Homesick for Lubavitch

Rabbi Leibel Korf grew up in Crown Heights and is a shliach today in Los Feliz, a neighborhood in Los Angeles.In this episode, we discuss what it was like growing up in Crown Heights in the home of the famed chossid Reb Pinye Korf a"h and his father Reb Sheia Korf a"h, all in close proximity to the Lubavitcher Rebbe and the environment of 770.The episode is a beautiful survey of three generations of chassidim, all growing up in vastly different epochs and yet all connected by a through line of commitment, closeness and devotion.____Support...

Tzvi Burston grew up in Crown Heights and lives today in Los Angeles.After an accident during his birth, Tzvi was diagnosed with cerebral palsy which resulted in his being wheelchair bound the rest of his life.In this episode, Tzvi shares what it was like growing up as a boy with disabilities in Crown Heights in the 90s, what it was like to interact with the Rebbe and 770 despite his limitations, and how he related differently to the ideas of miracles and even Moshiach.____Support this podcast at: https://www.hflpodcast.com/donateIf you would like to sponsor...

Rabbi Mendel Cohen grew up in Montreal and has been on shlichus to Sacramento for over thirty years.In this conversation, he lays out the case for optimism for Chabad chassidim thirty years after Gimmel Tammuz, why younger chassidim should be encouraged to think about their strengths and not what they're missing and how his commitment to study hours of Torah each day helped him come to this outlook.____Support this podcast at: https://www.hflpodcast.com/donateIf you would like to sponsor an episode or advertise on the podcast please reach out to bentzi@yuvlamedia.com____This week's...

Rabbi Meni Even Israel was born and raised in Jerusalem and lives there to this day.In this episode, we hear what it was like to be raised by his parents, Rabbi Adin and Chaya Even Israel (Steinsaltz), and how their iconoclastic personalities fit and didn't fit into the general Chabad identity.We discuss a number of fascinating anecdotes from his father's interactions with the Rebbe, and the Rebbe's insistence that their relationship stay grounded in the world of the here and now.____To find out more about the new Steinsaltz Rambam please visit:https://www.steinsaltz-center.org.Use...

Rabbi Michoel Gourarie grew up in South Africa and today directs Binah, a center of adult learning and growth in Sydney, Australia.In this episode, we discuss his parents very different Chabad family histories and what led them to South Africa.We discuss how the study of Chassidus impacts an individual, the potential and the limits of engrossing the mind in the study of G-d, and the need to measure ourselves against impossible standards.____This week's episode is sponsored by Jnet, a project of Merkos 302.Join over ten thousand volunteers sharing their Torah knowledge with fellow study partners around...

Rabbi Mendel Zirkind grew up in Crown Heights and was recently appointed to fill the position of his late grandfather, Rabbi Yitzchok Dovid Groner a"h, as Moro D'asra of the Chabad community in Melbourne, Australia.

In this episode, we discuss the challenge of "filling the shoes" of such an enormous personality and on a more general level, finding our own place in a heritage with such a rich past and endless future.

Along the way, we discuss the growing need for courage, not certainty, in a world and time that forces us to challenge...

Rabbi Dovid Eliezrie is a shliach and author in Yorba Linda, California.In this episode, we discuss his recently published book, "Undaunted: How the Sixth Lubavitcher Rebbe Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn Saved Russian Jewry, Reimagined American Judaism, Ignited a Global Jewish Renaissance."We discuss his approach to learning and writing about a Rebbe's life and the lessons he learned from the Friediker Rebbe's ability to adapt to a life of many varying challenges.Book can be purchased on Amazon____This week's episode is sponsored by Jnet, a project of Merkos 302.Join over ten thousand volunteers sharing their Torah knowledge with...

Rabbi Yitzchok Kaufmann grew up in Minnesota and today is a teacher and lecturer at The Mayanot Institute in Jerusalem. In this episode, we discuss the elusiveness of Emunah, how what seems so obvious to one person seems impenetrable to the next, and how we all struggle to fully define it.We discuss the importance of an embodied Emunah, one that resides in the lived experience and history of the individual, and in every aspect of his life.

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Rabbi Yosef Levin is a shliach in the Silicon Valley from before it was known as the Silicon Valley. Before that he grew up in Belfast and Sunderland and went to yeshiva in Brunoy, Kfar Chabad and Morristown. In this episode, Rabbi Levin shares his recollections of his years in Yeshiva, the hanholo in Brunoy who didn't believe there can be spoiled milk, the first hookups with the Rebbe's farbrengens, as well as his first and hardest years on shlichus in Northern California, the "valley of very dry bones."____Support this podcast at: ⁠https://www.hflpodcast.com/donate⁠___If you...

