Rabbi Deborah Waxman, Ph.D.

Building Covenantal Community in the New Year and Beyond

October 10th, 2024  |  Season 5  |  44 mins 33 secs

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With the High Holiday season underway, Deborah welcomes Justin Rosen Smolen, Reconstructing Judaism's Vice President for Thriving Communities and Partnerships, for a wide-ranging conversation about covenantal community.

Rabbi Elyse Wechterman, CEO of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association

May 16th, 2024  |  Season 5  |  38 mins 45 secs

change, jewish, judaism, leader, leadership, mordecai kaplan, rabbi, rabbinical, reconstructing judaism, reconstructionist, reconstructionist judaism, resilience, rra

Earlier this year, Rabbi Elyse Wechterman announced that she will step down from her position as CEO of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association (RRA) in June after leading the organization for the past nine years. Elyse stops by Deborah’s office to look back on her tenure and look ahead to what’s next.

Cheryl Cook, CEO of Avodah

March 28th, 2024  |  Season 5  |  38 mins 55 secs

avodah, feminism, israel, jewish, judaism, justice work, leadership, palestine, racial justice, women

Rabbi Deborah Waxman welcomes Cheryl Cook, CEO of Avodah, for a wide-ranging conversation about women in leadership, justice work, allyship, parenthood and more.

How to become our fullest, most expressive selves? Practice, practice, practice

October 24th, 2023  |  Season 5  |  59 mins 34 secs

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Yoshi Silverstein, founder and director of the Mitsui Collective, explains that in difficult times like these, embodiment practices can help us understand and name the extent to which strong emotions are having an impact on us. The key to being able to respond to stressful stimuli in a healthy way? Awareness and practice, practice practice.

Yom Kippur: A Celebration of Collective Release

September 12th, 2023  |  Season 5  |  38 mins 40 secs

deborah waxman, high holidays, ishay ribo, reconstructing judaism, reconstructionism, reconstructionist, rosh hashanah, yom kippur

Rabbi Deborah Waxman, Ph.D., speaks with Rabbi Vivie Mayer about what the avodah service, which originated in ancient Israel as a series of elaborate rituals performed by the high priest on Yom Kippur, can teach us today.

S4 Ep. 9: Season of Reflection and Repentance

September 19th, 2022  |  Season 4  |  38 mins 10 secs

high holidays, jewish, judaism, rosh hashanah, yom kippur

Rabbi Deborah Waxman, Ph.D and Rabbi Sandra Lawson, discuss their respective processes of preparing for the High Holidays. This isn’t about leading services, but about how, as human beings, they undertake an accounting of the soul, leading to repentance for their own actions and forgiveness toward others.

S4 Ep. 8: Songs of Joy and Mourning

May 5th, 2022  |  Season 4  |  39 mins 52 secs

Reconstructing Judaism board member and Tikkun Olam Commission co-chair Shahanna McKinney-Baldon opens up with Rabbi Deborah Waxman, Ph.D. and Rabbi Sandra Lawson about her time fronting the ska and reggae band Highball Holiday. She talks about how she rediscovered her singing voice in middle age and shedded certain inhibitions and self-consciousness. She also describes Reconstructing Judaism's ongoing process of gaining support for a movement-wide resolution supporting reparations for slavery.

S4 Ep. 7: The Smooth River

April 8th, 2022  |  Season 4  |  46 mins 6 secs

On Sept. 3, 2019, Richard Cohen’s wife, Marcia Horowitz, was diagnosed with stage four pancreatic cancer. Horowitz lived 160 more days. In this special episode, Cohen recounts those days and discusses with Rabbi Deborah Waxman what he learned about life as Horowitz's death approached.

