ChabadLife.TV Street Farbrengen

On the night of his birthday, Zacharia asks Reuven what he'd tell his 20-year-old self. Turning the question around Reuven says he's hearing what  that 18-year-old, hitchhiking across Canada and drawing through the night at a Vancouver diner, been telling him? The conversation moves from there. Dr. Edith Eger's line about being pushed by pain or pulled by dreams. Why people who feel...

Are  Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur and the days in between about becoming worthy? Isn't this what "better through regret" means? In this post-Rosh Hashanah farbrengen, Reuven and Zacharia wrestle with a radical idea: creation itself doesn't have a reason. Blowing the shofar, which changes everything, makes no sense — it is a gezeiras hakasuv, a decree . Don't explain it, un...

Rosh Hashanah isn't just the head of the year—it's meant to lead the year . Reuven and Zaharia wrestle with what it means to make a real hachlata : not simply another goal, another page of Gemara, or more words of Tehillim, but a commitment that actually changes the person making it.   What if davening isn't asking Hashem to change our circumstances, but asking for the power  to cha...

Be Born. We talk a lot about bittul —surrendering ourselves to something greater. But somewhere along the way, did we begin confusing bittul with weakness? Chai Elul celebrates the birthdays of the Baal Shem Tov and the Alter Rebbe. But why birthdays ? What does birth itself tell us about the the  essence of what is Chassidus? Maybe the answer is startlingly simple: Before you're born, your l...

Is G-d Waiting to Punish You? | We each carry pictures of G-d in our heads or a sense of "personality." Is your picture of  G-d keeping score, waiting for you to slip up? Do you need more zechusim, merit and worth, more segulos magic potions , more blessings  to make it safely through another year? Have  we taken the language of schar v’onesh —reward and punishment—to make G-d into the &...

A farbrengen is not a class. Nor a therapy session. Not a place to walk away with a tidy answer or a checklist of things to fix.  In this conversation, we dig into what separates a farbrengen from a glorified pep talk — and land on something simpler and harder: vulnerability, brought honestly to the table, with no guaranteed resolution at the end. Along the way: a Rashi on Psalm 27 and what it rev...

A podcast about Nike shoes co-founder Phil Knight,  sends Reuven into a full-blown crisis: what if work — even avodas Hashem , G-dly work— is supposed to feel like play? He walks into this farbrengen convinced Yiddishkeit runs on seriousness, guilt, and gritted teeth. Zakaria isn't having it. What follows is a raw back-and-forth about obligation vs. enjoyment, the Chassidim's original na...

 Elul's trademark identity is — I am to my beloved, my beloved is to me. It can slip through  us without much thought. We repeat the formula — - arousal from below, arousal from above — but do we  feel what it means  to be to someone? This episode gets uncomfortable. Someone can show up to shul daily throughout Elul and still, as the Frierdiker Rebbe puts it, be missing something essential —...

Does believing "everything happens for a reason" make you more powerful — or turn you into a passenger in your own life? This episode cracks open Hashgacha Pratis (Divine Providence) and refuses to let it become spiritual Tylenol. Featuring the famous Rebbe/Rabbi Jonathan Sacks exchange — "one does not find himself in a situation, one places himself in a situation" — we ask the...

I was  asked whether desperation is the right way to stand in front of G-d- Hashem — and the answer cracks open everything: why Kaddish praises G-d to the heavens and then says He's beyond all praise, why the Frierdiker Rebbe says humbleness  is reaching higher (not shrinking), and why your grocery store stocks 5,000 items your body never asked for. A conversation on bitachon, bracha, and wha...

Why do so many sincere, mitzvah-observant Jews look like they're carrying the world? That's the question this episode refuses to let go of — and it leads somewhere unexpected. Working from a striking maamar of the Frierdiker Rebbe, the conversation reframes simcha not as a mood you're supposed to perform, but as the very condition that lets you perceive what a mitzvah is actually do...

During the 'Three Weeks',  instead of dwelling only on the destruction of the  Beis Hamikdash, the trauma of the destruction of the Temple and a nation's  dispersion ( and consequent persecution) in Chabad we emphasize  influencing the future -  through the study the laws of the future Beis  Hamikdash. But if we're honest, doesn't that sometimes feel... a little naive? The...

