising healthy children, and why mourning openly when our children's religious choices look differently than ours do can do real damage, even when it comes from love. This is a conversation about giving our children strong roots in their Judaism, and navigating the evolution from childhood to adulthood, as they begin to make their own choices in their relationship with G-d.

Chani Heyman is a dynamic parenting coach, motivational speaker, educator, and Torah teacher who's passionate about empowering families to thrive. Originally from Los Angeles, Chani now calls Israel home. With a background rooted in the timeless wisdom of Rebbetzin Spetner and her own experiences as a mother of eight, Chani shares practical and inspiring guidance with parents worldwide.Through her engaging group classes, popular parenting column, and vibrant Instagram community @parentingwithchani, Chani sparks meaningful connections and helps families unlock their full potential. Find out more at https://theparentingclub.info.

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To inquire about sponsorship & advertising opportunities, please email us at info@humanandholy.comTo support our work, visit humanandholy.com/sponsor.Find us on Instagram @humanandholy & subscribe to our channel to stay up to date on all our upcoming conversations ✨Human & Holy podcast is available on all podcast streaming platforms. New episodes every Sunday & Wednesday on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Google Podcasts.* * * * * * *

TIMESTAMPS:

00:00 How to build Yiddishkeit routines that feel as natural as brushing teeth

01:06 Building the routine: start at the smallest sustainable level

06:24 The teen shift

09:13 Foundation vs. peer pressure

10:45 The reframe: “Yes, unless you have a value to say no”

11:38 Choosing your battles

12:49 “Copy paste” — are we raising kids to replicate our table, or to be halachically their own person?

14:41 Finding a rav to define the lowest level that is still 100% halacha — the loose-fitting-pants story

16:44 When your child doesn't look like you

17:44 Is “because it would make my mother happy” a legitimate motivation for a teen’s mitzvah observance?

21:43 Why building the habit before the meaning arrives is so much easier than trying to build both at once at 20

22:17 Parental fear and projection

22:34 For ba’alei teshuva parents specifically — “I’m trying to give you what I didn’t have,” and why force backfires

23:33 Beyond 100% halacha — what it looks like when a child’s practice truly diverges

25:36 “Keep your relationship strong”

27:03 The sapling-and-tree image

28:17 The emotional baseline — what it is, and why it differs by age

28:26 Ten minutes of true one-on-one time

30:33 For teens: it’s not about the ten minutes, it’s about being available the moment they want you

32:15 Modeling adult relationships

33:37 Physical touch as an emotional need

35:40 The mother who couldn’t remember the last time she’d touched her 19-year-old son

38:45 Host's Outro

Human & Holy is on a season break for the rest of the summer! During this time, we're airing your favorite moments from the past few seasons.

In today's excerpt with Jackie Glaser, we cover spiritual bypassing, noticing the patterns that keep showing up in our lives, cultivating self-worth and self-trust, navigating rejection, our flaws as filters while dating, recognizing that matchmakers do not have control over people's future when navigating the shidduch system, and strengthening our trust in God.

To watch the full episode this excerpt is from, click here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=243HxQfOx9E

To contact Jackie or learn more about her courses, you can find her at jackieglaser.com or find Jackie on Instagram: datingbyjackieg

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To inquire about sponsorship & advertising opportunities, please email us at info@humanandholy.com

To support our work, visit humanandholy.com/sponsor.

Find us on Instagram @humanandholy & subscribe to our channel to stay up to date on all our upcoming conversations ✨

Human & Holy podcast is available on all podcast streaming platforms. New episodes every Sunday & Wednesday on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Google Podcasts.

* * * * * * *

TIMESTAMPS:

0:00 Spiritual bypassing

2:04 How our patterns are signposts from Hashem, not punishments

3:07 Why we avoid taking responsibility, and turn anxiety into blaming Hashem instead

5:27 Going inward with compassionate curiosity instead of judgment

7:11 Turning to G-d as an escape hatch

7:21 Normalizing the pattern before moving forward

9:08 Self-trust as the real foundation behind who you marry

9:17 The somatic work begins: tuning into the body as a source of real data

12:45 Surrendering

14:23 Clearing subconscious blockage to make more room for closeness with Hashem

16:13 How our internal beliefs get projected onto strangers

17:35 Why healing the felt state dissolves the belief system underneath it

18:58 How the fear of rejection actually dissolves with this work

20:42 "I reject myself" — the most important relationship you'll ever build is with you

22:23 Disability or flaws as a filter in dating, not a disqualifier

24:05 Boundaries with matchmakers

25:44 When parents choose to "play the game" with a difficult shadchan for their child's sake

26:27 Hashem was never limited to a shadchan

A conversation about women's health & Jewish law, the more sensitive questions hidden behind women's seemingly straightforward halachic questions, how the concept of a Yoetzet Halacha came about, the difference between a halachic ruling and halachic advice, why the advice of "don't look at the toilet paper" can sometimes do more harm than good, the evolution of halachic thinking on IVF, the medical red flags that can be associated with "halachic infertility", the questions Dena gets most often, the ones that break her heart, and the ones that surprise her the most. 

Dena Block is the Co-Director of Nishmat's Miriam Glaubach Center. Previously, she served as the Center's Associate Director and as a Yoetzet Halacha for several congregations throughout the tri-state area. She taught Gemara and Halacha at Ma'ayanot Yeshiva High School for Girls in Teaneck, NJ, where she also served as Director of Admissions. A graduate of the first class of Nishmat's Miriam Glaubach Center's U.S. Yoatzot Halacha Fellows Program, Dena worked on numerous MGC initiatives to broaden the impact of of Yoatzot Halacha before joining the Center full-time in 2021. Dena lives in Raanana with her husband and 5 children and can be reached at Dena@afnishmat.org

[00:00] Welcome Dena Block 

[01:00] Meeting women where they're at

[01:50] Defining the term "Yoetzet Halacha" (women's halachic advisor)

[02:48] The origin story: why the role was created

[03:30] How women were being more stringent on themselves in silence, not more lenient — and the health/marital cost of that silence

[04:24] Why more questions asked = more comfort, not less trust in rabbinic authority

[05:00] How a Yoetzet answers — always with context, not just yes/no, to empower future understanding

[05:48] The "question behind the question" — when the real issue isn't the halachic one

[05:52] Example: a woman asking to go to mikvah early — the real story underneath

[07:44] How that extra context changes the answer a posek gives

[08:11] Story: a woman whose ongoing staining was actually a birth control issue 

[10:15] Defining the boundary between a Yoetzet and a rav/posek

[11:06] What "psak" actually means vs. general halachic knowledge

[12:00] Judgment calls vs. established rulings 

[12:16] Should women be taught to examine their own bedikah cloths? 

[16:27] The bigger question — why can't a woman hold a halachic ruling position?

[18:23] The humility and reverence in deepened knowledge

[20:47] How halacha creates unusual bodily attunement

[24:41] Why "don't look at the toilet paper" is advice Dena wants retired 

[27:36] What IVF is and the original halachic concerns when it emerged

[28:11] The concern over hashchatat zera (wasting seed) and how sperm collection is handled

[29:36] How halachic opinion evolved as the technology became safer and more regulated

[32:54] Common misconceptions about halachic infertility

[34:34] Why a very short cycle can be a medical red flag, not just a halachic inconvenience 

[35:22] Halachic literacy often reveals underlying health issues

[35:23] Why unexplained staining should always prompt a doctor visit, even when it's halachically minor

[37:08] Misconceptions around halacha and sexuality

[38:53] The most common question Dina receives 

[39:35] The hardest questions — women asking about mikvah while heading toward divorce

[40:31] The range of what women are carrying — infertility, loss, mental health, marital strain

[40:48] What makes Dina feel hopeful — when a woman expects "no" and hears "yes"

[41:43] Witnessing halachic commitment and sacrifice

[42:00] The number one thing women struggle with in this mitzvah — physical separation and lack of touch, more than the absence of sex itself

[43:25] How the separation period affects men too, not just women

[44:03] The biggest friction point between couples — the story of a woman who lied about her niddah status to avoid intimacy

[46:26] Most unexpected mikvah locations

[47:23] Closing question

A conversation about the gritty, messy experience of faith when the things you want are not a "not yet" but a "no", life as a mother of five adopted children while grieving a permanent infertility diagnosis, why sometimes we need to stop waiting for a miracle, trying again and being told “no” again by God after 20 years of accepting, the impact of life setbacks on marriage and being willing to get support, the spiritual framework that makes Chavie's faith possible, and choosing to live with joy even when life doesn’t go as planned.

Chavie Bruk is the host of Totally Unexpected!, a podcast featuring long-form interviews that uncover the one unexpected moment that shaped her guests’ lives. She is the author of a weekly blog on Substack, a sought-after public speaker, and a passionate advocate for adoption and infertility awareness. She and her husband are the directors of Chabad-Lubavitch of Montana, where they have spent nearly two decades building Jewish life out west and are the parents of five adopted children. She is an avid reader, traveler, fitness and health enthusiast, and endlessly curious about this messy ride we all call life.

