Underneath the Underneath

In this episode of Underneath the Underneath, Yocheved opens a new Torah cycle with a question that has been echoing since the beginning: Ayeka. Where are you? Drawing on Eicha Rabbah, the Tzror HaMor, and Rebbe Nachman — and weaving in a personal thread from a recent silent retreat — this episode traces the arc of the divine-human relationship from the garden to exile to the call that never stops...

In this episode of Underneath the Underneath, Yocheved steps into Sukkot still carrying the warmth of Yom Kippur — and finds in the humble, temporary structure of the sukkah a map for one of the deepest questions of human life: how do we walk through uncertainty? Drawing on the Zohar's teaching that the sukkah is the shade of faith, the Izhbitzer on the schach as divine covering, and Rebbe Nachman...

In this episode of Underneath the Underneath, Yocheved enters Shabbat Shuva — the Shabbat suspended between Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur — and finds inside the opening verses of Ha'azinu a teaching that reframes the entire season. Drawing on the Meor Einayim of Reb Menachem Nachum of Chernobyl, this episode traces the movement of the life-force through a person — how it rushes in, returns to its so...

In this episode of Underneath the Underneath, Yocheved enters Parshat Ki Tavo and orients to a single word that carries layers of spiritual technology. Hasket. Usually translated as “hearken” or “take heed” — a doubling of the command to listen. But the Midrash reads it differently. Has: become silent. Katu: shatter. Two medicines hidden in one word. The path to becoming a people, to truly hearing...

In this episode of Underneath the Underneath, Yocheved arrives at Parshat Ki Tetzei with a chidush that stops everything: the Hebrew root of sadeh — field — is the same as Shadai. Eil Shadai. The God of the breast. The king in the field, the classic Elul teaching, turns out to be more than a metaphor for accessibility. The field is the place of the nurturing God — the divine who feeds, who sustain...

In this episode of Underneath the Underneath, Yocheved enters Parshat Shoftim at the threshold of Elul — and finds inside it a map for the inner work of this season. The Torah opens with a deceptively simple command: place judges and officers in all your gates. But Moshe isn’t only talking about city gates. He’s talking about the gates of the inner world — the places where fear enters, where the c...

In this episode of Underneath the Underneath, Yocheved enters the Nine Days and Tisha B’Av through the element of fire — and asks what fire actually does to us when we’re willing to stay with it. Drawing on Elijah’s breakdown in the wilderness, the burning bush that wouldn’t be consumed, Michael Meade’s three layers of human life, and a stunning teaching from the Rambam’s Tisha B’Av prayer — this...

In this episode of Underneath the Underneath, Yocheved enters the book of Devarim — the long goodbye — and finds inside one word the full arc of a people, a leader, and a life. Moshe stands at the edge of the Jordan, knowing he will not cross. What does a beloved leader say when there is nothing left to protect? He speaks himself — his own words, his own memory, his own love — for the first time....

In this episode of Underneath the Underneath, Yocheved enters the Three Weeks — the 21 days of bein hametzarim — through a surprising teaching from Rebbe Nachman that changes how you see this season entirely. An egg gestates in 21 days. The luz bone — the indestructible bone at the base of the neck — shares this same time signature. And the Baal Shem Tov teaches that the 42 journeys of the desert...

In this episode of Underneath the Underneath, Yocheved enters the threshold of Parshat Pinchas alongside the beginning of the Three Weeks — and asks what it means to grieve as testimony. Through four women — the daughters of Zelophchad, Rachel weeping on the side of the road, Miriam and the well that dried up after her unmourned death, and a more personal thread about being an eldest daughter — Yo...

In this episode of Underneath the Underneath, Yocheved explores the mysterious open space between the Torah portions of Korach and Chukat—a silence that stretches across thirty-eight years in the wilderness, during which Divine speech seemingly ceases. Drawing on teachings from the Maggid of Mezritch, Rebbe Nachman, and the Alter Rebbe, she enters the relationship between speech and silence, exile...

In this episode of Underneath the Underneath, Yocheved enters the story of Korach — and finds inside it not just a rebellion, but a lineage. The wound beneath Korach’s uprising was real. The argument was sound. But what he did with the wound swallowed everything. And yet — the sons of Korach did not die. Held in an impossible liminal space between Sheol and life, their descendants became seers, pr...