Elliot R. Wolfson is a scholar of Jewish studies, comparative mysticism, and the philosophy of religion and lives today in a suburb of S. Barbara, California. He is also the author of, "Open Secret: Postmessianic Messianism and the Mystical Revision of Menahem Mendel Schneerson."In this episode, we discuss his upbringing in Brooklyn and his first encounters with Chabad and Chassidus, his decision to leave the yeshiva for academia and his constant returning to the works of Chabad Chassidus.We discuss the limits of language, the limits of those limits, and the companionship one finds at the edge of...

Rabbi Binyomin Scheiman grew up in Brighton Beach and is the shliach today in Des Plaines, Illinois.In this episode we discuss his introduction to Lubavitch as a young teenager and his very gradual immersion into this new way of life.We discuss his work today as a shliach who focuses on helping Jewish prisoners in the Illinois prison system and running camps for young Lubavitch children: the differences between these two groups and the similarities. ____Support this podcast at: ⁠https://www.hflpodcast.com/donate⁠____This episode is sponsored by "Beyond Breadwinning," a new twelve hour course by Rabbi Dr...

Rabbi Joseph Polak is the Av Beis Din of Boston and served for over four decades years as a university chaplain at Boston University.But before all of that he spent over a decade studying in the Lubavitch yeshiva and Beis Medrash in Montreal where he encountered famous personalities like Reb Volf Greenglass and many others.In this episode we discuss how those years in Yeshiva formed his identity as a chossid that remains with him to this very day and how Chassidus inspired his work on campus and his life in general.____Support this podcast at: ⁠https://www.hf...

Mrs. Esther Goldstein was born in Williamsburg to parents who had both survived the Holocaust.Though her family were not Lubavitchers, a year after her marriage to Rabbi Aharon Goldstein she arrived to University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan.But unlike her husband and the other shluchim in those days, her first day on the job was also the first time she encountered shlichus.In this episode, she shares her unique journey from the shteibel to the Chabad House and the decades since.____Support this podcast at: ⁠https://www.hflpodcast.com/donate⁠____If you would like to sponsor an e...

Rabbi Yossi Lipsker grew up on shlichus in Northeast Philadelphia and lives today on shlichus in Swampscott, a suburb of Boston.In this episode, Yossi shares his childhood memories of growing up on shlichus and coming on occasion to 770 and the distance between those two worlds.We discuss the tensions between a parent's dreams for their child and the child's own dreams, between the boundaries of the community and the identity of the individual, and how tzimtzum lo kipshuto plays a role in everything.____Support this podcast at: ⁠https://www.hflpodcast.com/donate⁠____If you would like to sponsor an e...

Rabbi Chaim Zusia Fishman grew up in Providence, Rhode Island and lived in Worcester, Massachusetts where he was a teacher for more than six decades.In this episode, he recalls his years as a student in school in Providence and then yeshivos in New York and ultimately his encounter with Lubavitch and the Rebbe.We discuss the examples of dedication to education he saw along his journey and the special inspiration he found in Lubavitch.____Support this podcast at: ⁠https://www.hflpodcast.com/donate⁠____If you would like to sponsor an episode or advertise on the podcast please reach out...

Tzvi Kilov immigrated as a young boy from South Africa to Atlanta where he lives today.

In this episode, we discuss his encounter with the Rebbe's sichos in the Chabad House where he lived, and how something about them set him off on a journey that took him through years of Lubavitch yeshivos and continues to this very day.

We discuss the subjective nature of his journey and how this shapes his encounter with chassidus and Torah and faith itself.

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Rabbi Aharon Cousin grew up in Leeds, England during World War II and eventually made his way to the yeshiva in Manchester where he encountered a group of young and lively Lubavitcher boys.Some years later he followed them to study in 770 by the Lubavitcher Rebbe, where he spent five years immersed in a world that inspired him to spend the rest of his life in education, as founding headmaster of the Lubavitch Boys School in London.In this episode, Rabbi Cousin shares his amazing journey, the power of education and building the self esteem of each and every...

R' Joey Rosenfeld grew up in the Five Towns and today lives in Eretz Yisroel where he works as a therapist and author of numerous essays (and posts) on Kabbalah and Chassidus.In this episode we discuss his discovery of Chassidus as an angsty teenager and the journey of learning it precipitated. We discuss what it means and if it is possible to study the chassidus of Chabad without being a Chabad chossid.Finally, we discuss some of his critiques of the way that Chassidus is studied today and how a renewed way of study can be found within...

Reb Mendel Posner grew up in Nashville, Tenessee as the oldest son of the famous chossid and shliach Rabbi Zalman Posner.