Listen to Totally Unexpected! wherever you get your podcasts and read her blog at www.totallyunexpected.blog.

Chavie can be reached on Instagram @chaviebruk or by email at

chaviebruk@gmail.com

To inquire about sponsorship & advertising opportunities, please email us at info@humanandholy.com

To support our work, visit humanandholy.com/sponsor.

00:00 Introducing Chavie Bruk

02:52 Chavie introduces herself

04:23 Seasons of family vs. seasons of community service

08:39 Why she lets her community see the harder parts of her life

10:42 Permanent infertility diagnosis

15:33 Choosing to live fully inside the hardest years instead of just surviving them

17:22 The "why me" question — and how it eventually became "how"

20:11 Acceptance isn't linear — re-accepting the same grief at a deeper layer, years later

22:50 Holding grief and gratitude at the same time

23:09 Her unconventional relationship to miracles — the decision she made on her 30th birthday

26:02 When spiritual belief becomes spiritual bypassing — and how to tell the difference

29:12 On waiting: traveling with a child with special needs instead of waiting for "someday"

34:00 Living in the thick of life — why she started her podcast without waiting for it to be easier

35:25 The toll hard circumstances take on a marriage — and the stigma around therapy

40:24 Learning your couple's "trigger dance," and the tools that actually hold a marriage together

51:04Turning a canceled marriage-counseling slot into a standing weekly coffee date

53:16What it actually looks like to grieve a life that didn't turn out how you expected

54:11 The twinge she feels when someone close to her gets pregnant — and giving it room instead of shame

58:56 The story she's never said out loud before: a new fertility possibility reopens after 20 years

1:00:09 Saying no, then yes, then the test — and the result

1:02:20 "Why did You do that?" — wrestling openly with Hashem after the door closed again

1:04:38 What her therapist helped her see: this wasn't a setback, it was another layer of healing

1:07:07 "That's not my story" — choosing what this experience gets to mean

1:11:14 Not every "not yet" is a not-yet — sometimes it's a no, and that's its own form of faith

1:13:33 Faith isn't feeling good when things go well — it's staying okay when they don't

1:14:22 Why she teaches Tanya — the mechanics of the spiritual world as grounding, not platitude

1:17:18 Living in the present moment as the antidote to shame about the past and fear of the future

1:22:36 Real bitachon isn't toxic positivity — Hashem wants your anger too, not just your best behavior

1:24:47 What "messy" actually looks like behind a polished, recorded conversation

1:26:35 Knowing your own constitution — why she's "fire," not Zen, and why that's not a flaw to fix

1:28:03 Rapid fire & outro

I recently opened a box of my middle school journals, and found the question that has followed me for nearly twenty years: could I honestly call myself a chossid of a Rebbe I had never met?

In honor of Gimmel Tammuz, the anniversary of the Lubavitcher Rebbe's passing, I explore some of the questions that have gnawed at me for as long as I can remember: Should my relationship to the Rebbe be defined by longing? Am I fundamentally missing out on a nostalgic, golden age of Chabad if I never met him? What distinct message did the Rebbe have for a generation with a strong emphasis on the self? Is our determination to feel deeply "aligned" with our life choices a flaw, or a gift? Was the Rebbe passing on the baton, and if yes, to who?

Drawing on a community survey and a close reading of V'atah Tetzaveh, this episode explores the generational shift the Rebbe himself outlined, what a relationship shaped by ignition, not loss, might look like, and how the Rebbe encouraged each person to step into their mission, to embrace the specificity of their identities and be the unique, unrepeatable messengers of Hashem the world is waiting for.

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To inquire about sponsorship & advertising opportunities, please email us at info@humanandholy.com

To support our work, visit humanandholy.com/sponsor.

Find us on Instagram @humanandholy & subscribe to our channel to stay up to date on all our upcoming conversations ✨

Human & Holy podcast is available on all podcast streaming platforms. New episodes every Sunday & Wednesday on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Google Podcasts.

* * * * * * *

TIMESTAMPS:

00:00 Finding my middle school journals

01:33 "Do we have the right to call ourselves a Chossid?"

04:00 Should I yearn for the physical presence of a Rebbe I never met?

06:00 Growing up on shlichus in Houston, TX

08:30 The enormous grief of Gimmel Tammuz

10:30 The community survey about the Rebbe

12:00 The message from the Rebbe that changed people's lives

13:15 Would you call yourself a chossid?

14:30 The final piece of the Torah the Rebbe distributed

15:30 Generation of self-sacrifice vs. religious freedom

17:55 Exploring V'atah Tetzaveh

19:30 What is higher than self-sacrifice?

21:36 Why connect to a Tzadik?

24:00 This generation's power

27:00 The specificity of who you are is your mission

30:00 Every person can be a Rebbe

33:00 When the Rebbe passed on the baton

35:58 Am I a follower of the Lubavitcher Rebbe?

37:48 The vision of Moshiach

38:50 Outro

An honest, joyful, and deeply practical conversation about Jewish parenting. We talk about how to genuinely infuse your home with love of Judaism, what to do when you want to teach a value you don't fully keep yourself, the difference between an inherited Judaism and discovered Judaism, how to see every child as an individual, and what to do when your child doesn't fit the school system. We explore confidence-building for kids who struggle academically or socially, the balance between school and home, and why the home is more powerful than we give it credit for. We also talk about technology and eye contact, parenting without controlling, and how to stay open to who your child is actually becoming.

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Mrs. Elisheva Segelman is a respected educator, mentor, and community leader whose warmth, wisdom, and dedication have impacted students, families, and community members across a wide range of settings. She currently serves as the Program Director at Yavneh Hebrew Academy in Los Angeles and as the Mashgicha Ruchanit for the middle school girls, where she is known for her ability to inspire meaningful personal growth, cultivate strong relationships, and help students develop a deep connection to Torah and Jewish values.

Mrs. Segelman also serves as the Rebbetzin of the Young Israel of Hancock Park, where she plays an active role in supporting and enriching the spiritual life of the community. A highly sought-after kallah teacher, she has guided countless brides with sensitivity, wisdom, and genuine care. During the summer months, she serves as the Director of Orah Day Camp in Far Rockaway, New York, where she oversees a thriving camp program and mentors both campers and staff.

Together with her husband, Rabbi Elan Segelman, Mrs. Segelman has served Jewish communities in both New York and Los Angeles. Rabbi and Mrs. Segelman are the proud parents of six children. Contact her at segelmanelisheva@gmail.com

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To inquire about sponsorship & advertising opportunities, please email us at info@humanandholy.com

To support our work, visit humanandholy.com/sponsor.

Find us on Instagram @humanandholy & subscribe to our channel to stay up to date on all our upcoming conversations ✨

Human & Holy podcast is available on all podcast streaming platforms. New episodes every Sunday & Wednesday on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Google Podcasts.

* * * * * * *

TIMESTAMPS:

0:00 Host's Intro

1:44 Introducing Elisheva Segelman

4:22 Parenting with the long view — seeing your child as a future adult

6:58 Transparency and authenticity at home

9:19 What if you hate Pesach? Finding the Jewish joy you actually feel

13:23 Is it hypocrisy? Teaching a value you don't fully keep yourself

17:39 The Finding Nemo story: what we expose children to leaves a mark

21:00 The power of your home: what you fill it with is yours to choose

23:18 Family pride and identity as a vessel for Judaism

27:11 Inherited Judaism vs. discovered Judaism

30:17 Seeing past your child's grades and struggles

32:36 The teacher who changed everything

35:10 "Just because you failed a class doesn't mean you're a failure as a human"

38:42 Choosing the right school for your specific child

45:14 "You are fingerprinting the world with the next generation of humans"

52:37 School vs. home — where does the real education happen?

57:13 Social struggles — what every child needs to know

59:32 Eye contact, technology, and what our children are actually asking for

1:02:56 Staying open to who your child becomes

1:05:31 Three practical things to infuse your home with Judaism

1:10:52 It's never too late to change course

1:12:32 Building your support system as a parent

1:15:01 Soul to soul message

1:16:00 The "feel good folder" and surrounding yourself with the right people

The Torah opens up with failure after failure, we have laws of repair (teshuvah) baked into our Judaism, and yet many who live a value-driven life live in enormous fear of failing. Why are we harder on ourselves than G-d is?

Today, we talk about the Jewish perspective on failure, along with Karen's own experiences. How do you hold your mistakes seriously without becoming them? Does forgiving yourself mean letting yourself off the hook?

We get into the Rambam's laws of teshuva, Rav Soloveitchik's framework of fate versus destiny, and a seminary interview answer that always made Karen uncomfortable.

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With more than 25 years of dedicated experience in Jewish education, Karen Hochhauser brings a deep passion for learning and leadership to her role as Co-Director of the Miriam Glaubach Center. In this senior leadership position she helps guide the Center’s mission of supporting, educating and certifying Yoatzot Halacha—women trained as halachic advisors—and of strengthening communities across North America and beyond. Prior to this appointment, Karen spent 17 years at Tiferet, a thriving seminary in Ramat Beit Shemesh, both as a teacher and an administrator. During that time she developed expertise in mentoring young adults, designing and implementing enriching programs, and cultivating vibrant educational communities.She holds a B.A. in English Literature and an M.A. in Jewish Education from Yeshiva University. Karen lives in Beit Shemesh with her husband. Dr. Carl Hochhauser, and their five children. Find her on instagram @torahwithmymother. Karen can be reached at Karen@afnishmat.org

To inquire about sponsorship & advertising opportunities, please email us at info@humanandholy.com

To support our work, visit humanandholy.com/sponsor.

