# Reimagining my Rebbetzin Role with Avital Chizhik-Goldshmidt

An episode of [Real Women, Real Torah](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1552650878), 17 Aug 2025, 45 min.

Audio: https://anchor.fm/s/4a711b88/podcast/play/106987891/https%3A%2F%2Fd3ctxlq1ktw2nl.cloudfront.net%2Fstaging%2F2025-7-17%2F405819586-44100-2-7a09ed38a80cc.mp3

In this powerful finale to our "Finding Myself in Torah" series, we sit down with Avital Chizhik-Goldschmidt — journalist, Rebbetzin, and one of the most honest voices in contemporary Jewish discourse. Avital takes us on her journey from feeling overwhelmed by serious Torah learning to becoming a woman who uses her platform to advocate for deeper spiritual engagement for Orthodox women. As both a community leader and community critic, she offers a unique perspective on the gaps between women's intellectual capacity and the limited spiritual offerings they often receive. We explore how she evolved from someone who advocated women’s engagement and influence in the frum community, to a community leader herself who lives the model of female Torah leadership she wrote about for so long. We dive into her insights on materialism in Orthodox communities and how lifestyle influence has overshadowed women's engagement with Torah. This candid and refreshing conversation is an invitation to reimagine our relationship with Torah and the role Rebbetzins play in shaping their communities through Torah learning. Avital Chizhik-Goldschmidt is a journalist, Rebbetzin at Altneu Synagogue, and former features editor at the Forward. Her writing on Orthodox life has appeared in the New York Times, Tablet, and other publications. She lives in New York with her husband, Rabbi Benjamin Goldschmidt, and their children. This concludes our "Finding Myself in Torah" series. Thank you for joining us on this journey of discovery, learning, and growth. https://traditiononline.org/materialism-and-the-rise-of-modern-orthodoxy/ https://forward.com/life/437687/haredi-women-talmud/ https://www.instagram.com/avitalrachel/?hl=en https://x.com/avitalrachel?lang=en

