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As we mourn the lives lost on and after the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7th, 2023, Rabbi Shira and Hanna discuss a problem common for many American Jews this election season: Should you support a candidate who aligns with your values on most everything…except Israel? They’re joined by Nicholas Lemann, Dean Emeritus at the Columbia Journalism School and author of Returning: A Search for Home Across Three Centuries.

Read “A Profound Question Haunting Jews Today” by Nicholas Lemann

Read more about Nicholas Lemann

Read El Malei Rachamim by Rabbi Sharon Cohen Anisfeld

Learn about Values based decision making

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Fun fact: Rabbi Shira is not only a rabbi, she’s also a therapist! So she’s uniquely equipped to answer this week’s listener question: When should you seek counseling from a rabbi and when should you see a therapist?

Shira and Hanna debate the merits of both types of counseling and find themselves asking why do Jews love therapy so much?!

Listen to Hanna on Radio Atlantic: How American Became Addicted to Therapy: 

Read a History of Jewish Chaplaincy

Read about how Rabbis act as counselors

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🎶No graduation day for you 🎶

As Hebrew Schools around the country supply their students with lulavs and etrogs for the upcoming Sukkot holiday, Rabbi Shira and Hanna talk about all things religious education. What’s the goal? Is it working? Is Hebrew School just a B’Mitzvah Factory? (and is there anything wrong with that?). Rabbi Rebecca Rosenthal, the Senior Director of Youth and Family Education at Central Synagogue in New York, helps answer these questions and more.

Read more on Jewish obligations to teaching children

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Even if you can’t make it to Aspen you can hear Rabbi Shira’s sermon for Yom Kippur this year. Drawing on her own experience visiting the Langa Township in Cape Town, South Africa, the Yom Kippur Haftarah reading and some Ursula LeGuin, Shira urges us all to “shrink the frame” to a human-sized small town of responsibility, practice Teshuvah and reject willful blindness.

Watch this sermon

Read The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas

Read the Yom Kippur Haftarah reading

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Chutzpod is back to usher everyone into the New Year! And as we approach 5787, a listener wonders how to show up authentically, even if that means bringing the mood down. Rabbi Shira and Hanna wonder why we feel pressure to have a “happy” new year and encourage everyone not to bring the Jewish equivalent of a sanitized Christmas letter to their high holiday celebrations. 

Read This Is Real and You Are Completely Unprepared

Read about the Unetanah Tokef

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Listen to this special bonus episode recorded live at Aspen Jewish Congregation on August 12, 2026. 

As America approaches 250 years, this conversation looks at the enduring relationship between Jewish life and the American experiment. Through historical reflection and contemporary insight, speakers will explore how Jewish tradition and democratic ideals have shaped one another—and what that long story asks of us now.

This conversation features Rabbi Sharon Brous, Founder and Senior Rabbi of IKAR, Eric Cohen, President and CEO of Tikvah, and moderator Jeffrey Goldberg, Editor-in-Chief, The Atlantic.

Chutzpod will be back with new episodes September 9th! Need advice from Hanna and Shira? Submit your questions to [email protected]. And make sure you're subscribed.

Listen to Rabbi Brous on Chutzpod!

More AJC conversations

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Chutzpod is coming back with new episodes and new real-life questions September 9th!

Rabbi Shira and Hanna will talk about when to see a rabbi over a therapist, how to navigate a mixed-observance marriage and is believing in aliens Jewish?? 

Subscribe to automatically get all new episodes. And submit your own questions to be featured on an episode!

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In our Season 7 finale, Hanna again poses as a yeshiva bocher. Shira takes her through a very special double Torah portion: Achrei Mot-Kedoshim Leviticus 16:1–20:27. She talks about why Leviticus is such a grab bag of rules and laws with seemingly no real narrative order, some of the more controversial laws on sex, homosexuality and female impurity and how to view this part of the Torah as a guide to holiness in daily life, especially in a contemporary world that is often too cruel. 

Read Achrei Mot-Kedoshim

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What does Judaism say about accepting “dirty” money? A listener has been watching the online debate about how her alma mater should handle money from a prominent donor associated with Jeffery Epstein. She asks how does Jewish tradition handle this moral predicament? And at what point are institutions complicit spiritually and ethically when they accept tainted funds?

Rabbi Shira and Hanna talk about when tzedakah becomes murky and how to be accountable morally and practically. 

Listen to Responsa Radio’s “Can Nonprofits Accept Money from Crooks?”

Read about accepting and using stolen money

Read about using a stolen lulav

Read Rabbi Sharon Brous’ sermon on the stolen beam

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Is covering your mirrors during shiva a superstition or Jewish law? What about breaking the glass at a wedding? Tashlich? 

Rabbi Shira and Hanna discuss the ideas of Jewish luck and bad luck and where they fit into law and tradition. And they welcome a VERY special guest – Hanna’s mother Miriam. Her sister has had a string of bad accidents and she wants to know if changing her mezuzah will ward off future health scares.  

Read more on Jewish superstitions

Mezuzah 101

Check your mezuzah 

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