His coming back to Lubavitch as a young boy for schooling was rocky and Mendel quickly found himself as a boy with more questions than answers. This led to a journey of decades in and out of observance.

Through it all Mendel held on to a deep connection of love with his parents - as well as his Rebbe.

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Rabbi Tzvi Freeman lives in Sandy Springs, Georgia where he is an author and editor of chabad.orgIn this conversation, we discuss what it means to learn and process the ideas of Chassidus. Tzvi reflects on his own extensive writings in light of developments in AI, and how AI forces us to find out what human thinking - the kind machines can't do - really looks like.We discuss what it means for a chossid to think Chassidus for himself, as well as the limits of this idea, and the risks one must take to do so.____Rabbi Freeman's...

Rabbi Choni Friedman grew up in Kansas City and lives today in Pittsburgh where he is the Rov of Bnai Emunoh Chabad, a growing shul and community in the Greenfield neighborhood of Pittsburgh.

He is also the dean of a new Bais Medrash Zal, which opened this year with 30 bochurim and growing

In this episode, we discuss what it means to be a chossid today, if that meaning has changed over the years and if that meaning changes between each individual.

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Rabbi Shlomo Elkan grew up in Marietta, a suburb of Atlanta, in a reform and then conservative Jewish home, and is today the shliach at Oberlin College, a liberal arts school an hour outside of Cleveland.In this episode, we discuss his winding journey to becoming a Lubavitcher and then opening a Chabad House on campus with his wife who comes from a Dati Leumi family in Israel, and how he balances the multitudes of identities they collected from their upbringings as well as the the upbringings of their children.____Support this podcast at: https://www.hflpodcast.com/donate...

Rabbi Velvel Lipskier grew up in Crown Heights and lives in North Miami Beach where he works in plumbing and construction.

In this episode, we discuss how the "voice" of Chassidus can be translated in different cultures and how it can change depending on what we pay attention to.

We also discuss some of Velvel's memories from the famous Tishrei of 1992.

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Rabbi Chaim Shaul Bruk is the shliach in Bozeman, Montana where he and his wife Chavie are now marking 18 years.In this episode, he recalls his growing up in Crown Heights, both the wonderful childhood memories and the tense years of the early nineties.He also shares how a devastating infertility diagnosis in their first years of shlichus changed how he looked at the world, at G-d and at other chassidim he doesn't agree with.____Support this podcast at: https://www.hflpodcast.com/donate____This week's episode is brought to you by "This World Is A Garden," a new...

Mayer Prager grew up in the Crown Heights of the 1960's, surrounded by the exodus of the non-Lubavitch Jewish community, the energy of the Lubavitch community that stayed, and of course, the Rebbe.In this episode, we discuss what it was like to grow up in that milieu, his special relationship with R' Yoel Kahan, and his perspective on the direction of the Lubavitch community as someone who sees things from both the inside and the outside.____Support this podcast at: https://www.hflpodcast.com/donate____This week's episode is brought to you by "This World Is A Garden,"...

Mr. David Shabat lives today in Boynton Beach, Florida, but as a young boy from Washington, DC he was sent to study in the Lubavitch school of Bedford and Dean in Crown Heights, where he would go on to spend close to ten years in and about the Lubavitch community and the court of the Lubavitcher Rebbe.One of the listeners to the podcast is David's grandson and suggested I meet up with him.In this episode, David shares his memories for the first time from his years spent in that school, what it was like to be an...

Rabbi Rafi Tennenhaus is a shliach in Hallandale Beach, Florida for more than four decades, where today he directs the activities of many Chabad Houses and an exploding local Lubavitch community.In this episode, we discuss his upbringing in Montreal and before that in a small Canadian town of Bathurst, New Brunswick, where his father, R' Dovid Tennenhaus, had moved years earlier to make a living.We hear about his father's story of individual religiosity in a far off town, his special relationship with both the Rebbe and the Friediker Rebbe, and his involvement in the beginnings of the...

Rabbi Yossi Rosenblum is an educator at Yeshiva Schools in Pittsburgh for several decades, where he began as a teacher and now serves as Head of School. In this conversation, we discuss how his priorities as a teacher has changed over time, how both the world around the school but also the world within the school makes new demands of teachers but also offers new opportunities.We discuss how he navigates the changing relationship between the school and the parents and his advice for parents thinking about where to send their child. We also discuss his views about incorporating...

Rabbi Dr. Eli Leib Rubin, Phd is a scholar and author who grew up in Edgeware, a suburb of London, and lives today in Pittsburgh.In this conversation, we discuss his recently published book, "Kabbalah and the Rupture of Modernity: An Existential History of Chabad Hassidism," a magisterial effort of research and writing tracing the idea of Tzimtzum as it developed between one generation of Lubavitch to the next.We discuss the dynamism of ideas throughout the course of Lubavitch history, the optimism that comes along with this, and what this dynamism might look like today.Dr. Rubin's book...

