What is holiness? What is holy? Should perfection be associated with holiness, and why is it so in the Torah? This week I met with an Evangelical Christian pastor with whom I will be co-officiating at a wedding. It brought up many questions I had to answer for myself—again!

Leviticus is full rules. The one I focus on here is The Golden Rule, perhaps the hardest thing. But being kind to others, even strangers, is more important and has more of an impact than we ever imagine.

We’re in the midst of a mental health crisis due to an epidemic of loneliness. But we’re not helpless. Listen to some great ideas of small ways to help yourself and others.

Passover can be about our personal freedom and leaving the narrow place of Egypt, but the focus is really on the collective. If living a holy life is what we seek, then how do we do it? This week’s parsha tells us a little bit about that.

The hardest time leading up to Passover is the week just before—or the days. The cleaning, shopping, cooking, all have to happen in a particular order. Once leavened products are out of your house, you still can’t eat matzoh. So much liminal time—the difficulty of waiting. This is what the priests go through before ordination: waiting for seven days in a doorway. As we struggle as a world, with all the bad news coming from Israel and our country, too, we are in a liminal space, not crossing over into better times yet, and we wonder how much longer we can wait: how much worse can it get? What does it mean to be priests in our time?

In this week’s episode, I explore the question of sacrifice, respect, and how we can approach a crumbling world that feels too overwhelming to have an impact.

Here I discuss the special pressure on women to look a certain way, how social media has blurred the lines between private and professional life, and how difficult it is to navigate this as I step fully into being an older, female rabbi. And what this has to do with this week’s Torah reading.

My phone fell into a New York City compost bin, totally derailing plans for the day. I was forced to check my faith that day. The Israelites, Moses, God—all had their faith challenged. It’s a funny story, but also serious because if we’re cynical, how can we bring about positive change in the world?

Is cleaning out messy drawers a waste of time, or does it have some deeper spiritual meaning? That’s what I explore in this week’s episode in relation to the Parsha with its pomegranates and bells.

There is so much despair in the world today, and younger generations are as hopeless as they come about the future. But what do they need from us, and how can the Torah guide us here to live from a more heart-cantered place, to not become disheartened ourselves, so we can support them?