Find us on Instagram @humanandholy & subscribe to our channel to stay up to date on all our upcoming conversations ✨

Human & Holy podcast is available on all podcast streaming platforms. New episodes every Sunday & Wednesday on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Google Podcasts.

* * * * * * *

TIMESTAMPS:

0:00 — We are much harder on ourselves than G-d is

1:16 — Why the Torah begins with a series of human catastrophes

2:46 — "Failure is almost a four-letter word in my house"

5:04 — Adam, Kayin, Noach: what the Torah's biggest stumbles have in common

8:55 — Failure is inevitable. So why did Hashem design it that way?

9:01 — The Rambam's radical idea: return is always possible

10:53 — Asking for forgiveness vs. granting it, which is actually harder?

11:18 — The mirror exercise: what it really means to forgive yourself

12:38 — The seminary interview answer Karen couldn't stand

13:51 — The difference between shame that destroys and accountability that heals

15:26 — Chapter one of Tanya: why calling yourself a rasha is dangerous

17:32 — Rav Soloveitchik's fate vs. destiny

21:10 — From "why is this happening to me" to "what am I going to do with this"

22:01 — Can failure be fate?

23:59 — The missed train on the way to a lecture about failure

25:22 — "You don't have to do it alone"

26:22 — Was your worst mistake destined?

28:41 — The responsibility to respond

44:23 — Why letting your kids fail at small things is an act of love

45:59 — When the suffering isn't your fault at all

46:00 — The rabbi of the Warsaw Ghetto, what he wrote in his final year

48:50 — "G-d is right next to us, crying"

50:50 — What it means to not be alone in your pain

52:37 — "Hashem believes in you. So you need to believe in yourself."

Does the Torah belong to every woman?

This week, I host a roundtable with two women who've built their lives around Torah: Annie Nagel, who left a thriving law career for the classroom and a PhD in Tanakh, and Hadassah Shemtov, founder of Batsheva Learning Center.

We trace the halachic sources on women's Torah study, where the historic hesitation came from, and the Lubavitcher Rebbe's radical reframe: that women's learning isn't damage control, but the direction history was always moving towards.

We also talk about the practical experience of Torah study for women: How do you keep Torah alive when you're working eighty hours a week with three babies? What does learning look like in a season when deep scholarship simply isn't possible? And what would it take for the next generation of girls to believe, without question, that no Jewish book on the shelf is off-limits to them?

EPISODE SPONSOR: This week's episode was sponsored by a woman who wants to empower other women to learn and take ownership of their birthright within Torah.

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Hadassah Shemtov is the founding director of Batsheva Learning Center, an organization that offers text-based Torah learning opportunities for women. She runs a chavrusa-based track at Ohel Chana High School and is the junior Rebbetzin at Young Israel of Los Angeles.

Annie Nagel is a PhD candidate at the Bernard Revel Graduate School of Jewish Studies and teaches Chumash at YULA Girls High School. She holds a JD from UCLA School of Law and practiced real estate law in Los Angeles.

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To inquire about sponsorship & advertising opportunities, please email us at info@humanandholy.com

To support our work, visit humanandholy.com/sponsor.

Find us on Instagram @humanandholy & subscribe to our channel to stay up to date on all our upcoming conversations ✨

Human & Holy podcast is available on all podcast streaming platforms. New episodes every Sunday & Wednesday on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Google Podcasts.

* * * * * * *

TIMESTAMPS:

00:00 "The Torah belongs to every woman" — who this episode is for

02:19 Annie's story: from law to a classroom and a PhD in Tanakh

04:42 Hadassah's story: the year in Israel that set her trajectory

07:32 "I'm not making the time I want to for my own learning"

09:26 What the pivot cost Annie: trade-offs and peers making partner

13:55 Framing the sources: were we all really at Sinai?

16:07 The halacha, plainly: are women obligated in Torah study?

21:33 Why the hesitation was about an era, not about women's minds

22:03 Moshe waits a day: Hashem holds back the Shechinah until every woman is there

24:14 Do women feel the Torah is theirs?

28:03 How Annie kept Torah alive when life was consuming

33:08 The Lubavitcher Rebbe's reframe: not a concession to the times, but the trajectory toward Moshiach

38:19 The common language of the house is Torah

42:54 The "living Torah" — when your whole life is already an offering

47:00 "Listen to what stirs your neshama" — Torah study without pressure or guilt

50:01 Why reading it yourself is irreplaceable

53:35 What would it take for the next generation to know the Torah is theirs?

54:08 Ending the split between text and hashkafa

58:00 "No sefer on the shelf is off-limits to you"

01:00:13 Rapid fire: one text to start with, the woman who lost her practice, where to begin from zero

01:06:18 One message, soul to soul

01:07:00 Closing

What does it mean to be both a stranger and at home in your Judaism? To be deeply connected to your faith and still feel othered from a piece of your own practice?

This week, in honor of Shavuos, we sit with a Talmudic dispute between Rabbi Akiva and Rabbi Yishmael about how the Jewish people received the Torah at Sinai, and the much bigger question underneath it.

What does it mean to be completely at home in your Judaism, swept up in it like one unifying truth? And what does it mean to be a traveler in it, seeing each piece of it on its own terms?

A conversation about Sinai, sight and sound, the hedgehog and the fox, receiving the Torah as both a homecoming and an invitation to the road, and what to do when you feel like a stranger within your own Jewish self.

This episode is dedicated in honor of Reuven Morrison hy"d, killed in the Bondi terror attack on Chanukah. May his memory be a blessing, and may his life continue to inspire Jews to live openly and proudly as themselves.

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To inquire about sponsorship & advertising opportunities, please email us at info@humanandholy.com

To support our work, visit humanandholy.com/sponsor.

Find us on Instagram @humanandholy & subscribe to our channel to stay up to date on all our upcoming conversations ✨

Human & Holy podcast is available on all podcast streaming platforms. New episodes every Sunday on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Google Podcasts.

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TIMESTAMPS:

0:00 Welcome, and a Shavuos teaching on receiving the Torah

1:30 Preview: next Sunday's roundtable on women's Torah study

2:45 Dedication: Reuven Morrison hy"d

5:00 A joke the Lubavitcher Rebbe told: what is Judaism?

6:30 The question underneath the joke: general vs. particular

7:30 The first luchos vs. the second

8:30 Rabbi Akiva and Rabbi Yishmael on how the Oral Torah was given

10:00 "They saw the thunder, they heard the lightning" — the verse at Sinai

11:00 Synesthesia, Beethoven, and scrambled senses

12:30 Sight vs. sound: the whole first, or the details first?

14:30 The Alter Rebbe and his grandson — who is Zaideh?

17:00 Isaiah Berlin's The Hedgehog and the Fox

18:30 Two temperaments, two ways of meeting the world

20:00 Returning to R' Akiva and R' Yishmael through this frame

21:30 Why they each had a different orientation

23:00 Back to the joke: Shabbos within Judaism vs. Shabbos as itself

24:00 A relationship has a story, but it also has its moments

25:30 Home vs. traveling, and why we see the details when we travel

27:00 Areas of our Judaism where we feel at home, and areas where we feel like strangers

28:30 Allow yourself to be a stranger in your own life

29:30 Receiving both the panorama and the particulars

30:30 What I'm taking with me into Shavuos

Today, I sit down with my friend, Zisi Zirkind for an unscripted conversation about burnout, motherhood, faith, friendship, and the holy delusion of believing your soul is needed in this world.

This isn't an interview; it's a conversation between two close friends. We talk about why it's not always doing less that restores our energy, the undervaluing of women's work and how we each experience meaning in our homes, why faith doesn't have to be rigid to be strong, how we hold paradox in every identity, and how friendship can help us each remember who we are.

Zisi Zirkind is the Rebbetzin of Yeshiva Center in Melbourne, teaches Chassidus through her weekly women’s Torah classes, teaches guided research classes at Ohel Chana Seminary, and is the host of the podcast Standing Between Earth and Sky. Find her podcast here: https://open.spotify.com/show/0EOKqR8gwDDnEEvq7W02z3?si=0c228c7fbde34a5f Contact her at zisiwolf@gmail.com.

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To inquire about sponsorship & advertising opportunities, please email us at info@humanandholy.com

To support our work, visit humanandholy.com/sponsor.

Find us on Instagram @humanandholy & subscribe to our channel to stay up to date on all our upcoming conversations ✨

Human & Holy podcast is available on all podcast streaming platforms. New episodes every Sunday & Wednesday on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Google Podcasts.

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TIMESTAMPS:

00:00:00 Host's Intro: A Conversation Between Friends

00:02:25 Welcome Zisi Zirkind

00:02:50 Springboarding ideas as a way of bridging the human and holy

00:04:01 How much do I trust myself?