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Rabbi Shmuly Metzger is a shliach in Manhattan, where he runs Chabad Sutton in the Midtown district. A couple miles away is the famous Lubavitch neighborhood of Crown Heights, where Shmuly grew up in both its mythological and concrete past.

In this episode, we discuss his childhood in the presence of the Rebbe but also the tensions on the Crown Heights streets, how the street level and heavenly narratives diverged but also someone worked together.

We also discuss the challenge of holding...

Support this podcast at: https://www.hflpodcast.com/donate____Yehoshua November is a poet who lives in Teaneck, New Jersey. His poetry grapples with ideas of Chassidus and their application in real "messy life," including some very personal reflections. Three collections of his poetry have been published, and his work has found appeal with audiences far outside of Lubavitch but also within Lubavitch itself. In this episode, we discuss the space that writing poetry fills in the life of a chossid, how even whilst surrounded by the great books there is a space within that deserves honest reflection and...

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Rabbi Dovid Bashevkin PhD lives in Teaneck where he is an author, columnist and host of the 18Forty podcast.

In this episode, we discuss the condition of homesickness across different parts of the religious Jewish community in the United States, the inherent problems but also the possible blessings to be found in it.

We also discuss how different one’s view of some of Lubavitch’s most interesting questions seem depending on where one looks at them from.

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This...

Rabbi Elisha Pearl grew up in Flatbush and has spent the last few years studying in the Judean hills, which is where he wrote his groundbreaking book, "Make Peace," which explores the Rebbe's strategic vision for lasting peace in Israel.

We were going to discuss the book, but ended up talking about how he found himself it writing it in the first place, how as a young Lubavitch boy his parents moved away from Crown Heights to Flatbush and enrolled him in Yeshivas Chaim Berlin, setting him on a trajectory of being a Lubavitcher individual studying outside...

Rabbi Mordechai Avtzon is my father and the first shliach in the Far East, which is where he and my mother founded Chabad of Hong Kong and China forty years ago. In this conversation, we discuss his upbringing in Detroit as a child of one of the only Lubavitch families in the city, and the different outlooks his immigrant parents had on their place in their new country. We also discuss how growing up surrounded by different kinds of religious Jews and spending several years learning in Telshe Chicago influenced his own Lubavitch identity and the way he understood...

Fifteen year ago, Nissen Goldman was a teenage son of a rabbi in Johannesburg, South Africa finding his own way.

After leaving high school, Nissen ended up spending time in Cape Town where his sister and brother in law where on shlichus and ended up in a relationship with the daughter of their shul’s president.

Fast forward fifteen years, and Nissen is on his shlichus at University of Cape Town with his then girlfriend and now wife, and has come to the kinnus for the first time as a...

Rabbi Nissan Mangel was ten years old when he came face to face with Dr. Joseph Mengele at the gates of Auschwitz and was miraculously spared the fate of too many others. In this episode, Rabbi Mangel shares his journey from his small childhood town in Slovakia to Auschwitz and then England and Canada where he eventually met a number of fellow Lubavitch survivors of the war who invited him into Lubavitch. As he became a chossid of the Rebbe, Rabbi Mangel would go on to work for the Rebbe in a number of capacities, starting by learning chassidus...

Rabbi Yaakov Winner grew up in Brooklyn and has been the mashpia in Yeshiva Gedolah of Melbourne, Australia for thirty five years. In this conversation we discuss the mashpiim that most impacted Rabbi Winner as he was growing up, and how the role of a mashpia has developed over the years. We also discuss how the idea of hiskashrus and Lubavitch identity has shifted over the years, the importance of definitions and speaking with intention, and most importantly the importance of listening to and learning from one another. ____ This week's episode is brought to you by "This World Is...

Rabbi Dov Yona Korn grew up in Morris Plains, NJ in a “very Reform” Jewish family and is today the shliach in NYU and several other schools in the Bowery district of NYC.

In this episode, we discuss his discovering Chabad in the months after the Rebbe’s passing and the difference this timing made in his own understanding of the Rebbe and Lubavitch.

We also discuss how the Rebbe’s ideas are filtered through layers of communal understanding, and how this communal understanding is sometimes in tension with the lite...

Mendel Treitel grew up on shlichus in Montreal and is today a modern art painter living in Sydney.

In this episode, Mendel shares his journey through yeshiva and how a number of special teachers helped him reconcile his artistic disposition with the norms of the Yeshiva.

