The Living Jewishly Podcast

“Happy journeying and happy Chanukah!” — Bluth, Jessie and the whole Living Jewishly Team This episode of the Living Jewishly Podcasts is a special Chanukah meditation brought to you by the School of Living Jewishly. Join us this Chanukah for eight candle meditations dedicated to supporting the kindling of light and honouring the flame, while celebrating home, hope, and ordinary heroes. Meditation...

“Happy journeying and happy Chanukah!” — Bluth, Jessie and the whole Living Jewishly Team This episode of the Living Jewishly Podcasts is a special Chanukah meditation brought to you by the School of Living Jewishly. Join us this Chanukah for eight candle meditations dedicated to supporting the kindling of light and honouring the flame, while celebrating home, hope, and ordinary heroes. Meditation...

“Happy journeying and happy Chanukah!” — Bluth, Jessie and the whole Living Jewishly Team This episode of the Living Jewishly Podcasts is a special Chanukah meditation brought to you by the School of Living Jewishly. Join us this Chanukah for eight candle meditations dedicated to supporting the kindling of light and honouring the flame, while celebrating home, hope, and ordinary heroes. Meditation...

“Happy journeying and happy Chanukah!” — Bluth, Jessie and the whole Living Jewishly Team This episode of the Living Jewishly Podcasts is a special Chanukah meditation brought to you by the School of Living Jewishly. Join us this Chanukah for eight candle meditations dedicated to supporting the kindling of light and honouring the flame, while celebrating home, hope, and ordinary heroes. Meditation...

This episode of the Living Jewishly Podcasts is a special Chanukah meditation brought to you by the School of Living Jewishly. Join us this Chanukah for eight candle meditations dedicated to supporting the kindling of light and honouring the flame, while celebrating home, hope, and ordinary heroes. Meditation by: Jessie Duke Kalimba music by: Jessie Duke  This‌ ‌week’s ‘The Sun Will Rise Meditatio...

“Happy journeying and happy Chanukah!” — Bluth, Jessie and the whole Living Jewishly Team This episode of the Living Jewishly Podcasts is a special Chanukah meditation brought to you by the School of Living Jewishly. Join us this Chanukah for eight candle meditations dedicated to supporting the kindling of light and honouring the flame, while celebrating home, hope, and ordinary heroes. Meditation...

“Happy journeying and happy Chanukah!” — Bluth, Jessie and the whole Living Jewishly Team This episode of the Living Jewishly Podcasts is a special Chanukah meditation brought to you by the School of Living Jewishly. Join us this Chanukah for eight candle meditations dedicated to supporting the kindling of light and honouring the flame, while celebrating home, hope, and ordinary heroes. Meditation...

“Dreaming is a necessary complement to our waking life that allows us to rest and integrate and regenerate.” — Ganga Devi As home to the holiday of Chanukah, Kislev is a time for celebration, light, and togetherness. But it is also a time for sleeping, for dreaming, and for integrating the teachings of our dreams into our waking lives. The beauty of the cyclical nature of our Hebrew calendar is th...

“..So how do we retell these stories that are complicated? And teach them in a way that uplifts us and moves us forward with greater integrity?”  – Rabbi Bluth In preparation to launch 8 nights of meditations which accompany the art and teachings in our Living Jewishly Chanukah guide (available for download here: https://www.schooloflivingjewishly.com/chanukah-guide ), Rabbi Bluth and Jessie Duke...

“One unexpected benefit of being in an interfaith relationship has been that it’s really caused me to look at all of my Jewish practice and ask myself: where is the meaning in this to me?” — Kayla Kwinter The December dilemma: how do we keep hold of our Jewish identity and joy in the face of the Christmas onslaught? With classic carols and popstar covers playing on repeat in grocery stores and ret...

“When opportunities too amazing to deny came across my bow, I went in that direction.” — Dr. Eric Weissman Dr. Eric Weissman, an assistant professor and a PhD in Social Science at University of New Brunswick, has been developing and applying a lived experience form of scholarship to the study of homelessness, housing, mental health, and substance use in Canadian and US cities since 1999 — an acade...

“People have a variety of misconceptions about the Jewish approach — it starts with the idea that there is ONE Jewish approach.” — Dr. Danny Schiff Few questions are as thorny or polarizing in the mainstream as the question of reproductive rights — specifically regarding a woman’s right to choose. Religion plays a major role in this debate, with many pointing to biblical teachings as a reason to u...