In this episode of Underneath the Underneath, Yocheved enters the story of the spies — one of the most pivotal ruptures in the Torah — and asks: why did ten of the twelve collapse when they encountered the land? Drawing on the Beit Yaakov of the Ishbitzer and the kabbalistic teaching of arousal from above and below, Yocheved traces a formula for meeting complexity without collapse: autonomy, conne...

In this episode of Underneath the Underneath, Yocheved enters one of the Torah’s most charged sequences — the Sota, the Nazir, and the priestly blessing — and asks the question underneath all of it: what drives the vow? Drawing on Rashi, the Sfat Emet, the Gene Keys of Richard Rudd, and her own ancestral reckoning with forced conversion and the violence of suppressed truth, Yocheved traces the arc...

After Sinai — after the thunder, the fire, the mountain — God retreats to a tent. And says: modesty is beautiful. In this episode of Underneath the Underneath, Yocheved explores the theology of the whisper — what it means that God contracts to dwell precisely in the broken, the quiet, and the ownerless inner wilderness where God is most at home. The offering God most wants may not be what you thin...

In this episode of Underneath the Underneath, Yocheved enters the sacred terrain of Lag BaOmer through the life and legacy of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai—guiding us into the hidden architecture of the cave, the field, and the fire. What does it mean to retreat into the unseen, to incubate in darkness, and to emerge without burning the world around us? Through these archetypes, and the subtle teaching...

In this episode of Underneath the Underneath, Yocheved enters the opening verse of Parshat Emor and finds a question hiding in plain sight — why does the Torah say speak twice? Emor. V’amarta. Say and say again. Drawing on Rashi, the Lubavitcher Rebbe, and the Kedushat Levi — and weaving in her own parshanut, lived experience, and stories from the healing room — Yocheved traces the hidden architec...

In this episode of Underneath the Underneath, Yocheved enters the double parsha of Achrei Mot-Kedoshim with two words that stop everything: after the death. We are all living in some version of achrei mot right now. And the Torah, rather than rushing past the grief, drops us right into it — and then asks a surprising question: what does holiness actually require of us? Drawing on the Yom Kippur se...

In this episode of Underneath the Underneath, Yocheved enters the double parsha of Tazria-Metzora — and finds, beneath the surface of obscure ritual law, a precise and surprisingly tender map for healing. We’re in the Omer now. Pesach gave us freedom from. The Omer asks the harder question: what are we moving toward? Drawing on the Alter Rebbe’s Likkutei Torah, Yocheved traces the leper’s arc — a...

In this week’s episode of Underneath the Underneath, Yocheved turns toward Pesach through the lens of faith as a state of consciousness—and what it means to live that consciousness in real time. Opening with a reflection on the current moment in Israel, she names how war and collective pain collapse our sense of space, fragment connection, and activate survival. Rather than turning away, she invit...

In this week’s episode of Underneath the Underneath, Yocheved opens Sefer Vayikra with a single, essential question: how do we decipher the language of the call? Drawing on the Mei HaShiloach and the Me’or Einayim, she explores the subtle and often overlooked language of the Divine call—one that begins before we even know we are longing, and often arrives through disruption, restlessness, and quie...

In this week’s episode of Underneath the Underneath, Yocheved explores the surprising placement of Shabbat within the story of the Mishkan. Why does the Torah mention Shabbat both after the instructions for building the sanctuary and again before the work begins? Drawing on teachings from the Me’or Einayim, she explores the deeper consciousness of Shabbat as a state of wholeness — a reality in whi...

In this week’s episode of Underneath the Underneath, Yocheved explores the mysterious portal of Ad d’lo Yada through Parshat Tetzaveh, Zayin Adar, and the approaching light of Purim. As Moshe’s name disappears from the parsha and the priestly garments are described in intricate detail, we are invited into a deeper question: what remains when the outer name dissolves? What continues to burn when di...

In this week’s episode of Underneath the Underneath, Yocheved explores Parshat Terumah and the radical invitation to build a sanctuary: more than ancient architecture, but as living blueprint for how we create space within ourselves. Why does God ask for willing hearts? Why does sanctuary begin with agency? What kind of structure allows light to enter without overwhelming the vessel? Drawing from...

This week’s Underneath the Underneath sits with a surprising moment that comes before the giving of the Torah. Just before revelation at Sinai, Moshe is told by Yitro: You will surely wear yourself out. You cannot do it alone. Why does the Torah place this very human exchange — about overwhelm, capacity, and support — right before the most climactic spiritual moment in history? In this episode, Yo...