We discuss the challenges in being both a chossid and an artist, the question of individuality and how the art a chossid paints today should be different and unique from the art a chossid painted generations ago.

Mendel's work can be found at:https://www.mendeltreitel.com <...

Rabbi Yosef Katzman grew up and lives in Crown Heights, where for many years he hosted the "Cable to Jewish Life" television show.

In this episode, Rabbi Katzman reflects on different pivot points through the years and how these relate to the community's changing attitude towards asking questions.

He also reflects on Rosh Hashana "back in the day" and where this leaves us going into this new year.

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Homesick for Lubavitch began a year ago as a small passion project and has grown into an important conversation in the Lubavitch community.<...

Rabbi Naftali Silberberg grew up on shlichus in Detroit and today lives in Crown Heights where he is the co-director of curriculum for JLI and host of the Let's Talk Tanya podcast.

In this episode, we trace Naftali's years in yeshiva that took him to Oholei Torah in the late 80s and then to Kfar Chabad, where he discovers a life long love - almost despite the yeshiva - for the study of Tanya.

We discuss what makes the narrative of Tanya so unusual and how a thoughtful study of the Torah Shebichsav of Chassidus...

Rabbi Michoel Seligson is a teacher and author who lives in Crown Heights. He is also the son of Dr. Avrohom Abba Seligson, a"h, who was known as the Rebbe's doctor. In this episode, Rabbi Seligson shares his father's amazing story of becoming a doctor as a frum Jew in pre-war Europe, his escape to Shanghai and the role he played in saving the Jewish refugees over the course of the war, and his eventual arrival to Brooklyn where he developed a close, private and miraculous bond with the Lubavitcher Rebbe. We discuss his father's unique style of...

Rabbi Levi Avtzon grew up in Crown Heights and lives today in Johannesburg, South Africa where he is a rabbi at the Linksfield Synagogue. In this episode we continue the conversation in recent episodes about the tension between the soft and demanding voices in our community. We discuss the changing narratives in the Lubavitch community and how past demand for conformity has now given way to a therapeutic mindset, and we debate whether or not this change is in fact a true change at all. ____ This week's episode is brought to you by "This World Is A Garden," a...

Mrs. Tzivia Jacobson grew up in in the 1930s in a Lubavitch family in Kutaisi, Georgia under Soviet rule. Nobody in her family had ever seen a picture of the Rebbe at that point, let alone met him, but every night her mother would put her to bed with a blessing that one day they would see the Rebbe. Her family would eventually escape the USSR and make their way to Brooklyn where Mrs. Jacobson would be one of a handful to see the beginnings of the Lubavitch story in Crown Heights and up to this very day. Along...

Reb Yossel Mochkin grew up in Crown Heights in the 1960s and 1970s, living in the cloistered world of his immigrant parents and their friends but surrounded by a fast changing and exciting world around him. Never finding it easy to fit in to the milieu around him, Yossel had to ask on his own questions about the direction his life was to take. These questions were never fully resolved, but a yechidus with the Rebbe gave Yossel a blueprint his is still continuing to implement. In this conversation we discuss the never ending journey of finding one's place...

Rabbi Berry Farkash is a Shliach in Issaquah, Washington and director of Chabad of the Central Cascades. Several years ago, a local crisis led Berry into the world of psychotherapy where he became a certified clinical psychotherapist and practices Hypnotherapy and other Transpersonal modalities. Today all of his clients are fellow Lubavitchers, many of them shluchim. In this conversation, we discuss his own journey toward finding the Rebbe’s softer voice and the need for forgiveness and compassion. We also discuss the importance of companionship - especially highlighted by the Rebbe’s “bakosho nafshis” to find a mashpia, or in other...

Mrs Toby Hecht is the director of Shabtai, a global Jewish leadership society at Yale University in New Haven.

Toby grew up on shlichus in Seattle and was finishing up her senior year in Beth Rivka High School in Crown Heights when she and her friends were swept up in the collective grief of Gimmel Tammuz.
In this conversation, Toby reflects on the feelings of that time, the emergent awareness of needing to move forward and the responsibility we have today to take decisive ownership of the future.

Rabbi Dr. Shmary Brownstein is a shliach in Davis, California where he also wrote his doctoral dissertation on the famous series of maamorim, Bosi Lgani. In this episode, we discuss Shmary's growing up in Crown Heights in the early 90s and his decision to leave for Brunoy. We discuss how the conception of past changed over those years and how some of the ideas of Bosi Lgani might inform how we ought to approach staying connected to the past without becoming lost in it.

