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 pl…

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 …

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 Nisse…

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 Lubav…

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 ident…

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.…

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 …

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" …

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 …

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 Jewis…

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 d…

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 mak…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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, Pere…

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…

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…

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…

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,…

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, th…

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 grandpar…

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 t…

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…

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," o…

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 bac…

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 o…

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 tol…

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 s…

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 th…

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. Ove…

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 hol…

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…

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 c…

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 severa…

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 re…

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 …

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 …

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 upbrin…

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 v…

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 toda…

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 st…

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…

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 …

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 …