A familiar saying:  The Jews came to America and while crossing the Atlantic they threw their tefillin overboard. The tragedy, we tell ourselves, belongs to the  generation of the past. But what if it doesn't? What if the Golden Medina, the Country paved with gold won in a much deeper way? Drawing on the Rebbe's Ata Tetzaveh maamar, the discussion explores : The greenhorns  of Europe had...

Gimmel Tammuz. I've been at many farbrengens. Formed many explanations. Heard lots of words.  I am feeling there is nothing left to say. I feel frozen. Maybe it's time to stop explaining. I've spent  years trying to understand, define, and articulate what Gimmel Tammuz means, that I've sidestepped what it actually means to me. The  explanations have become a hiding place. Reuve...

Yud-Beis Tammuz and Gimmel Tammuz raise a deeper question whether we experience them as history, or as something that is happening now? Our conversation moves from the meaning of a yahrzeit and Yoseir M'Bechayohu —more influential than ever—to why so many people feel disconnected from their own lives. Why do we admire ideals yet assume they are not for us? Why do we read about growth, challen...

When does faith mean pushing forward—and when does it mean letting go? In this week’s Street Farbrengen, we wrestle with a simple question: when a business deal is struggling, at what point does bitachon mean persevering, and at what point does it mean moving on? The conversation uncovers a deeper issue: perhaps we misunderstand what bitachon is in the first place. Is it confidence that things wil...

If Chassidus teaches that every person possesses a core self, why is it often so difficult to feel it? We explore the difference between intellect and intuition, analysis and identity, and why so many of us spend our lives trying to think our way toward ourselves. The conversation moves from Steve Jobs and intuition, to the Baal Teshuvah experience, to cholent, cheesecake, and the strange moment w...

If someone says “Jews control everything,” the easy response is outrage or nervous laughter. We took it somewhere deeper: what if the only useful response is responsibility? That opens into Shavuot and the shift from “the giving of the Torah” to Kabbalat HaTorah, receiving it. The question stops being “What does Judaism do for me?” and becomes “What am I here to bring into the world?” We explore D...

In this week’s Street Farbrengen , a Chassidic discourse about mitzvos being a “heavy load” unexpectedly opens into something deeply modern. an what does Kabbalas HaTorah actually mean. The discussion moves from ayahuasca retreats in the neighborhood…to the psychology of escapism…to dating, giving, receiving, and what real love actually is. At the center of it all is a radical idea: Meet  G-d prec...

“I can’t date vanilla.” It sounded shallow. Until it wasn’t. Because how many of  us live vanilla flavor lives— all the while thirsty for more color. We escape. We explain. We call it faith. Dr Edith Eger ,  in her book The Choice  a 71-year-old woman tells of a woman stuck in grief since she was 16—to do something almost unthinkable: Take off your shoes. Stand on your mother’s grave. And talk to...

It’s the first time in modern history. Lag BaOmer… and you can’t go to Meron. No HUGE crowds WITH bonfires on the mountain.  So what’s left? Maybe that is the message. What if this year isn’t about going somewhere— but about going inside? In this episode, we explore a different take on Lag BaOmer. Not the hype. Not the noise. But the idea of a mechitza—a boundary. Not a wall that separates you fro...

A phone call while checking the stock market. A meeting while answering texts. Learning while thinking about business. Davening while the mind goes everywhere else. We tell ourselves it's multitasking. But maybe we’re not doing more. Maybe we’re choosing less. In this episode, Reuven and Zacharia take on one of the most ordinary struggles of modern life: focus. But the conversation quickly mo...

Just a line that echoes louder with time: “It’s all up to you.” In this episode, the conversation continues and gets uncomfortable. Not theoretical... personal. What does it actually mean to live in Geulah without being “pulled out”?  Without waiting for clarity, for leadership, for a miracle? From the tension between Geulah and Golah … to the contradiction between what we were told and what we se...

We live in a time of endless insight. Podcasts. Books. Ideas. We know more than ever. So why do we still feel stuck? In this episode of Street Farbrengen, a simple statement— “It’s up to you”— turns into a much bigger question: Why doesn’t knowing translate into change? The conversation moves from philosophy to something more personal. The difference between being inspired… and  being transformed....

1991.  “I’ve done all I can. From here—it’s up to you.” The line that lands heavy, leaves some in shock and some in resistance. From Reuven's meeting with a  flower-crowned guru in Seattle… to moments that feel spiritual—almost transcendent… to the quiet personal  work of growing— Reuven and Zacharia sit to resolve where and when does reliance end… and responsibility begin? Where is a Chassid...