M54 Podcast

The obstacles, the stakes, the joys. 

What does a magical conversation that lasts through the night until 9 am, look like?

Growing up and changing requires insourcing - what are the obstacles it encounters, and how to overcome them? 

The stakes of not growing up are huge but what emerges from change is spectacular. 

Learn what it looks like in this episode.

Navigating life isn't easy. Often we go, go, go and feel like we can't catch our breath. And when we do need help, we often outsource our solutions to others.

Taking time to reflect on our own lives in order to gain agency is crucial. Making choices to increase our lives vibrancy doesn't need to be outsourced.

Everyone can learn how to do it. This podcast will help you learn how.

Thank you for listening!

Chanie & Peretz

Over the past 14 months, since we published our last podcast, we have been hard at work developing, applying, and teaching the pedagogy and skills of self-reflection and growth through language and finding voice.

This will be the last episode of a New Conversation with Chanie and Peretz. Moving forward our podcast will be called the Torah of Conversation!

This episode, recorded in front of a live audience, is a reflective conversation on our 21 years at Brandeis and our dream for the future.

The conversation is skillfully moderated by the Jacob S. Potofsky Professor Emerita of Sociology, Shulamit Reinharz.

We invite you to join us in upcoming episodes as we explore the torah of conversation.

Grab a drink of your choice and join us in the Chein living room!

In this episode you will hear exactly what a conversation using the three steps of ‘let-it-land’, ‘tell- me-more’, and ‘name the thing’ can sound like.

Through a real conversation about concerns surrounding the upcoming Passover holiday, we move away from the abstract to explicitly model what happens when using these three tools and demonstrate how it can lead to a more productive conversation.

‘Naming the thing’ is critical in taking a conversation to a new level and greater depth. 

In this episode, we share what naming the thing has done to our relationships with others and each other.

‘Naming the thing’ is about putting forward what is unsaid but fully present, taking up space, or weighing heavily on either of the participants.

We explore what prevents “naming the thing” and what can happen when done well.

In this episode, we share three simple words that can make any conversation deeper, more thoughtful, and more productive: Tell Me More.

When you invite someone to “tell me more,” you’re inviting them to look within themselves and open up another layer to the conversation. The listener’s role becomes less about offering advice or solutions to a problem but supporting the other’s own exploration.

Not only does this help the one sharing their feelings, but it also strengthens the relationship between the two in conversation.

Think about a recent conversation you had with someone. Did you find yourself formulating a response in your head before the other person finished their thought? In this episode, we talk about the value of “letting it land” - taking in what someone is offering to you in a conversation, pausing, and then engaging with a response. 

We also discuss how important it is to have conversations with those you love, even when a relationship feels perfectly fine as is. It is about digging deeper and opening up a richness that can only be accessed through conversation.

What prevents someone from having a conversation? Often people want easy life fixes; they turn to self-help books or TED Talks or lectures telling them how to solve their problems. This keeps someone from looking inside themselves, considering their reality, and engaging with it alongside another person. In this podcast, we discuss these conversation preventers and others. Instead of turning to others for fixes, we encourage the practice of conversation.

Chanie and Peretz continue the conversation about approaching Judaism and life from a healthy, wholesome perspective. Chanie shares what has driven her to speak on this topic - her upbringing in a community that often demanded her identity be completely centered around Jewish expectations, as well as her current roles as a mother, a wife, and a mentor. Both also share how their approach to engaging students and adults with Judaism has evolved to allow a broader discussion not based on Jewish text alone, but around one’s personal experience and one’s whole, authentic self.