00:04:53 When you're taking a leap

00:05:19 A friend who can see you clearly

00:06:14 Sustained creative devotion is supported by a witness

00:08:14 Why sharing an idea forces it to become real

00:10:10 Is this my animal soul or my divine soul?

00:11:41 Delusion of separateness vs. delusion of holiness

00:12:54 Does what I do matter?

00:14:28 Burnout happens when you're not lit up by what you're doing

00:14:41 What will actually energize you?

00:17:06 Busy but not doing the right things

00:17:36 The Rebbe's "add another one" — what was he actually saying?

00:18:27 Showing up before the energy comes

00:20:27 The seductive permission to wallow

00:21:50 "I had to make a choice that I'm going to love my life again"

00:22:08 Hosting vs. being hosted — what really makes a place yours

00:24:08 Dissolution of self prepares you to rise

00:24:50 When to add, and when you need more support

00:25:42 Delegating what depletes you -- "I'm sick of cleaning"

00:27:10 Excellence and pride in the work nobody sees

00:27:55 Bringing the same creativity to home life

00:28:35 Why the years that look like pause are often the years that change you

00:31:51 Bringing your full self into your home

00:32:29 Letting yourself enjoy what you didn't think was "you" — dropping the identity attachment

00:33:43 Paradox: when opposing realities exist at once

00:35:17 Teaching style: opening to the text vs. filing it into systems

00:38:05 Tanya's permission for multiple parts of self to coexist

00:38:08 Trusting that Torah's truth can hold your questions

00:38:39 After the Bondi terror attack: "Faith doesn't have to be rigid to be strong"

00:41:51 Faith from intuition, not intellect

00:42:35 Why paradox can only be experienced

00:43:02 Faith as identity: "I'm here. This is who I am."

00:44:34 The ego in Torah study, and what it costs us

00:45:50 The never-ending process

00:47:38 Host's Outro

A conversation with Chana Kalmenson: shlucha of Chabad of Belgravia in London, poet, and teacher of Jewish mysticism, on the Sefirot of the Omer.

Chana walks through each of the seven emotional Sefirot: Chesed, Gevurah, Tiferet, Netzach, Hod, Yesod, and Malchut. What each one is, how they relate to each other, and how they show up in everyday emotional life. The episode also covers how the months of Nissan, Iyar, and Sivan mirror human development from childhood to maturity, why the inner work of the Omer is what prepares us to receive the Torah at Sinai, and how to approach the counting without falling into perfectionism.

The conversation goes especially deep on three Sefirot: Hod (humility, gratitude, surrender), Tiferet (compassion, holding paradox, the antidote to shame), and Malchut (dignity, agency, authentic expression). Chana shares what she learned about humility from her father-in-law, the Chassidic teaching on the soul's forgetting at birth, and how to step out of comparison with others.

A grounded, accessible introduction to the Sefirot for anyone counting the Omer or wanting to understand the Kabbalistic map of the inner life.

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To inquire about sponsorship & advertising opportunities, please email us at info@humanandholy.com

To support our work, visit humanandholy.com/sponsor.

Find us on Instagram @humanandholy & subscribe to our channel to stay up to date on all our upcoming conversations ✨

Human & Holy podcast is available on all podcast streaming platforms. New episodes every Sunday & Wednesday on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Google Podcasts.

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TIMESTAMPS:

0:00 Opening reflection: loved into existence, loving me as me

00:31 Tonia's Intro

01:58 Welcome, and Chana on women's circles

05:25 What is Sefirat HaOmer, really? Pesach as emergence, Sinai as the destination

11:38 Nissan, Iyar, Sivan — the child, the teenager, the partner

17:45 Walking through each Sefirah: Chesed, Gevurah, Tiferet, Netzach, Hod, Yesod, Malchut

22:10 Why we use consciousness to look at the inner emotional life

29:17 When perfectionism hijacks the practice (and what to do instead)

33:03 On Hod: humility, gratitude, the quiet power of the left leg

40:33 What Chana learned from her father-in-law about humility

46:10 The trauma of forgetting at birth, and the long work of remembering

50:37 On Tiferet: holding paradox, growing up, why compassion is truth

56:09 Self-compassion as the antidote to shame

1:00:14 On Malchut: dignity, agency, and what emerges when everything inside has a voice

1:09:33 Soul to soul

A live Human & Holy Women's Open Mic Night in Jerusalem, exploring the theme "I Am a Dreamer". A deeply moving evening of poetry, prose and song about dreams fulfilled and dreams shattered, on the dreams laid to rest and the ones held onto with quiet persistence, on the courage to keep dreaming. Listen for an expansive, heart opening hour of soulful art that will dare you to your own dreams.

Thank you to Sara & Joel Halpern for hosting this evening in Jerusalem.

Featured in this episode (in order of appearance):

Mazal Zaikin

Zeesy Gurevitch

Rivka Mazal Tauber

Chanah Rothberg

Hindel Swerdlow

Estee Silberberg

(30:07) Name Missing

(32:28) Name Missing

Ariella Seltzer

Shani Pollack

Miriam Sebbag

Leah Katz

Keren Vardi

Devorah Rutner

Chana Bennett

Tonia Chazanow

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To join our virtual Tanya class, click here: https://humanandholy.mykajabi.com/tanyaclassTo inquire about sponsorship & advertising opportunities, please email us at info@humanandholy.com

To support our work, visit humanandholy.com/sponsor.

Find us on Instagram @humanandholy & subscribe to our channel to stay up to date on all our upcoming conversations ✨

Human & Holy podcast is available on all podcast streaming platforms. New episodes every Sunday & Wednesday on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Google Podcasts.

Join our virtual Tanya class here:

https://humanandholy.mykajabi.com/tanyaclass

Chana Bennet grew up in the religious system, but found herself searching for something from a young age. With nowhere to turn, she turned to God. In this conversation, Chana discusses the concept of devekut (attachment to God), the role of a Tzadik in awakening the soul, and what it actually looks like to live in daily relationship with Hashem.

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To inquire about sponsorship & advertising opportunities, please email us at info@humanandholy.com

To support our work, visit humanandholy.com/sponsor.

Find us on Instagram @humanandholy & subscribe to our channel to stay up to date on all our upcoming conversations ✨

Human & Holy podcast is available on all podcast streaming platforms. New episodes every Sunday & Wednesday on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Google Podcasts.

A personal essay about motherhood, the way it awakens my childhood self, and a fleeting, luminous moment where I allowed myself to experience its simplicity.

Sharing this as we enter into an immersive Pesach season, as an invitation to let yourself feel these moments when they come.

Read the essay here: https://open.substack.com/pub/toniachazanow/p/let-it-be-simple?r=c8uie&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

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To inquire about sponsorship & advertising opportunities, please email us at info@humanandholy.com

To support our work, visit humanandholy.com/sponsor.

Find us on Instagram @humanandholy & subscribe to our channel to stay up to date on all our upcoming conversations ✨

Human & Holy podcast is available on all podcast streaming platforms. New episodes every Sunday & Wednesday on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Google Podcasts.

Meet Ricka Razel, the Israeli musician who has been leading thousands of women in monthly Rosh Chodesh gatherings across Israel during one of the country's darkest times. In this conversation, Ricka shares how she experiences music as prayer, why she and fellow musicians became the "Brigade of Joy" visiting evacuated families in hotels, how music became therapeutic catharsis for Israeli women processing trauma, and how it can connect Jews from around the world.

Listen to Ricka's music here:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCc5vxWffKI_5qf8mhtYG0Ng

https://open.spotify.com/artist/6aZPpCSaYpDLkk4nfOESdz?si=iBbP7LRVT2alZ8Ylbjbl4A

Find her on instagram @ricka_razel

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Join our upcoming virtual Tanya class! We will be hosting a live, four part Tanya series, a space to explore the text through shared study, poetry, curated illustrations, songs, and guided reflection. Link to join us here: https://humanandholy.mykajabi.com/tanyaclass

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To inquire about sponsorship & advertising opportunities, please email us at info@humanandholy.com

To support our work, visit humanandholy.com/sponsor.

Find us on Instagram @humanandholy & subscribe to our channel to stay up to date on all our upcoming conversations ✨

Human & Holy podcast is available on all podcast streaming platforms. New episodes every Sunday & Wednesday on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Google Podcasts.

