Contact Chai
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Contact Chai episodes

  • Creating The Conditions For A Miracle

    Today’s episode is a Shabbat Replay of our service on February 7th, when we celebrated Shabbat Shira, the joyful Shabbos when we sing extra songs to recall the Splitting of the Sea. Rabbi Lizzi connected the momentous but rather frightening first step toward freedom across the Red Sea to the courageous steps toward liberation taken by civil rights activists. How can we follow in their footsteps? 

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    For upcoming Shabbat services and programs, check our event calendar, and see our Accessibility & Inclusion page for information about our venues. Follow us on Instagram and like us on Facebook for more updates. To support Mishkan's important work of creating radically inclusive, down-to-earth, inspired Judaism, we invite you to join as a Builder or donate today.

    https://www.mishkanchicago.org/support/be-a-builder/

    https://www.mishkanchicago.org/support/makeyourgift/

    Produced by Mishkan Chicago. Music composed, produced, and performed by Kalman Strauss.

    Transcript

    39 min
  • Refuse To Be A Bystander

    Today’s episode is a Shabbat Replay of our Saturday morning service on February 1st, when Rabbi Steven shared about his recent rabbinic mission trip to Poland where he learned about the long history of Eastern European Jewish culture, a legacy nearly eradicated by the Holocaust. Many survivors owe their lives to non-Jews who refused to be bystanders. As Jews, we are called to do the same for our neighbors in this time of division and prejudice, but how do we balance that call with the very real need to care for ourselves as well? 

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    For upcoming Shabbat services and programs, check our event calendar, and see our Accessibility & Inclusion page for information about our venues. Follow us on Instagram and like us on Facebook for more updates.

    Produced by Mishkan Chicago. Music composed, produced, and performed by Kalman Strauss.

    Transcript

    20 min
  • You Were Once An Immigrant, Too

    Today’s episode is a Shabbat Replay of our Friday night service on January 24th when Builder Kalman Resnick, an immigration lawyer and legal expert, gave a detailed breakdown of the impact that Trump’s executive orders will have on millions of our neighbors. As Jews, our scriptures demand that we treat immigrants and foreigners as equal citizens, for we “were once strangers in Egypt.” What can we do to fight mass deportation?

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    For upcoming Shabbat services and programs, check our event calendar, and see our Accessibility & Inclusion page for information about our venues. Follow us on Instagram and like us on Facebook for more updates.

    Produced by Mishkan Chicago. Music composed, produced, and performed by Kalman Strauss.

    Transcript

    19 min
  • When Pharaoh Became A Slave

    Every weekday at 8:00 am, Mishkan Chicago holds a virtual Morning Minyan. You can join in yourself, or listen to all the prayer, music, and inspiration right here on Contact Chai.

    https://mishkan.shulcloud.com/form/reg-morning-minyan-evergreen

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    For upcoming Shabbat services and programs, check our event calendar, and see our Accessibility & Inclusion page for information about our venues. Follow us on Instagram and like us on Facebook for more updates.

    Produced by Mishkan Chicago. Music composed, produced, and performed by Kalman Strauss.

    Transcript

    42 min
  • The Oldest Trick in Pharaoh’s Book

    Our Saturday morning service on January 18th, 2025 fell just two days before Martin Luther King Day, which also just so happened to be Inauguration Day, ushering in the second term of the Trump presidency. Just like in the Exodus story of our parshah, Pharaoh is back. Well, technically, it was two different pharaohs, the one Moses fled from and the one that he stood up to, but you get the idea. With Pharaoh dividing us to make us weak enough to subjugate, there is only way out of Egypt: coming together as a mixed multitude.

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    For upcoming Shabbat services and programs, check our event calendar, and see our Accessibility & Inclusion page for information about our venues. Follow us on Instagram and like us on Facebook for more updates.

    Produced by Mishkan Chicago. Music composed, produced, and performed by Kalman Strauss.

    Transcript

    24 min
  • What Is God's Name To You?

    Every weekday at 8:00 am, Mishkan Chicago holds a virtual Morning Minyan. You can join in yourself, or listen to all the prayer, music, and inspiration right here on Contact Chai.

    https://mishkan.shulcloud.com/form/reg-morning-minyan-evergreen

    ****

    For upcoming Shabbat services and programs, check our event calendar, and see our Accessibility & Inclusion page for information about our venues. Follow us on Instagram and like us on Facebook for more updates.