Rabbi Peretz and Chanie Chein both grew up in Crown Heights and are the shluchim today at Brandeis University near Boston, Massachusetts. They have also recently founded M54, a program founded on the relational connection between learners as they embark on shared yet individual explorations, resulting in profound outcomes. In this conversation, Peretz and I discuss his growing up in Crown Heights in the late 80s and early 90s and his pivotal decision to leave Crown Heights to study in a yeshiva in Israel, only returning after the Rebbe's stroke two years later. We discuss the power narrative holds...

Rabbi Moshe Greenwald grew up on shlichus in Long Beach, CA and is on shlichus today in Downtown Los Angeles. In this episode, we discuss his childhood memories of coming to 770 for Pesach, his coming of age during the turbulence of 1992 and the questions he's had to wrestle with since. The conversations leads us to questions about the possibility of a Chossid's living with uncertainty.

Rabbi Pinny Andrusier lives in Cooper City, Florida where he is a shliach for more than thirty years. Growing up, Pinny found his place less in the structure of yeshiva and more in the adventure of shlichus, which is where he hoped to find his place after marriage. But when the time came, he struggled to find a place in shlichus and almost gave up on his dream, until a note from the Rebbe a few days before 27 Adar changed everything. In this episode, we discuss the challenge of fitting in, both back then and today, and how believing in...

Rabbi Shmuly Avtzon is a Mashpia in the Yeshiva of 770 and director of Sichos In English, an organization founded by his late father and my uncle, Rabbi Yonah Avtzon a"h. In this episode, we compare and contrast our childhood experience and recollection of 27 Adar and 3 Tammuz, him growing up in the thick of the Rebbe's neighborhood of Crown Heights and me growing up across the world on shlichus in Hong Kong. We discuss the shockwaves these events had on our childhood, and whether or not they can be traced to earlier events in Lubavitch history and specifically the history...

Marc Asnin is a documentary photographer who lives in New York City.  Over the years, Marc has photographed all kinds of subjects, from the most marginizaled people on death row to his own Uncle Charlie. In 1992, Marc was commissioned by the New York Times to photograph the Lubavitcher Rebbe and the Crown Heights community as part of a feature essay, The Oracle of Crown Heights. Just a few weeks before the stroke, Marc’s pictures are from the last and most iconic pictures of that year. In this podcast, we discuss Marc’s first impressions of the Rebbe and the Lubav...

Before becoming a full time life coach, Fitz Rabin was a master sofer for over a decade.

Over the years, Fitz struggled to identify with some of the practices seen as basic to being a Lubavitcher, namely the study of Chitas. Today, he celebrates 1000 days of learning chitas before shkiya.

We discuss the feelings of alienation from mass practice, the search for individual connection and the general tension between being true to yourself within a broader community.

Mrs. Vivi Deren grew up in Nashville, Tenessee as one of the first children of shluchim in the Unites States. Today she lives in Connecticut where she has been on shlichus with her husband for nearly fifty years.

In this episode, she speaks about her parents growing up as chassidim in the United States of the 1920s and 1930s, and about her grandparents who raised them.

We speak about how the community of Lubavitch in the United States has changed since, and how the Lubavitch ethic of individualism fits with the growth of community. 

Rabbi Yossi Morozov grew up in Brooklyn and was on shlichus with his family for twelve years in Ulyanovsk, a city one thousand kilometers east of Moscow. After being forced to leave Russia, Yossi moved with his family to the Pomona area in New York and became a life insurance agent. In this conversation we discuss his choices to go on shlichus and then into business and the challenges these choices posed to his own Lubavitch identity.

Rabbi Simon Jacobson is known today as a bestselling author and founder of the Meaningful Life Center. But for many years he was one of the transcribers and editors of the Rebbe’s Farbrengen. In this conversation we discuss some of the paradoxes he observed over the years, both regarding the Rebbe’s use of technology in sharing the Farbrengen around the world but also in how the Rebbe empowered his chassidim to think for themselves.

Rabbi Ruvi New grew up in Melbourne, Australia and is a shliach today in Boca Raton, Florida. In this conversation, we discuss the changing dynamics of Lubavitch identity in the decade between his and his oldest's brother, Moshe New, cross Pacific journeys to 770. We also discuss how over those years there seemed to be a tipping point of an "arum," or atmosphere, that brought more and more of Lubavitch into a powerful core, and where that leaves us today. ______ Homesick for Lubavitch is a project of Yuvla Media. Bentzi Avtzon is a filmmaker who specializes in telling the stories...

Eli Nash is a businessman and philanthropist who grew up in Crown Heights and lives today in South Florida.

Starting with his efforts to raise awareness about sexual abuse and then porn addiction, Eli has become very active in different causes surrounding mental health in the community.