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TIMESTAMPS:

0:00 - Opening

0:47 - Introduction to Ricka Razel & Israel Series

2:22 - Family, Music & 8 Kids

3:58 - Why Rosh Chodesh is the Women's Holiday

5:41 - The War Experience: Nova Festival, Evacuations & Loss

7:34 - The Power of Music During War

9:35 - The "Brigade of Simcha" - Bringing Joy to Hotels

12:29 - Sitting Shiva in a Hotel: Meeting a 24-Year-Old Widow

14:45 - Holocaust Survivor Grandparents: 2.5 Years in Amsterdam Attic

17:20 - The Miracle: How They Survived

19:15 - Why Ricka Returned to Music at 42

21:30 - From Real Estate to Crave Restaurant to Music

23:45 - The Biblical Energy of Women's Song

25:10 - Miriam the Prophetess Leading Through Music

27:00 - Monthly Gatherings: 600 Women Singing in Jerusalem

29:20 - The Therapeutic Power of Song During Trauma

31:40 - Women Who Couldn't Cry Until They Sang

33:15 - The Nova Festival Tragedy in Her Community

35:00 - Young People in the Army: Every Day Hearing News

36:45 - Funerals, Missiles, and Living Through War

38:20 - The Song That Became October 7th's Anthem

39:49 - "Achenu Kol Beit Yisrael" - Prayer for Captives

41:10 - The Concert That Didn't Happen on October 7th

42:49 - Jewish Family Connection: What Makes Us Different

43:36 - Israeli vs. American Jewish Music: Bridging the Gap

44:05 - Contemporary Jewish Artists

44:24 - "Still I Wait" - Song of Hope During War

44:33 - Closing Message: Bring Your Light to the World

45:27 - Outro

Nissan, the month of freedom, is an invitation for personal freedom. Today, we explore the many dimensions of personal freedom: lack of external attachments, knowing our life force, taking a leap, finding the words, allowing ourselves to feel the bitterness of our slavery, and being able to tolerate the uncertainty of what comes after our own personal exile.

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Based on Pesach teachings from the Maharal, Sfas Emes, Chidushei Harim, Arizal, Lubavitcher Rebbe, and Alter Rebbe.

To inquire about sponsorship & advertising opportunities, please email us at info@humanandholy.com

To support our work, visit humanandholy.com/sponsor.

Find us on Instagram @humanandholy & subscribe to our channel to stay up to date on all our upcoming conversations ✨

Human & Holy podcast is available on all podcast streaming platforms. New episodes every Sunday & Wednesday on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Google Podcasts.

Sivan Rahav-Meir has been on Israeli television since age six, and became religious at fifteen after a chance encounter with three girls who simply said, "Bo l'Shabbat." In this conversation recorded in Jerusalem, Sivan shares how she's channeled three decades of journalism skills toward teaching Torah, why she sees a massive post-October 7th hunger for practical Jewish doing (not just inspiration), and why she believes Jewish identity is our real protection.

She's candid about the gap between her public influence and her private reality, and how she is guided by the Lubavitcher Rebbe's paradox: always happy, but never satisfied. She notes the Jewish world's blindspot as the 85% of unaffiliated Jews outside the organized community bubble, and calls every connected Jew to the same simple shlichut that changed her life: invite someone in.

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Sivan Rahav-Meir is a media personality and lecturer. Married to Yedidya, the mother of five. Lives in Jerusalem. Went on shlichut with her family 2019-2020, when she served as World Mizrachi's Shlicha to North America.

She works for Israel TV news, writes a column for Yediot Aharonot newspaper, and hosts a weekly radio show. Her lectures on the weekly Torah portion are attended by hundreds and the live broadcast attracts thousands more listeners throughout the world. Sivan lectures in Israel and overseas about her personal story. the Jewish world since 10/7, Judaism and new media.

She was voted by Globes newspaper as most popular female media personality in Israel and by the Jerusalem Post as one of the 50 most influential Jews in the world.

Learn more at www.sivanrahavmeir.com Find her podcast here: https://open.spotify.com/show/6OlPTHjKBnNwDrNNalxD9jFollow her on instagram @sivanrahavmeir

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To inquire about sponsorship & advertising opportunities, please email us at info@humanandholy.comTo support our work, visit humanandholy.com/sponsor.Find us on Instagram @humanandholy & subscribe to our channel to stay up to date on all our upcoming conversations ✨Human & Holy podcast is available on all podcast streaming platforms. New episodes every Sunday & Wednesday on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Google Podcasts.

* * * * * * *TIMESTAMPS:

[00:00] Introduction

[02:04] Welcome Sivan

[04:00] The problem with news media

[05:10] The role of Torah in making sense of chaos

[06:42] Sivan's origin story

[07:50] The two words that changed my life

[10:05] Building a relationship with Shabbat gradually

[11:00] My personal political transformation

[13:20] Political peace and inner peace

[13:53] Communicating Torah accessibly

[15:30] Using professional skills in a holy direction

[16:45] What has changed after October 7th?

[17:30] People want something tangible

[18:39] Responding to the enemey

[20:10] Omar Shemtov's testimony from the tunnels

[20:56] Why Sivan doesn't call herself a Rebbetzin

[24:30] Where does her energy come from?

[25:00] The real Avodat Hashem happens in my home

[26:15] "Always happy, but never satisfied"

[28:10] Resilience & drive as a framework that doesn't contradict joy

[28:45] The private work of a public person: young motherhood and the test of patience

[31:30] Immediate gratification culture vs. long-term spiritual investment

[32:10] If you didn't post it, did it happen?

[33:00] Sivan's own social media guidelines

[36:00] What worries Sivan about the Jewish world

[37:00] Building Jewish identity from within

[41:10] Our blindspot: the 85% of unaffiliated Jews outside the "bubble"

[44:00] Israeli expats in America

[45:30] What I want my legacy to be

[46:10] Self love as the basis for loving another

[48:30] How Sivan remembers thinks about her connections

[50:45] Favorite verse in Tanach

[51:00] One book everyone should read

[51:20] How I nourish myself

[51:55] A daily habit that can transform your life

[52:15] My message to the Jewish world

[53:30] Closing

[54:15] Host outro

The Medrash teaches that every person has three names: the one our parents give us, the one our friends give us, and the ones we make for ourselves. In this episode, we dive deep into a single verse in Parshat Vayakhel to explore what it truly means to name ourselves, and why the greatness of our ancestors only becomes relevant once we become a person in our own right.

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Join our new virtual Tanya class! We will be hosting a live, three part series on the divine soul, through Chapter 2 of the Tanya, a space to explore the text through shared study, poetry, curated illustrations, songs, and guided reflection. Link to join us here: https://humanandholy.mykajabi.com/tanyaclass

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To inquire about sponsorship & advertising opportunities, please email us at info@humanandholy.com

To support our work, visit humanandholy.com/sponsor.

Find us on Instagram @humanandholy & subscribe to our channel to stay up to date on all our upcoming conversations ✨

Human & Holy podcast is available on all podcast streaming platforms. New episodes every Sunday & Wednesday on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Google Podcasts.

A deeply personal and Torah-rich conversation on facing darkness from within. Kiki opens up about her own journey with anxiety and depression, sharing how she moved from resenting the darkness she experienced to believing in its inherent blessing. Drawing on biblical stories, Kiki weaves profound insight with raw personal honesty. She explores what it practically means to face darkness, professional help as a prerequisite to faith-based tools and the belief that our inner light is inextinguishable, no matter what darkness we are facing.

Kiki is a Chabad Shlucha for a community in Israel, teaches weekly Chassidus and Kabbalah classes in person and online. She is a bridal educator and mikvah attendant, and is passionate about learning and teaching chassidus.

Find her classes on Youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/@kabbalahwithkiki

Find her classes on Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/show/6uscGnRqwgd2j8qwkk542M?si=FIxIy73QQNWw7qVSbDYRUg

Email her at chabadofefrat@gmail.com and find her on instagram at @kabbalahwithkiki.

* * * * * * *

Join our new virtual Tanya class! We will be hosting a live, three part series on the divine soul, through Chapter 2 of the Tanya, a space to explore the text through shared study, poetry, curated illustrations, songs, and guided reflection. Link to join us here: https://humanandholy.mykajabi.com/tanyaclass

* * * * * * *

To inquire about sponsorship & advertising opportunities, please email us at info@humanandholy.com

To support our work, visit humanandholy.com/sponsor.

Find us on Instagram @humanandholy & subscribe to our channel to stay up to date on all our upcoming conversations ✨

Human & Holy podcast is available on all podcast streaming platforms. New episodes every Sunday & Wednesday on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Google Podcasts.

* * * * * * *

Timestamps:

00:00 — Introduction

01:43 — Today's topic: Torah wisdom on facing inner and outer darkness

02:14 — Why this is personal: Kiki's journey with anxiety and depression

03:30 — Showing up to teach even on the hardest days

05:14 — Biblical context: Abraham, Yaakov, and descending into Egypt

06:00 — The Kabbalistic purpose of exile:

07:38 — Descent before ascent

08:20 — Yaakov wrestling with the angel

10:00 — What blessing is this bringing me?

11:15 — The blessing is not external

13:13 — Practically speaking: what does facing darkness actually look like?

15:00 — The Hillel model: lighting one candle when the darkness feels overwhelming

16:50 — Going outward as a tool: moving out of yourself to find light

18:35 — The fear of being swallowed by darkness

20:30 — Balancing inward processing and outward giving

23:10 — Designating time for pain

25:00 — When mental health requires medical treatment first

26:24 — Yosef vs. his brothers: two worldviews on how to live in a dark world

28:30 — The brothers' approach: protect holiness by withdrawing from the world

29:30 — Yosef's approach: engage with darkness and elevate it

30:45 — Galus as a dream: the power of opposites coexisting

35:00 — Two kinds of dreams: exile's confusion vs. Yosef's redemptive vision

40:50 — What happened to our dreams?