    Produced by Mishkan Chicago. Music composed, produced, and performed by Kalman Strauss.

    Transcript

    42 min
  • Hope Is Not An Option — It's An Obligation

    At our Friday Night Shabbat service on January 10th, Rabbi Steven delivered a sermon on the strategic necessity of hope in dark times. In Joseph’s day, the land of Egypt was a refuge, and his family enjoyed wealth and prestige and political power. But in just a few generations, their descendants were enslaved by a tyrant in that same land. In a day when the freedom and stability that we sometimes take for granted is being threatened, how can we find inspiration in our ancestor’s struggle? 


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    For upcoming Shabbat services and programs, check our event calendar, and see our Accessibility & Inclusion page for information about our venues. Follow us on Instagram and like us on Facebook for more updates.

    Produced by Mishkan Chicago. Music composed, produced, and performed by Kalman Strauss.

    Transcript

    19 min
  • A Very Hanukkah Minyan

    It is nearly the end of Mishkan’s 13th year of creating inspired, down-to-earth Judaism. If you value the work that we do, help us to sustain Mishkan for another year by making a donation by December 31st — think of it as a BMitzvah gift for our community!

    Donate:
    https://mishkan.shulcloud.com/form/donate

    Every weekday at 8:00 am, Mishkan Chicago holds a virtual Morning Minyan. You can join in yourself, or listen to all the prayer, music, and inspiration right here on Contact Chai.

    https://mishkan.shulcloud.com/form/reg-morning-minyan-evergreen

    ****

    For upcoming Shabbat services and programs, check our event calendar, and see our Accessibility & Inclusion page for information about our venues. Follow us on Instagram and like us on Facebook for more updates.

    Produced by Mishkan Chicago. Music composed, produced, and performed by Kalman Strauss.

    Transcript

    35 min
  • Creating Our Own Light

    Today’s episode is a Shabbat Replay of our Saturday morning service on December 21st when Rabbi Steven delivered a vulnerable and fascinating sermon on the niceties of celebrating Hanukkah as a Jew-by-Choice and in a time of rising antisemitism. How do we muster the courage to shine our light for all the world to see when the world is so frightening?

    Donate:
    https://mishkan.shulcloud.com/form/donate

    ****

    For upcoming Shabbat services and programs, check our event calendar, and see our Accessibility & Inclusion page for information about our venues. Follow us on Instagram and like us on Facebook for more updates.

    Produced by Mishkan Chicago. Music composed, produced, and performed by Kalman Strauss.

    Transcript

    20 min
  • Exploring the Miracle of Hanukkah

    It is nearly the end of Mishkan’s 13th year of creating inspired, down-to-earth Judaism. If you value the work that we do, help us to sustain Mishkan for another year by making a donation by December 31st. Are you a Builder? Come celebrate 13 years of Mishkan at our BMitzvah Bash on January 25th. Register now! Sponsorships are available if you can give a little extra help us ensure the next 13 years of BMitzvahs, services, and Morning Minyans, at Mishkan Chicago.

    Donate:
    https://mishkan.shulcloud.com/form/donate

    BMitzvah Bash:
    https://www.tickettailor.com/events/mishkanchicago/1371556

    Every weekday at 8:00 am, Mishkan Chicago holds a virtual Morning Minyan. You can join in yourself, or listen to all the prayer, music, and inspiration right here on Contact Chai.

    https://mishkan.shulcloud.com/form/reg-morning-minyan-evergreen

    ****

    For upcoming Shabbat services and programs, check our event calendar, and see our Accessibility & Inclusion page for information about our venues. Follow us on Instagram and like us on Facebook for more updates.

    Produced by Mishkan Chicago. Music composed, produced, and performed by Kalman Strauss.

    Transcript

    1 hr 2 min

About Contact Chai

From the publisher's feed

Contact Chai is Mishkan Chicago’s podcast feed, where you can hear our Shabbat sermons, Morning Minyans, interviews with Jewish thought leaders, and more.

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