In this episode, we discuss his own journey away from (and back to?) Lubavitch, the individuals who pointed him back to his roots, and the challenging work of finding the good from the bad.

R' Chaim Itche Drizin was one of the first shluchim to set out in the late 60s, directing Chabad of Northern California from his Chabad House in Berkeley. Today he works as a therapist who in the course of his work speaks with many young men and women in the Lubavitch community. In our conversation, we speak about his growing up as the youngest son of the famed chossid, R' Avrohom Maayor, the gap between him and his father's generation, a how this "gap of translation" persists to this very day.

Rabbi Moshe Gourarie grew up in Detroit and is shlichus today in Toms River, New Jersey. He is also the co-founder of Project Likkutei Sichos. Growing up, his plan was always to complete mesivta in Detroit and then "get to Heaven" in Crown Heights next to the Rebbe. These plans came to an abrupt halt at one evening in mesivta where the boys were told that the "Rebbe had fallen." In this conversation, we discuss how a teenage Bochur processed the "rug being pulled from beneath him" and how his feelings about holding on to the past and moving...

FOR TECHNICAL REASONS, AUDIO FOR LAST TWENTY MINUTES IS LESS THAN OPTIMAL. APOLOGIES - B

Rabbi Elkanah Shmotkin is the executive director of JEM, which is responsible for creating tens of thousands of hours of video content of and about the Rebbe.

All Lubavitchers have watched something made by JEM, and in many ways the "Rebbe video" has become a staple of the Lubavitch way of life.

In this episode, we discuss how the idea originated, the limitations and possibilities in video, and where exactly the videos take us.

Rabbi Dovber Pinson is a shliach, scholar and prolific author. Spinning off from a previous off-the-podcast conversation, Rabbi Pinson presented a hypothesis about the unique similarities between the Rebbe and the Baal Shem Tov, and what it might mean to us. This led to an eye-opening conversation about the radical turn of Dor Hashvii in Lubavitch thought and some of its far reaching implications.

Mrs. Sandy Weinbaum lives in London, England where she, together with her husband, Dr. Bunim, directs the London Jewish Family Center.

Mrs. Weinbaum's story begins sixty years ago with a shliach knocking on the door of her father's office and comes full circle today with her having raised fourteen children, many of whom are themselves shluchim.

Over the years, the Weinbaums have been involved in many of Lubavitch's initiatives in London, even if they never assumed official titles or positions.

In this episode, we discuss her journey...

R' Mendel Duchman lives in Los Angeles and is a businessman, business coach and motivational speaker.

He is also, to my mind, one of today's most outspoken motivators and cheerleaders for shluchim and Lubavitch around the world.

But while R' Mendel very much lives in "today," he is also a staunch defender of the idea of "gezhe," or the value of holding on to one's past that can be traced to the old home back in Russia.

While "gezhe" has come to mean all...

Rabbi Mendel Zirkind has taught for over a decade in the Wilkes-Barre and Jets yeshivas.

Not having planned to become an educator, Mendel shares the lessons he's learned from his time spent in these so-called "outlier" yeshivas and how the discussions and questions taking place there have so much to teach everyone.

We discuss the seeming changes in Lubavitch regarding the asking of introspective questions, what may have led to these changes and where they leave us today.

Zevi Slavin is a student of philosophy and mysticism and host of a YouTube channel on this topic, Seekers of Unity. He is also the son of shluchim in Sydney, Australia and a proud chossid. On this episode, we discuss if and how Zevi manages the tension between his intellectual pursuits and his Lubavitch identity. We also discuss his thoughts on the collision of Lubavitch with modernity and where it leaves each of us.

Rebbetzin Fradel Sudak was sent on Shlichus to London sixty years ago with her late husband, Rabbi Nachman Sudak, a”h.

She is also my great aunt, and I’ve wanted for years to hear more from her about my great-grandparents, Rabbi Benzion and Esther Golda Shemtov, who also lived in London after they escaped the Soviet Union.

Over the course of several hours, I heard all kinds of stories and insights about my great-grandparents, where they came from, what drove them, scared them, inspired them, and held them together.

Duration: 02:14:58

Rabbi Dr. Reuven Leigh is a shliach and affiliated lecturer at University of Cambridge. His recent book, “The Philosophy of Rabbi Sholom Ber Schneersohn: Language, Gender and Mysticism,” endeavors to bring the famous maamorim of 5659 (RaNaT) into dialogue with postmodern thinking. We sat down to discuss what led him to focus on these maamorim, his relationship with Reb Volf Greenglass and other personalities in Montreal, and his lessons about Chassidus and the Chossid persona he carries to this very day.

