Deep Meaningful Conversations

Staying connected to our Yiddishkeit during the various seasons of our lives is a challenge for many. In this mini DMC, Rivki and Alex share the times they’ve felt it, the times they haven’t, and what they’re doing these days to help keep connected. 

If you have any topics that you’d like to listen to Alex and Rivki have a mini DMC about, email them at [email protected].

Keeping up our friendships seems like a nice thing in our hectic lives, but is it a necessity? Well, according to research on loneliness, it actually is. Having friends benefits us emotionally, physically and spiritually. There is real power in sisterhood.  Don’t believe it? Believe it but don’t have the time or energy to invest in finding and maintaining friendships? Take a listen. On this episode of DMC, Alex and Rivki speak with Aliza Bulow, the founding director of Core, an organization designed to nourish and network frum women as the core of inspiring Jewish communities. Aliza is chock full of insights. We discuss:

We’d love to hear from you. You can find us on social media, or email us at [email protected]. Don’t forget to check out the video of this episode on Meaningful Minute’s YouTube channel!

Show Notes:

Core’s website

https://coretorah.org/

Aliza’s Torah website:

https://www.abiteoftorah.com/

The Art of Gathering by Priya Parker

https://www.amazon.com/Art-Gathering-How-Meet-Matters/dp/1594634939/ref=sr_1_1?crid=12VL1SW3CPF36&keywords=the+art+of+gathering&qid=1654623403&sprefix=the+art+of+gatherin%2Caps%2C99&sr=8-1

Together: The Healing Power of Connection in a Sometimes Lonely World  by Vivek H. Murthy

https://www.amazon.com/Together-Connection-Performance-Greater-Happiness/dp/0062913298/ref=sr_1_3?crid=2RLBQ0Q1ED5WO&keywords=together&qid=1654623470&sprefix=together%2Caps%2C114&sr=8-3

Jealous? Who's jealous? Me? NEVER.

In this mini DMC, Rivki and Alex talk take a vulnerable plunge into the areas of their lives in which they struggle with jealousy (and maybe a little envy too), and how they work on being more content. 

We’d love to hear from you. You can find us on social media, or email us at [email protected]. Let us know if you have topic requests for future Mini DMC episodes. And don’t forget to check out the video of this episode on Meaningful Minute’s YouTube channel!

Who doesn’t want to live more joyously? On this episode of DMC, Rivki and Alex talk about what joy means to them, how they find it in their lives and how it can be hard to attain during the challenging times. Their guest for this episode is Shaindy Plotzker, singer and songwriter. Shaindy is well-known in the Jewish music world as a soulful and talented singer, but she’s also well-known for her positivity and general simchas hachayim (joy for life.) Rivki and Alex sit down with Shaindy to hear about her ascent in the Jewish music industry, but also to hear her secrets about attaining and maintaining a joyous attitude in our lives.

We’d love to hear from you. You can find us on social media, or email us at [email protected]. Don’t forget to check out the video of this episode on Meaningful Minute’s YouTube channel!

In this Mini DMC, Alex and Rivki shmooze about Shabbos: what they love about it and what they find challenging about the day in the week they can’t live without!

If you have any topics that you’d like to listen to Alex and Rivki have a mini DMC about, email them at [email protected].

Tznius, or Jewish modesty, is a hot button topic for many frum women. It brings up lots of various feelings. Each frum woman has her own relationship with this value of modesty and its application in our everyday lives, whether it’s how she dresses, how she acts and how she expresses herself. For some it’s a love relationship, for some it’s a hate relationship and for others it’s a love/hate relationship.

In this episode of DMC, Alex and Rivki get real about tznius the things they most appreciate about this mitzvah and way of life as well as the things they find most challenging. Their guest, Jamie Geller, chief media and marketing officer at Aish Global and founder and CEO of Kosher Network International, joins this DMC to share her insights  on what tsnius means as a public figure. Jamie also shares a bit about her evolving relationship with tznius – as someone who came to observance later in life, and as a mom of teenage girls.

