Human & Holy

Growing up in a Satmar community, a new world opened up for Esther Malka when her father began a secret, late-night study of Tanya when she was a young girl. Through being exposed to chassidic teachings, she discovered a way of relating to God and Jewish life that was shaped not just by rules or fear, but by joy and connection.

That sense of connection also informs the way she parents. How do we give our children Jewish values while making room for them to become themselves? Esther shares what she’s learned about guiding children with love and how being called to something beyond ourselves can draw out strengths we didn’t know we had.

EPISODE SPONSOR:

Finds by Rivkah is like having a personal shopper who sifts through the sale pages to find the best modest clothing deals!

Link to join the group: https://chat.whatsapp.com/KequICzm2BDFZMeTkQtwva?s=cl&p=i&mlu=4&ilr=4&iam=2 Link to kid's chat: https://chat.whatsapp.com/Iysqn1OSAERFgTAszyUzyg?s=cl&p=i&mlu=4&ilr=4&iam=2

* * * * * * *

Esther Malka Groner grew up in a Satmar community before her family joined Chabad and moved to Israel, where she studied education. An educator with over 35 years’ experience, she directs a childcare center and co-founded Chabad Glen Eira with her husband. Contact her here: [email protected]

Join the Human & Holy Yud Tes Kislev event here: https://humanandholy.com/upcomingevents

Join our monthly membership: humanandholy.com/join

To inquire about sponsorship & advertising opportunities, please email us at [email protected]

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 — Introduction02:14 — Esther introduces herself and her path to Melbourne04:19 — Growing up in a Satmar community05:02 — Her father begins studying Tanya08:28 — Esther discovers her father’s Chabad books10:34 — Making Chassidus more accessible beyond community walls14:27 — Esther’s early experience of rule based Judaism18:30 — Moving from fear of God toward love and joy21:09 — Staying connected to Jewish identity while serving others22:02 — Welcoming people and finding purpose in community27:26 — Purpose as a source of growth and motivation29:20 — Raising children with both guidance and love32:09 — Letting children follow their own relationship with God34:24 — Respect, privacy, and warmth between siblings37:42 — Evolving as a parent as children’s needs change40:57 — Rapid fire45:03 — Episode outro

How did Jewish life come to take the shape we know today? In this conversation, Sheva Deren, a Jewish history teacher in Melbourne, Australia, talks about the upheavals, choices, and debates that shaped Jewish practice.

We explore the Second Temple era, the development of the Jewish calendar and oral law, and the ways halacha (Jewish law) has responded to changing realities. Who gets to decide how Judaism evolves? What is the balance between protecting inherited practice and finding creative responses to new circumstances? And why do certain visible practices, like modesty, receive so much cultural attention in modern Jewish life?

This conversation explores what our ancestors have given us, how questions and disagreements help make the halachic system a living, breathing thing, and why knowing the history behind familiar practices can make them feel more alive.

Support Human & Holy for $18/month at humanandholy.com/join and receive bonus virtual events and resources!

* * * * * * *

A few factual clarifications from the episode: The reference to the sage who calculated the calendar should be Hillel HaSheni, not Hillel HaZaken. The rabbi who debated Saadia Gaon was Aaron ben Meir, in 924 CE. The tefillah directed to the angels is called Machnisei Rachamim.

To inquire about sponsorship & advertising opportunities, please email us at [email protected]

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 Episode introduction

01:41 Sheva’s path into teaching

03:11 Leaving one chapter and building a new life in Melbourne

06:12 The freedom to try a different path

07:44 Why the Second Temple era fascinates Sheva

11:02 Competing visions of Jewish continuity

12:15 Why rabbinic Judaism became the path most Jews followed

14:14 Jewish life in Babylonia and the question of the new moon

18:09 Calendar disagreements and the practice of Pesach

20:15 How Jewish history helps students connect to their identity

21:47 How Halacha encounters new realities, including IVF

24:45 A halachic responsum on keeping Pesach under persecution in Spain

28:31 Disagreement over prayer and the role of angels

31:50 The Ramban, debate, and the role of questions

34:07 Are we obsessed with modesty?

39:02 Safety and the history of Jewish poetry

41:25 Is there a correlation between emancipation and assimilation?

44:11 Why Jewish history matters to Jewish identity

45:54 Sheva’s message to the women who came before her

47:02 Closing message to listeners

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.

* * * * * * *

Support Human & Holy for $18/month and receive virtual live events and bonus resources around holiday seasons. Visit humanandholy.com. Thank you for bringing our work into the world!

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: [email protected]

To inquire about sponsorship & advertising opportunities, please email us at [email protected]

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 “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.

* * * * * * *

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 [email protected]

To inquire about sponsorship & advertising opportunities, please email us at [email protected]

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 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 ❤️

* * * * * * *

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.

* * * * * * *

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 [email protected]

To inquire about sponsorship & advertising opportunities, please email us at [email protected]

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

01:48 — 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.

* * * * * * *

To inquire about sponsorship & advertising opportunities, please email us at [email protected]

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 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

* * * * * * *

To inquire about sponsorship & advertising opportunities, please email us at [email protected]

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:

00:00:00 ---- "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.

* * * * * * *

To inquire about sponsorship & advertising opportunities, please email us at [email protected]

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:

00:00–01:44 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.

* * * * * * *

To inquire about sponsorship & advertising opportunities, please email us at [email protected]

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:

00:00:00 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 [email protected] and on instagram @Rachelcjacobs.

* * * * * * *

To inquire about sponsorship & advertising opportunities, please email us at [email protected]

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 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