“I remember being told ‘It’s not WHO’s on the air, it’s WHAT’s on the air’ — when I heard that, I knew that my days were numbered. ” — Howard Berger While losing your job can be stressful at any age, for those over 50 it can be a life-changing crisis. Entering the job market over the age of 50 often brings with it a host of psychological issues, including anxiety, insecurity, depression, and emoti...

“Even when it doesn’t feel like there is excitement, there are our rhythms and there are our cycles.” — Bluth  After the social and structured rituals of the High Holidays, the month of Cheshvan is a period of personal contemplation during which we turn to the quieter rhythms of our daily commitments. The absence of Holy Days during this month challenges us to source our connection with the sacred...

“Most of the time when I do counselling or I meet with families, I feel better afterwards — like it’s an enriching process.” — Rob Pepler Mindfulness gets a lot of attention these days. Hundreds of apps, articles, and self-help books offer the simple secrets to practicing mindfulness, and there’s a good reason for that — mindfulness brings with it a ton of powerful benefits, particularly for menta...

“At what point in our history did our houses become ‘not nature’?” — Julia Plevin The earth is our home, our classroom, and our legacy — how can we create a nurturing relationship with the earth that allows all living creatures to thrive? Sukkot, the ancient Jewish Harvest festival, is an invitation for people of the Jewish faith to experience, celebrate, and revere the gift of our natural world....

“There’s a stability, I think, that everyone can find in relation to the calendar.” — Ganga Devi As we exit the period of Rosh Hashanah and venture further into the month of Tishrei, we transition from a time of serious contemplation and teshuva into the time of our joy.  What should we be bringing with us into this period — and what should we be taking out of it?  This episode of Living Jewishly...

“Being so close to nature… it is always wonderful for me to restore my perspective, my point of view.” — Renay Weissman-Stanners When you have the power to create and inhabit your happy place wherever you are, you carry with you some protection — not only against the daily stresses of everyday life, but also the deeper anxieties and melancholy of lived and inherited trauma. This episode of the Liv...

“Without forgiveness, there could be no allowance for human frailty.” — Dr. Elliot Malamet All relationships depend on forgiveness, from the personal to the professional to the intimate. In fact, the closer you become to another person, the more robust a role forgiveness must play in your relationship, as the strongest bonds can lead to the strongest hurts. But how far does forgiveness really exte...

“When we’re able to stand in true humility and integrity, it’s really nice… you’re not operating from your shadows anymore.” — Ganga Devi The month of Elul is a time of intimacy, love, and relationships. It reminds us that the sacred exists within the mundane — we are beloved because we feel G-d every day, in every human and messy moment. Elul’s reflective energy guides us into the New Year, prepa...

“I think laughter is underrated. I think if everybody laughed a good belly laugh for five or ten minutes a day, they’d feel a heck of a lot more different than if they didn’t.” — Jackie G. Laughter really is the best medicine. From sitcoms to comedians to real-life quirks and absurdities, humour can be a powerful tool for raising the spirits and overcoming dark times.  This instalment of the Livin...

“For most people in the real world, their experience of beauty is that it is a moral ideal.” — Professor Heather Widdows We live in a world that is obsessed with appearance. Social media filters allow young people to create personal images far removed from reality, plastic surgery “trends” pop up almost seasonally, and we increasingly conflate our self worth with how well we conform to societal be...

“We all hold different cards in life… part of the idea of Av is to see our cards and say: all right, how can I love this? How can I love where I came from, and how can I use this to improve my life?” — Idan Lumi Av is a complex month. It’s a period during which we consider our own responsibility, in our lives and our history, but it also reminds us of the softer aspects of being human. Av begins i...

“It’s not only through learning that we can express who we are as Jews.” — Professor William Kolbrener Have the humanities become a supportive platform or mirror for fundamentalist modes of thinking, rather than an antidote? Over the past few decades, the humanities have undergone a major shift. Has a new dogmatic focus on “correcting” discourse stifled academic curiosity and exploration? Are the...

“There’s just something so calming about carving down a mountain that I can’t really describe.” — Alex Wasser  Since the age of 5, Alex Wasser has been passionate about snowboarding, joining a snowboard racing team at the age of 9 and honing her skills in competition for nearly a decade. Through her time with the team, she found community, discipline, self esteem, and a rich appreciation for her s...