S4 Ep. 6: Being an Ally with Empathy, Humility and Courage

December 28th, 2021  |  Season 4  |  40 mins 25 secs

What does it mean to be an ally, both to individuals and to groups? How can one begin to do that work in a way that is meaningful? In this episode, Rabbi Deborah Waxman, Ph.D. and Rabbi Sandra Lawson – longtime friends and now colleagues – discuss these questions using examples from their own lives. They delve into the difficulty of saying and doing the right thing at the right time,

S4 Ep. 5: JewAsian

October 26th, 2021  |  Season 4  |  39 mins 53 secs

Helen K. Kim, co-author of JewAsian: Race, Religion, and Identity for America's Newest Jews, stops by to discuss macro topics such as racism in the Jewish community and the rancorous debate over communal demography. Rabbi Deborah Waxman and Rabbi Sandra Lawson also learn about how Kim found inspiration in the work of Maimonides, the medieval Jewish philosopher and Torah commentator.

S4 Ep 4: In the Same Place, As the Same Person

September 10th, 2021  |  Season 4  |  33 mins 10 secs

Amanda Mbuvi, Ph.D., is the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College’s new vice president for academic affairs. We delve into Mbuvi’s desire to deepen how people and communities think about diversity and identity, offer some thoughts on the findings of the Jews Of Color Initiative's latest study and share our hopes for the High Holidays and the coming year.

S4 Ep. 3: Creating a Jewish Community Where All Can Thrive

June 23rd, 2021  |  Season 4  |  42 mins 58 secs

Marcella White Campbell is executive director of Be'chol Lashon -- a pioneering organization that strengthens Jewish identity by affirming the racial, ethnic, and cultural diversity of the Jewish people. We discuss her multiracial Jewish family's own experiences as a window into the Jewish community's troubled record in welcoming Jews of Color. She reflects on her own growth into leadership, motivated by the rising cohort of young Jews of Color who deserve a Jewish community where they can thrive and contribute. And she reflects on the rich interplay of her Jewish and Black identities in making meaning at a time of personal loss. Join us for a rich and deeply moving conversation.

S4 Ep 2: Paradox, Complexity and Liberation: A Conversation with Dr. Chanda Prescod-Weinstein

April 13th, 2021  |  Season 4  |  41 mins 38 secs

We're joined by Professor Chanda Prescod-Weinstein, one of fewer than 100 Black American women to earn a doctorate in physics -- and a Reconstructionist! We discuss the insights she draws from her background as a Black and Ashkenazi Jew, and the richness, complexity, and fruitful challenges that diverse voices bring to the Jewish community. She and Rabbi Sandra Lawson discuss their respective experiences as trailblazers within the physics and the rabbinate. Finally, we delve into theoretical physics and Jewish theology as she explains why she included the ma'ariv prayer in her new book, The Disordered Cosmos: A Journey into Dark Matter, Spacetime, and Dreams Deferred.

S4 Ep. 1: Judaism, Resilience, and Racial Justice - Beginning the Conversation

March 1st, 2021  |  Season 4  |  38 mins 3 secs

We begin a new season focusing on Judaism, resilience, and racial justice, and welcome a new co-host: Rabbi Sandra Lawson, director of racial diversity, equity, and inclusion for Reconstructing Judaism. We dig deeply into the complexities of engaging in racial justice work within the Jewish community, the necessity for deep listening and empathy toward Jews of color, and the need to draw on resilience practices to stay committed to the challenging but vital process of teshuvah on the path to redemption.

S3 Ep. 12: Writing Ourselves into the Book of Life — The High Holidays and Choosing Life

September 11th, 2020  |  Season 3  |  35 mins 6 secs

At this extraordinary High Holiday season, so many people are experiencing losses of many kinds. We speak with Rabbi Margot Stein about the lessons she learned about resilience while navigating profound loss -- the death of her eldest son, Aryeh. We discuss the practices that sustain her, and explore how Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur invite us to choose life, in many ways, again and again.

S3 Ep. 11: Creativity and Counterculture

August 20th, 2020  |  Season 3  |  40 mins 9 secs

Rabbi Michael Strassfeld has made a life and career at the core of Jewish counterculture. We discuss his experiences as a founder of the havurah movement, co-creator of the groundbreaking Jewish Catalog series, and rabbi of the SAJ. Toward the end of our conversation we turn to the Jewish future, reflecting on the opportunities presented by digital culture and on new paradigms for Jewish prayer.