Leibel Gniwisch is a lawyer and Ivy League graduate. He is also a good friend who lives in the neighborhood over. Over the past year we've had many discussions about Lubavitch identity, the questions worth asking and avenues of inquiry worth pursuing. More a conversation than an interview, this episode is one of those. We talk about Leibel's growing up in Montreal, what led him to pursue a profession in law and what lessons he has learned along the way.

Dr. Tali Loewenthal is a renowned fellow at UCL where he lectures on Jewish Spirituality. But he is also a chossid, whose continued life in academia and philosophy is strictly at the behest of the Rebbe. We sat down to discuss his own reflections on the costs and benefits of engaging in the world of philosophy, if it can be reconciled with the life of chassidus and Emunah, and what he suggests for those who find themselves attracted to the knowledge the "outside world" offers. Going deeper, we discuss the isolation that leads many to look elsewhere in the first...

Yanki Tauber is a writer who lives in Woodmere, NY where for over a decade he has been working on his newly released Chumash, the OpenBook Torah.
What makes his Chumash different is the confidence it has that the reader can be brought into the process of commentary, and the more the reader knows about the process the better.
We discussed his upbringing in Crown Heights and his special relationship with his grandfather, the famous poet and chossid Zvi Yair, and how this led to the manner in which he approached his Chumash.

Rabbi Levi Greenberg is a shliach in El Paso, TX which is also where he grew up as a shliach himself. Continuing the discussion raised in previous episodes, we discuss the challenges of leaving home for schooling at a young age, the cost of raising children in faraway cities, and the metrics of a successful shlichus. Along the way, the conversation veers into familiar territory of the "chassidishe maase," how it has or hasn't changed over time, and what it means to realize some of our heroes, the early shluchim, were also human.

Rebbetzin Bassie Garelik is one of the earliest shluchim, having been sent to Italy over 60 years ago. She was also born in the United States, growing up in Pittsburgh, which is why I wanted to have her on the podcast to discuss what it was like to grow up in America before Lubavitch - and indeed Yiddishkeit - was established here the way it is today. We discussed what it was like to grow up in her parent's home, and what has and hasn't changed in the generations since.

Rabbi Moshe Leib Gray was a teenage Lubavitch yeshiva student when he found himself in the renowned yeshiva of Gateshead just a year after Gimmel Tammuz. This would not be the last time he'd find himself somewhere unexpected: Never expecting to go on shlichus, today he is the shliach at Dartmouth University. In this podcast he tells us his amazing story and the lessons he learned along the way.

Rabbi Moshe New is the senior rabbi of the Montreal Torah Center and a shliach for over forty years. In this episode, we talk about his upbringing in Australia and the changing Lubavitch landscape he observed as he travelled to the United States and finally to Montreal. We also discuss how the landscape continues to change and how it might point in a more positive direction, namely with a more specific focus on empowering the individual.

Captain Mendy Avtzon is my brother and currently serves as a JAG lawyer in the United States Air Force.

In this episode, we discuss his rocky journey from shlichus in Hong Kong to yeshiva continents (and universes) away.

We discuss some things he wished he had found in yeshiva and also those things he hopes he will never lose.

*Any views expressed are personal and do not represent the views of the DoD or USAF.

Rabbi Shmully Hecht is the founder and senior Chabad rabbi at Yale, and co-founder of Shabtai, the global Jewish leadership community. We discuss how everything changed this Simchas Torah and where we might go from here. Not only the world around us but also Lubavitch itself.

Sholom Jacobs grew up on shlichus in Glasgow, Scotland and is today a successful real estate developer in Long Island where he lives with his family. In this episode, we discuss his journey into business, how the Lubavitch perspective around business has changed over the years, and what he has carried with him from his days growing up on shlichus.

Leibel Mangel is an IDF veteran who grew up on shlichus in Blue Ash, Ohio. In this conversation, we discuss his perspective on the recent events in Israel as an IDF veteran and how one might respond in these uncertain times.

Rabbi Shmuel Wagner is a teacher at Lubavitcher Yeshiva Ocean Parkway.

We discuss the changing attitudes towards teaching and becoming a teacher.

We also discuss how one of his own teachers had a profound impact on how he dealt with his six year journey through infertility.

Eldad Drori is a Lubavitcher dentist who grew up in St. Paul, Minnesota. He is also an avid powerlifter who has been working on his strength and fitness for more than thirty years. We discuss how he reconciles his gym identity with his lubavitch identity, and how the identity that comes out of it is something both traceable to his family's past and yet entirely his own.

Rabbi Yossi Nemes is a Shliach for more than thirty years in Metairie, a suburb of New Orleans.

In our conversation, we discuss what it was like for him to learn in 770 back in the 80s, and what kinds of discussions about Lubavitch identity were taking place already back then.