43:00 — Changing "if only" to "only because"

46:00 — Two approaches to supporting people in their darkness

48:00 — Yaakov's model: sometimes when you're in the pit can't climb out alone

50:00 — Yosef's model: the power of presence

52:30 — Just sitting with someone is enough

54:30 — Kiki's personal postpartum depression

56:30 — The inextinguishable light

58:30 — How to support someone in darkness

59:26 — Soul-to-soul closing message

The power of having our blindspots revealed to us, why seeing ourselves clearly (both our flaws and potential) is the beginning of all growth, the spark of Moshe in each soul that allows us to experience an unfiltered version of our soul's descent, and the subtle movements we make in our lives that initiate a much larger expansion.

Source: Maamer Vekibel Hayehudim 5738

Join our new virtual Tanya class! We are hosting a live, three part series on the divine soul, through Chapter 2 of the Tanya, a space to explore the text through shared study, poetry, curated illustrations, songs, and guided reflection. Link to join us here: https://humanandholy.mykajabi.com/tanyaclass

* * * * * * *

To inquire about sponsorship & advertising opportunities, please email us at info@humanandholy.com

To support our work, visit humanandholy.com/sponsor.

Find us on Instagram @humanandholy & subscribe to our channel to stay up to date on all our upcoming conversations ✨

Human & Holy podcast is available on all podcast streaming platforms. New episodes every Sunday & Wednesday on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Google Podcasts.

TIMESTAMPS:

00:00 – Intro & Tanya Class Info

01:15 – Part One Recap

02:02 – A Life of Learning

03:00 – Seeing Your Inner Gap

04:50 – Two Types of Enemies

06:18 – Blindspots and Honest Self-Awareness

08:40 – Humility

09:10 – A Spark of Moshe Within

11:01 – The Soul's Descent

13:27 – The Purim Story

15:38 – The Gift in Response to Our Initiation

17:54 – Shema Yisrael: Witnessing G-d's Oneness

19:00 – God As Our Shadow

20:17 – Accepting the Torah from Within

A lesson from the Purim story about self-education, becoming a student of life, waking up to the gap between where we are and what is possible for our soul's expression in this world, and the internal, conscious choice that the Jews during the Purim story were finally able to make to accept the Torah in their lives.

Source: Maamer Vekibel Hayehudim 5738

Join our new virtual Tanya class! We will be hosting a live, three part series on the divine soul, through Chapter 2 of the Tanya, a space to explore the text through shared study, poetry, curated illustrations, songs, and guided reflection. Link to join us here: https://humanandholy.mykajabi.com/tanyaclass

* * * * * * *

To inquire about sponsorship & advertising opportunities, please email us at info@humanandholy.com

To support our work, visit humanandholy.com/sponsor.

Find us on Instagram @humanandholy & subscribe to our channel to stay up to date on all our upcoming conversations ✨

Human & Holy podcast is available on all podcast streaming platforms. New episodes every Sunday & Wednesday on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Google Podcasts.

In this deeply honest conversation, Shani opens up about the origins of her love for Torah, a genuine religious crisis she experienced in college, and how wrestling with philosophy ultimately widened her faith. We talk about Jewish womanhood, halacha, and why Shani wants women to stop being afraid of their own bodies and their own questions. With remarkable vulnerability, Shani reflects on the cost of a life given to community, the nights she wasn't home, and the conversation with her daughter that taught her a powerful lesson about accepting the hidden costs of our most idealistic choices.

Rabbanit Shani Taragin directs and teaches in Israel and worldwide. She currently serves on the advisory committee for the Mizrachi Olami Shalhevet program, as Rosh Beit Midrash for the women in Yeshiva University’s new academic program in Israel, and together with her husband, Reuven, as Educational Director for Mizrachi Olami.

Join our new virtual Tanya class! We will be hosting a live, three part series on the divine soul, through Chapter 2 of the Tanya, a space to explore the text through shared study, poetry, curated illustrations, songs, and guided reflection. Link to join us here: https://humanandholy.mykajabi.com/tanyaclass

* * * * * * *

To inquire about sponsorship & advertising opportunities, please email us at info@humanandholy.com

To support our work, visit humanandholy.com/sponsor.

Find us on Instagram @humanandholy & subscribe to our channel to stay up to date on all our upcoming conversations ✨

Human & Holy podcast is available on all podcast streaming platforms. New episodes every Sunday & Wednesday on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Google Podcasts.

* * * * * * *

TIMESTAMPS:

[00:00] — Intro

[00:03] — Host's intro

[00:06] — Online Tanya Class Launch

[00:09] — Welcome Rabbanit Shani

[00:12] — How My Love of Torah Developed

[00:15] — The Merging of Study and Teaching

[00:18] — Torah Changes Who I Am

[00:21] — Bible Criticism in the Beit Medrash

[00:24] — Have You Ever Experienced Religious Doubt?

[00:27] — A Personal Faith Crisis

[00:30] — What is the Foundation of Faith?

[00:33] — Judaism Where We Can Question While We Study

[00:36] — Not Just an Ethical System, A Relationship with God

[00:39] — A Love Letter to the Torah

[00:42] — Ideals Put Into Daily Practice

[00:45] — Women's Torah Study

[00:48] — Torah and Daily Life Are Naturally Intertwined for Jewish Women

[00:51] — I Want Women to Feel More Comfortable in Their Bodies

[00:54] — What I'd Like to See Changed

[00:57] — The Human Dimension of My Role

[01:00] — The Hidden Costs of Our Choices

[01:03] — A Conversation with My Daughter About Balance in Motherhood

[01:06] — Communicating the Why Behind Your Choices

[01:09] — Evolving in the Balance Between Family and Public Work

[01:12] — Rapid Fire

[01:19] — Outro

In honor of Rosh Chodesh Adar, we talk about the mystical underpinnings of this month of joy: why humor is the very space where contradictions can breathe, how the soul finds expression in lighthearted depth, why taking ourselves less seriously can be a conduit for our fullest expression, and play as a way to find expression for our soul's experience.

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Join our new virtual Tanya class! We will be hosting a live, three part series on the divine soul, through Chapter 2 of the Tanya, a space to explore the text through shared study, poetry, curated illustrations, songs, and guided reflection. Link to join us here: https://humanandholy.mykajabi.com/tanyaclass

To inquire about sponsorship & advertising opportunities, please email us at info@humanandholy.com

To support our work, visit humanandholy.com/sponsor.

Find us on Instagram @humanandholy & subscribe to our channel to stay up to date on all our upcoming conversations ✨

Human & Holy podcast is available on all podcast streaming platforms. New episodes every Sunday & Wednesday on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Google Podcasts.

A live conversation with my mother about joy, reflections on life when living so close to hardship, her work caring for people in their most tenuous moments, the privilege of being in a position of giving, raising children with Jewish values outside of a Jewish community, letting yourself dream, and so much more.

Rochel Lazaroff is the co-founder and co-director of Aishel House, a hospitality home for patients and their families visiting the Texas Medical Center, a shlucha, mother of eleven, and Torah teacher. Find out more about her work here: aishelhouse.org. Contact her at rochel@aishelhouse.org

Join our new virtual Tanya class! We will be hosting a live, three part series on the divine soul, through Chapter 2 of the Tanya, a space to explore the text through shared study, poetry, curated illustrations, songs, and guided reflection. Link to join us here: https://humanandholy.mykajabi.com/tanyaclass

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To inquire about sponsorship & advertising opportunities, please email us at info@humanandholy.com

To support our work, visit humanandholy.com/sponsor.

Find us on Instagram @humanandholy & subscribe to our channel to stay up to date on all our upcoming conversations ✨

Human & Holy podcast is available on all podcast streaming platforms. New episodes every Sunday & Wednesday on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Google Podcasts.

Episode sponsored by Naomi Gruber. Dedicated in honor of my dear father’s neshama, דב ברל בן יצחק . May his neshama have the highest aliyah!

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Can any of us experience objective truth? What do we make of the ebbs and flows of our inner worlds? If a spiritual experience felt real, but didn't last, was it ever genuine?

Sharing one of my favorite ideas from the Tanya about truth as a moving target, and why the imperfect, shifting experience of truth is the only way to touch G-d. 

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Source: Chapter 13 of Tanya 

Heads up: Human & Holy is launching an online Tanya course going live this February! More details coming this Sunday.

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To inquire about sponsorship & advertising opportunities, please email us at info@humanandholy.com

To support our work, visit humanandholy.com/sponsor.

Find us on Instagram @humanandholy & subscribe to our channel to stay up to date on all our upcoming conversations ✨

Human & Holy podcast is available on all podcast streaming platforms. New episodes every Sunday & Wednesday on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Google Podcasts.

A conversation about the deaths and rebirths that we experience throughout our lives, the existential shift of motherhood, the personal language required to choose faith, the philosophy behind Chabad outreach and how it democratizes spirituality, why the concept of Moshiach (messiah) cannot be disentangled from the purpose of the Jewish people, and the small concessions to our vices that have outsized negative impacts on our lives.