We hope that by the end of this episode, you’ll have a newfound appreciation for the middah and mitzvah of tznius from hearing real experiences, honest perspectives and candid reflections.

We’d love to hear from you. You can find us on social media, or email us at [email protected]. Don’t forget to check out the video of this episode on Meaningful Minute’s YouTube channel!

Show Notes:

Faigy Zelcer’s Penimi program (please note that Alex accidentally called it “Penini” instead of “Penimi”

https://www.penimi.org/

Jamie Geller’s website:

https://jamiegeller.com/

If you’re a business owner, an aspiring one, or an admirer of the incredible female entrepreneurs in our communities, then this episode is for you. On this episode of Deep Meaningful Conversations, Rivki and Alex have a DMC with Chayale Kaufman, the CEO of the Jewish Content Network which provides advertising to the Jewish world, offering digital, print and social ads across dozens of different publishers. They discuss how Chayale got started, the risks she took, how she’s achieved success and her perspective on entrepreneurship for frum women – with nuggets of advice and insight throughout about work-life balance and running a business.

We’d love to hear from you. You can find us on social media, or email us at [email protected]. Don’t forget to check out the video of this episode on Meaningful Minute’s YouTube channel!

Show Notes:

https://jewishcontentnetwork.com/

On this episode of Deep Meaningful Conversations, Rivki and Alex talk about managing the very real human emotions of overwhelm and burnout. As frum women, we have a lot of responsibilities to juggle, and sometimes it feels like we can’t do everything we need to do as well as we’d want to. Rachel Hercman, LCSW to the rescue! On this DMC with Rachel, we discuss:
What the struggles of the overwhelmed frum woman typically looks like
Solutions for managing overwhelm
The role of burnout in meeting our responsibilities
How social media has impacted our attitudes towards struggles

We’d love to hear from you. You can find us on social media, or email us at [email protected]. 

Show Notes:
Rachel Hercman’s website:
https://rachelhercman.com/

Orthonomics, a.k.a frum finances. Don’t start having heart palpitations and pass up this episode. While the discussion about the mystery of how to pay for the lifestyle we lead as Orthodox Jews can be stressful, on this episode of DMC, Alex and Rivki talk with Yael Trusch, host of the Jewish Money Matters podcast, and get a whole mindset overhaul on how we approach the concept of money as Jewish people. Don’t let this episode get away.

On this episode we discuss:
-A recap of Alex’s “Fuzzy Math” article in Mishpacha from January 2021 that started much of the communal conversation on frum finances
-A new take on the typical understanding of “orthonomics”
-The financial challenges unique to frum families and the common pitfalls frum families often fall into when it comes to finances
-The Jewish approach to money
-Tips on budgeting, saving, spending and splurging
-Advice for those of us feeling pressured to keep up with the rising material standards in many of our communities

We’d love to hear from you. You can find us on social media, or email us at [email protected]. 

Show Notes:

Alex’s “Fuzzy Math” article:
https://mishpacha.com/fuzzy-math/

Yael’s Jewish Money Matters Podcast:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/jewish-money-matters/id1407025695

Yael Trusch’s website:
https://jewishlatinprincess.com/

Yael’s Money Date checklist:
https://jewish-latin-princess.ck.page/164d22d345

We all want to be more resilient, to bounce back during times of stress and upheaval. But is resilience just about bouncing back to who we were before we experienced adversity, or is it more? On this episode of DMC, Rivki and Alex sit down with Professor Leslie Gutman, who recently published Resilience: A Jewish Guide to Facing Adversity, Fostering Strength and Living your Best Life, who shares some fascinating insights and helpful tools to help us grow our grit when (and before) the going gets tough.

On this episode we discuss:

By the end of today’s episode, we hope you’ve gained tools to help you build and maintain resilience during the stages and moments of our life when we’re feeling we’re merely treading water, or even sinking.

We’d love to hear from you. You can find us on social media, or email us at [email protected]. 

Show Notes:

Professor Leslie Gutman’s website:

https://drlesliemgutman.com/

Her new book on resilience:

https://mosaicapress.com/product/resilience/