## Transcript

[0:12] Hi, I'm Pedasa, and I'm so excited to welcome you to Real
[0:16] Woman Real Torah, a project of Pachetta Learning Center.
[0:20] We're here to offer you an authentic Torah learning
[0:23] experience produced for woman by woman.
[0:27] I hope you enjoy. Hello everybody, and welcome to
[0:35] our very last episode in our series Finding Myself in Terra.
[0:39] In this episode we're going to be speaking to Avital Hizzy
[0:42] Goldschmidt, who is someone I've been following for a long time.
[0:45] She is a very accomplished journalist and the rabbitson of
[0:49] the alt new show. She has written a few pieces
[0:53] that really intrigued me and I really wanted to explore with
[0:56] her more. One was a piece where she speaks
[0:59] about going to attend this year of Kharidi Women Learning
[1:03] tomorrow in Israel and how that what that did to her and how
[1:08] that impacted her. Another one is an article where
[1:11] she spoke about going to the Kenneth Sashlokas and observing
[1:16] sort of the role that shlokas played in their communities in
[1:19] terms of like having their own sense of leadership and
[1:22] influence. And the last one was a recent
[1:25] article that you put out about materialism in the from
[1:28] community. And there was a few lines in
[1:30] there where she spoke specifically about how that
[1:33] influences woman in, in her words, materialism can provide a
[1:37] safe haven for female self actualization in communities
[1:42] where women are largely kept on the margins of meaningful
[1:44] leadership. And she speaks about how she
[1:45] sees the the link between opportunities for more serious,
[1:51] mature learning and and leadership and the investment in
[1:55] materialism in the community. So all of these a lot of
[1:58] fascinating topics, so much to explore.
[2:01] And I'm really excited for you to listen to this conversation
[2:03] with Avital Avital, an article you wrote a couple years ago for
[2:07] Tablet was one that really intrigued me.
[2:09] You wrote about going to this class with Haridi woman in
[2:13] Israel studying Talmud, and you spoke about how when you're in
[2:17] this class, you felt like you were drowning in a sea of
[2:20] learning, even though you yourself have a very strong
[2:22] learning background as well. But something about that
[2:26] experience kind of showed you that there's a whole other depth
[2:29] of Torah that you never really explored.
[2:30] So I'd love for you to like talk a little bit about that
[2:32] experience and maybe just in general, how your role as a
[2:35] journalist has shaped your relationship with Torah learning
[2:38] and what might be possible for you in your own Torah learning.
[2:42] Wow, that is a deep and multi layered question.
[2:46] So that evening was a magical evening for me.
[2:50] I attended this Gemara class. As you said, that was done by a
[2:55] Rashishiba in Yerushalayim and he was teaching this group of
[3:02] Kharidi women. I would say it's a mix of ages,
[3:05] probably skewed a little bit younger, but you had this
[3:09] incredible buzz in the room of like a real beat me drash
[3:13] feeling and a very sort of unusual with unusual optics,
[3:18] meaning not the usual type of look of a beat me drash, whether
[3:23] woman's beat me drash and certainly not like anything like
[3:25] a Mensa sheba. And sitting there, I definitely
[3:29] felt like I was illiterate in unfortunately, in a lot of our
[3:34] fundamental texts, specifically Torchy Bell Pet.
[3:38] I don't know if I would say I'm deeply steeped in learning.
[3:40] I think I had a sort of very classical girls day school
[3:44] education, but I'm grateful for it.
[3:47] But it was decently strong. But still, in comparison with
[3:52] what I know I could be, with what I know I could have been, I
[3:56] think it is, it is rather it is, it is not.
[4:01] It's not as great as it could be, I'll put it that way.
[4:04] So it was, it was, it was also very interesting, by the way,
[4:07] because obviously in Israel, it's a different environment.
[4:10] You're dealing with a population that is fluent in Hebrew.
[4:13] The level of learning is just incomparable with anything I've
[4:17] seen in the United States, specifically in women's
[4:20] learning. So that also my, my Hebrew is
[4:24] pretty decent. But Even so, just the this the
[4:29] power of the language of being fluent in the language and the
[4:33] way that it could be used in learning purposes.
[4:36] I think a lot of American Jews don't really understand even
[4:38] like from, you know, day school system graduates don't realize
[4:43] how how disadvantaged they are without the fluency of Hebrews.
[4:49] That was another point that I thought about a lot that
[4:51] evening. As a journalist, I, I bring a
[4:57] lot of things I think into my work, both into my work as a
[5:00] journalist and also as a Robertson.
[5:02] I think in many ways, I think with almost a literary
[5:06] analytical tool perspective. I think in the way that one
[5:11] could one would in in a literature course in university.
[5:15] That's often how I teach Tanakh with that sort of mentality,
[5:19] with that kind of seminar discussion of trying to
[5:22] understand what the public is saying, what is said, what is
[5:25] not said, the style in which it is written, etcetera.
[5:30] But there's, I think a lot of overlap there in terms of my my,
[5:35] my writer storyteller side and my teacher side slash student.
[5:41] I see myself more student than a teacher, but I think also more
[5:47] more broadly. And I don't think I've ever
[5:49] thought this out, said this out loud before.
[5:52] I think that journalism, doing this work has allowed me to have
[5:58] a little bit of a moralist perspective on things.
[6:02] Was just to say that when I teach, I'm not getting too nitty
[6:06] gritty, that I'm losing sight of the larger moral question or
[6:11] dilemma that is appearing in whatever we are studying.
[6:14] And I think that's really important because I think a lot
[6:16] of teachers and sharing and classes miss out on that.
[6:19] They're sort of they're focused on these, on the technicalities,
[6:23] without really zooming out and trying to understand what is