This episode is part 3/3 of a series on the Introduction to the Zohar: The Wisdom of Truth by Rabbi Yehudah Leib Ashlag, co-hosted by Tonia Chazanow and Charlotte Broukhim.

Find the book here: share.fund/zoharhhUse code ZOHARHH at checkout for 20% off

Charlotte Broukhim is a Jewish mom from Los Angeles who explores the intersections of Jewish mysticism, science, and politics. She studied comparative religion at Harvard, and her upcoming Substack will share practical reflections and insights at the crossroads of ancient wisdom and today’s world. Find her on instagram @cbroukhim and contact her at Charlottebroukhim@gmail.com.

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EPISODE SPONSOR: Today’s episode is sponsored by SHARE, a global initiative connecting individuals to the timeless teachings of the inner dimension of Jewish wisdom, known as Pnimiyut Hatorah. Their mission is to inspire soulful living and learning by translating ancient insights for the contemporary moment. You can learn more on Share.Fund.

To inquire about sponsorship & advertising opportunities, please email us at info@humanandholy.com

To support our work, visit humanandholy.com/sponsor.Find us on Instagram @humanandholy & subscribe to our channel to stay up to date on all our upcoming conversations Human & Holy podcast is available on all podcast streaming platforms.

New episodes every Sunday & Wednesday on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Google Podcasts.

TIMESTAMPS:

00:00 - Introduction & Charlotte's Background

03:28 - The Intersection of Mysticism and Science

06:20 - Messianic Vision as Core Jewish Purpose

11:12 - Looking Forward vs Looking Backward

15:45 - Shabbat is a Dress Rehearsal for Redemption

20:31 - Resurrection of the Dead in Modern Times

24:16 - Releasing Our Attachments to our Roles and Accomplishments

27:53 - Becoming a Channel for God Through Unexpected Questions

30:21 - Matrescence and the Ego Death of Motherhood

34:21 - Intergenerational Healing

38:46 - Who is the Zohar's Author?

42:04 - Torah Ideas Are More Powerful Than Historical Proof

46:29 - Faith is a Choice We Make

50:40 - Emunah vs. Blind Faith

55:07 - Spiritual Maturity

59:05 - Mysticism Awakens the Deepest Parts of Our Souls

01:02:29 - Should We Lead With the Mystical Parts of Torah?

01:04:38 - The Democratization of Spirituality

01:09:48 - Even Following Traffic Laws Can be a Mitzvah

01:14:58 - Hashgacha Pratis: Making Meaning of Every Moment

01:17:38 - Is Time Management Holy? The Trap of Wasting Time & Scrolling

01:21:55 - Upping the Stakes Helps Us Overcome Our Vices

01:24:24 - Intensity Driven by Purpose, Not Shame

01:27:11 - Delayed Pleasure Comes Through the Work

01:31:13 - Falling in Love with the Process

A conversation about the nature of human desire, why we were each created with enormous wanting, and how to transform our desire to take into a desire to receive in order to give what we have.

We talk about perfection as wholeness, not a lack of flaws, making sense of our relationship to materiality, and the deep, personal fulfillment that happens through merging our own desires with the divine will, through Torah and Mitzvot.

This episode is part 2/3 of a series on the Introduction to the Zohar: The Wisdom of Truth by Rabbi Yehudah Leib Ashlag, co-hosted by Tonia Chazanow and Charlotte Broukhim.

Find the book here: share.fund/zoharhh

Use code ZOHARHH at checkout for 20% off

Charlotte Broukhim is a Jewish mom from Los Angeles who explores the intersections of Jewish mysticism, science, and politics. She studied comparative religion at Harvard, and her upcoming Substack will share practical reflections and insights at the crossroads of ancient wisdom and today’s world. Find her on instagram @cbroukhim and contact her at Charlottebroukhim@gmail.com.

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EPISODE SPONSOR:

Today’s episode is sponsored by SHARE, a global initiative connecting individuals to the timeless teachings of the inner dimension of Jewish wisdom, known as Pnimiyut Hatorah. Their mission is to inspire soulful living and learning by translating ancient insights for the contemporary moment. You can learn more on Share.Fund.

To inquire about sponsorship & advertising opportunities, please email us at info@humanandholy.com

To support our work, visit humanandholy.com/sponsor.

Find us on Instagram @humanandholy & subscribe to our channel to stay up to date on all our upcoming conversations ✨

Human & Holy podcast is available on all podcast streaming platforms. New episodes every Sunday & Wednesday on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Google Podcasts.

A conversation exploring the introduction to the Zohar, through some of life's biggest questions, like: Why are we here? Why do humans suffer? If everything is part of a divine plan, what is our role in God's broader story?

We explore the opportunities for growth in facing our own resistance, what our suffering can invite us to, the call to adventure within daily life, studying mysticism while remaining connected with reality, and testing spiritual ideas in our own lives.

This episode is part 1/3 of a series on the Introduction to the Zohar: The Wisdom of Truth by Rabbi Yehudah Leib Ashlag, co-hosted by Tonia Chazanow and Charlotte Broukhim.

Find the book here: share.fund/zoharhh

Use code ZOHARHH at checkout for 20% off

Charlotte Broukhim is a Jewish mom from Los Angeles who explores the intersections of Jewish mysticism, science, and politics. She studied comparative religion at Harvard, and her upcoming Substack will share practical reflections and insights at the crossroads of ancient wisdom and today’s world. Find her on instagram @cbroukhim and contact her at Charlottebroukhim@gmail.com.

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EPISODE SPONSOR:

Today’s episode is sponsored by SHARE, a global initiative connecting individuals to the timeless teachings of the inner dimension of Jewish wisdom, known as Pnimiyut Hatorah. Their mission is to inspire soulful living and learning by translating ancient insights for the contemporary moment. You can learn more on Share.Fund.

To inquire about sponsorship & advertising opportunities, please email us at info@humanandholy.com

To support our work, visit humanandholy.com/sponsor.

Find us on Instagram @humanandholy & subscribe to our channel to stay up to date on all our upcoming conversations ✨

Human & Holy podcast is available on all podcast streaming platforms. New episodes every Sunday & Wednesday on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Google Podcasts.

Where do I look for direction? Is G-d just speaking the world into existence, or is G-d speaking to me through all that exists in my life?

The Sfas Emes teaches that the plagues transformed the ten divine utterances of creation into the ten commandments, reflecting a clear unveiling of God's hidden creative forces.

What is the difference between background speech and directed speech? How can we reinforce G-d's guidance through the ways we notice His words to us? How can we transform the concealed divine within all of creation, into a felt experience of Hashem's guidance in our lives?

Source:

Sfas Emes Parshas Bo 5631

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To inquire about sponsorship & advertising opportunities, please email us at info@humanandholy.com

To support our work, visit humanandholy.com/sponsor.

Find us on Instagram @humanandholy & subscribe to our channel to stay up to date on all our upcoming conversations ✨

Human & Holy podcast is available on all podcast streaming platforms. New episodes every Sunday & Wednesday on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Google Podcasts.

Shoshana Manssouri stumbled into the role of being a mikveh attendant as a young woman. Over the years, she has developed a deep reverence for the experience of accompanying women to immerse in the mikvah's holy waters.

Today, she shares the deeper meaning behind mikvah immersion, what makes these ritual waters holy, and the experiences that made her fall in love with her role.

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To inquire about sponsorship & advertising opportunities, please email us at info@humanandholy.com

To support our work, visit humanandholy.com/sponsor.

Find us on Instagram @humanandholy & subscribe to our channel to stay up to date on all our upcoming conversations ✨

Human & Holy podcast is available on all podcast streaming platforms. New episodes every Sunday & Wednesday on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Google Podcasts.

How do the past versions of ourselves prevent us from experiencing who we are? How can we become more present to what exists in our lives, to the people, callings, and divine encounters that reveal themselves to us every day?

The Zohar says "The righteous live every day as if it is their last."

What does this teaching illuminate about living life with more presence, living with less attachment to the days that came before this one, to meet each moment fully, to shed old identities and fully experience what exists right now in our lives?

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To inquire about sponsorship & advertising opportunities, please email us at info@humanandholy.com

To support our work, visit humanandholy.com/sponsor.

Find us on Instagram @humanandholy & subscribe to our channel to stay up to date on all our upcoming conversations ✨

Human & Holy podcast is available on all podcast streaming platforms. New episodes every Sunday & Wednesday on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Google Podcasts.

A conversation with Raizy Fried about discovering the Godly purpose of her natural personality, the way resurrection of the dead (Techiyas Hameisim) can be a practical, emotional experience, the realization that Hashem wants our full hearts, how Raizy's personal questions led her to deeper Torah study, how gossip and judgment can be a reflection of our own unfulfilled purpose, what compels her to stick her neck out to discuss taboo topics, and a transformative teaching from the Tanya that changed Raizy's life.

Raizy Fried is a world-renowned author of the Lekovod Shabbos Kodesh series and The Anatomy of a Yenta, and a beloved speaker known for her warm, honest, and deeply relatable style. She brings clarity and depth to topics ranging from Shabbos to emotional wellness and personal growth.

Through her platform, Inspired Living, Raizy reaches thousands of women with thoughtful content designed to uplift and enrich everyday life.

Link to Inspired Living: watch.raizyfried.com

Find her on instagram @raizyscookin

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To inquire about sponsorship & advertising opportunities, please email us at info@humanandholy.com

To support our work, visit humanandholy.com/sponsor.

Find us on Instagram @humanandholy & subscribe to our channel to stay up to date on all our upcoming conversations ✨

Human & Holy podcast is available on all podcast streaming platforms. New episodes every Sunday & Wednesday on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Google Podcasts.

What happens when we are called to a mission, but we don't have what it takes? Why is the world we live in one of specificity, where every person experiences a very individual life and purpose? Can we be channels for divine light in this world, as our imperfect selves?

When God tells Moshe to speak to Pharoh, he says: "I am not a man of speech." His inability to communicate is not just a technical inability, it is a spiritual one. What follows is a rich lesson about the advantage of deep, expressed light over the highest, disembodied light and the power of communication, both in life and speech: the power of compressing limitless information into contained expression, the power of taking the raw material of our potential and building a life with it.

Source: Torah Ohr, Parshas Shemos

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To inquire about sponsorship & advertising opportunities, please email us at info@humanandholy.com

To support our work, visit humanandholy.com/sponsor.

Find us on Instagram @humanandholy & subscribe to our channel to stay up to date on all our upcoming conversations ✨

Human & Holy podcast is available on all podcast streaming platforms. New episodes every Sunday & Wednesday on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Google Podcasts.

How do we trust God when we face unfathomable challenges in our lives? How do we believe that God is good when He says no to the things we most want? How can we expand our vessels to receive more blessing in our lives, to make space for better even when it's already good?

A live Human & Holy podcast recorded in Woodmere, NY with Miriam Rubenstein on the subject of Bitachon (trust in God). Includes audience questions, vulnerable shares about trusting even when God says no, and women sharing the personal transformations that they experienced through studying this subject.

Miriam Rubenstein is a Rebbetzin at Cong. Aish Kodesh in Woodmere, and an experienced facilitator whose Bitachon Chaburas have uplifted the lives of many women. She is passionate about helping women step into their light, and inspires growth, trust, and joy through her teaching and guidance. To contact Miriam: Miriam.Rubenstein@gmail.com

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To inquire about sponsorship & advertising opportunities, please email us at info@humanandholy.com

To support our work, visit humanandholy.com/sponsor.

Find us on Instagram @humanandholy & subscribe to our channel to stay up to date on all our upcoming conversations ✨

Human & Holy podcast is available on all podcast streaming platforms. New episodes every Sunday & Wednesday on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Google Podcasts.

There are so many bittersweet flavors to our emotional landscape: our grief intermingled with relief, the tears of compassion when those who have hurt us express their regrets, the push and pull between our inner and outer worlds, the existential ache of not finding full expression in any world, the relief at expressing who we are aloud only to discover that we still only belong to ourselves, the lonely costs of success, the recognition that what was broken in our lifetime may not be made whole for hundreds more years, and a thousand more inner contradictions.

Yosef's story is the story of a dreamer whose dreams came true. But even stories with the happiest endings come with an underlying ache.

As we close Yosef’s story in this week's Parsha, we analyze Yosef's emotional world through the astounding record of Yosef’s tears, a central character in the Torah who is plainly recorded in verse after verse as weeping: sometimes in private, sometimes in public, sometimes so loudly that the entire land can hear.

How do we make meaning of these tears? What story do they tell us about Yosef’s experience of his life’s triumphs and hardships, of the inner, emotional world that beat beneath this powerful figure, who rose from the pit to find astounding success as viceroy in Egypt, and as he released his restraint on his buried identity, expressed an emotional landscape that echoes the complexity of each of our own inner worlds?

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To inquire about sponsorship & advertising opportunities, please email us at info@humanandholy.com

To support our work, visit humanandholy.com/sponsor.

Find us on Instagram @humanandholy & subscribe to our channel to stay up to date on all our upcoming conversations ✨

Human & Holy podcast is available on all podcast streaming platforms. New episodes every Sunday & Wednesday on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Google Podcasts.

Is the life of a Jew an individual journey with God or a communal one? What is being asked of the Jewish people right now? When your faith fractures, how do you find wholeness again in your relationship with God?

A conversation with Dr. Mijal Bitton exploring faith in God, the current Jewish experience, Judaism not just as a religion but as a family, the significance of our ancestral bonds and the power and necessity of individual contributions to the collective Jewish narrative.

Dr. Mijal Bitton is a spiritual leader, public intellectual, and sociologist. She serves as Scholar in Residence at the Maimonides Fund and Rosh Kehilla of the Downtown Minyan in New York City. A Visiting Researcher at NYU Wagner, she directed pioneering research on Sephardic and Mizrahi Jews in the United States.

Mijal is an alumna of the Wexner Graduate Fellowship, a New Pluralist Field Builder, and a Sacks Scholar. She co-hosts the podcast Wondering Jews and shares weekly reflections on Jewish life, identity, and resilience in her Substack newsletter, Committed.

Substack: https://mijal.substack.com/

Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/1cU0NTHYQZOTARwuXTbpLU?si=uPmpMnd6RbycOuFli-N9Sg

Website & contact: mijalbitton.com

Instagram: @mijalbitton

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To inquire about sponsorship & advertising opportunities, please email us at info@humanandholy.com

To support our work, visit humanandholy.com/sponsor.

Find us on Instagram @humanandholy & subscribe to our channel to stay up to date on all our upcoming conversations ✨

Human & Holy podcast is available on all podcast streaming platforms. New episodes every Sunday & Wednesday on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Google Podcasts.

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TIMESTAMPS:

00:00 Introducing Mijal Bitton

03:12 The Jewish Experience: Identity and Collective Responsibility

05:56 Faith and Imperfection: Navigating Belief in Difficult Times

08:48 Judaism Beyond Religion: A Family and Community

12:04 The Interconnectedness of Faith and Peoplehood

14:56 Finding Your Individual Path Within a Collective Identity

17:48 The Role of My Ancestors in Shaping My Faith

21:10 Hope vs. Optimism: A Jewish Perspective on Challenges

23:53 The Joy of Being Jewish

27:13 The Future of Judaism: A Vision for the World

30:02 Fighting for Our Place: Political Mobilization and Community Engagement

32:54 Personal Practices: Staying Centered Amidst Responsibilities

36:10 Sephardic Heritage: A Unique Perspective on Tradition

38:56 Closing Thoughts: Embracing Our Roles in the Jewish Community

What is the Jewish response to existential threat? Is political activism, investment in physical security and self protection the Jewish response? Is increased prayer and good deeds enough, to the exclusion of all else?

Using the biblical record of Yaakov's response to Esav in his moment of danger, the Purim story, and the Lubavitcher Rebbe's response to the 1954 massacre in Kfar Chabad, we explore when it is a time to grieve, when it is a time to pray, and when it is a time to mobilize to confront the realities of our world.

Episode dedicated to the Refuah Sheleima, the complete healing, of Yehudah Leib Ben Manya.

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To inquire about sponsorship & advertising opportunities, please email us at info@humanandholy.com

To support our work, visit humanandholy.com/sponsor.

Find us on Instagram @humanandholy & subscribe to our channel to stay up to date on all our upcoming conversations ✨

Human & Holy podcast is available on all podcast streaming platforms. New episodes every Sunday & Wednesday on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Google Podcasts.

A conversation with Miriam Pineles, a practitioner of Chinese medicine, Chassidus teacher and founder of Ayin Healing, exploring the intersection of Chinese medicine and Chassidic ideas. Miriam shares how an understanding of the elements within a person can lead to personal healing and balance, the role that the inner dimension of Torah plays in finding wholeness, and practical tools for releasing stored emotions.

Miriam Pineles is a licensed, board-certified Acupuncturist and Chinese Herbalist in NYC, specializing in women's health, fertility, pain, anxiety, and digestive issues, with a focus on integrative healing using Dr. Richard Tan's Balance Method and custom herbal formulas to treat both physical and emotional well-being, helping bodies function optimally and promoting self-care. She holds a Master's degree from Pacific College of Oriental Medicine and is also a Doctor of Acupuncture and Chinese Medicine (DACM).

Miriam is the founder of Ayin Healing, an organization supporting Jewish women in their journey of healing from the wound of childhood sexual abuse.She is also the teacher of popular weekly Chassidus chaburahs.

For more information about Ayin Healing, visit ayinhealing.com

To book an appointment with Miriam Pineles, visit conscioushealthandwellness.com.

Find her on instagram @dr.miriampineles

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To inquire about sponsorship & advertising opportunities, please email us at info@humanandholy.com

To support our work, visit humanandholy.com/sponsor.

Find us on Instagram @humanandholy & subscribe to our channel to stay up to date on all our upcoming conversations ✨

Human & Holy podcast is available on all podcast streaming platforms. New episodes every Sunday & Wednesday on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Google Podcasts.