[6:26] this telling us about ourselves or our society that could be
[6:28] deader. And journalism is very much
[6:31] devoted to that pursuit, to understanding that.
[6:34] So I think that overlap is very potentially powerful.
[6:39] Nice, awesome. So, you know, you mentioned in
[6:42] that article that, you know, more advanced woman's Torah
[6:45] learning or specifically like Kamara learning is still
[6:48] somewhat rare or controversial even in Israel with the, you
[6:52] know, with the language advantage.
[6:55] What do you think are the costs when women don't have access to
[6:58] like that serious Torah learning?
[7:03] There is the obvious, and then there's the less obvious answers
[7:06] to that question. The obvious answer is just being
[7:11] not fluent in our not only halacha, but just understanding
[7:17] the process through which halacha is constructed and
[7:21] understood and developed over the years.
[7:24] I think that is very a practical application of that issue,
[7:28] right? A lot of women feel very
[7:29] disempowered in halachic observance because they just
[7:34] don't have that background that allows them to feel strong in
[7:37] their observance. On a deeper level, there is
[7:41] also, I think, a power imbalance that happens in the farm
[7:46] community because of women's illiteracy and lack of access,
[7:51] which is we are in a community bar Hashem.
[7:54] That is the people of the book, as we are called.
[7:57] We are. We define ourselves by our
[7:59] study. We're supposed to at least.
[8:01] And when women don't have access to the same study opportunities
[8:06] that men do, they will inevitably be reflections of
[8:11] that in the power structures and who calls the shots in
[8:14] everything and community politics and institutions and
[8:17] philanthropy, whatever it is in culture building, women have
[8:22] less, I think, of a of an influence because they don't
[8:28] have that key which is given only through Torah study.
[8:34] Yeah, I think that's a really important point.
[8:35] And I think something I actually at the conference I initially
[8:39] met you at, one thing that was mentioned there when they were
[8:41] talking about like women's Torah leadership was like the fact
[8:43] that learning itself in our community, learning itself is
[8:45] leadership. You know, like we we place so
[8:47] much value on the the knowledge of Torah itself that that itself
[8:50] is a form of leadership in our community.
[8:54] So maybe you can give some more specific direction of like, what
[8:59] do you see? You know, you mentioned sure,
[9:03] these trends like there's often a lot more like opportunity for
[9:05] men. There's Daphil me there's, you
[9:07] know, regular shear and things like that.
[9:09] And often, you know, what's offered for women in some
[9:11] communities is more like just a little bit of inspiration here
[9:14] and there. What do you think, like what
[9:17] what do you see? Or do you envision being a a way
[9:20] we can create more of this substantial ongoing tour
[9:24] learning opportunities for women?
[9:27] So this is something I deal with every single day in the, in my
[9:30] role really in Manhattan, a threshold that we built my
[9:34] husband and I on the Upper East Side.
[9:35] And it is a question that I think not enough of us are
[9:40] grappling with. As you said, I think most
[9:42] women's programming is. I'm just going to be polite.
[9:47] It's very lacking. And I can't tell you how many
[9:52] times I have attended a woman's sheer where I'm excited to learn
[9:56] from someone here in the States. And the whole sheer from the
[10:02] beginning till the end is Mysalach stories.
[10:08] Just a storyteller, you know? And it's not even like a great
[10:12] maggot. It's like story after story.
[10:14] Hashka Kapratas hashemrily is with us, so lacking in
[10:20] substance. So like, not one Pasuk is
[10:23] quoted, not one safer, not one Musser scholar, nothing.
[10:29] It is unbelievable to me how we dilute ourselves.
[10:35] And I think it's far more common among women's programming than
[10:39] men's. Certainly this exists, I think
[10:42] in the men's space. But there's definitely an
[10:45] aspiration at least the the elite studies right at all
[10:50] stages in life where whatever you do with your day-to-day that
[10:54] you make time, you're a COVID eats.
[10:55] I mean, you have time to really study.
[10:57] And for women, there's just it's not the same.
[11:01] I see a lot of people gravitate towards this sort of content
[11:05] that I call sort of like fast food Judaism, where it's just
[11:09] like 3 minutes of inspiration and it's not even rooted in
[11:14] actual anything. Sometimes it's just like people,
[11:18] people just bluffing, sort of just talking without rooting
[11:23] themselves in our actual Misora. So I think it's a really big
[11:28] issue and I think there are a lot of bigger cultural
[11:32] implications of that. I think that women are being
[11:34] pushed into really relegated into activities that are
[11:41] antithetical to so much of what a Torah community should be
[11:44] about because there is no space for them to really learn and
[11:48] grow in a deep way. Right.
[11:50] The issue of materialism is very much tied to this, I think.
[11:54] Yeah. But in terms of what is the
[11:56] answer, I will say one of the biggest challenges that I see as
[12:01] a Robertson of a community that we also have to figure out how
[12:05] to shift is specifically when it comes to mothers of children of
[12:10] small children. The challenge of finding time in
[12:15] a space where mothers can come and learn is very great.
[12:21] Women who are not married are tend to show up to she or women
[12:27] who are married before having children.
[12:29] They have obviously, much more flexibility.
[12:32] Mothers with children don't really have the support system
[12:35] that they need in order to prioritize learning.
[12:39] So I think that in order to do the type of programming locally
[12:46] in communities, wherever we are #1 we need to figure out how can
[12:50] we shift that. Whether it's providing childcare
[12:52] in institutions that women can come and leave a baby with a
[12:56] babysitter or just have the baby on them or something.
[12:59] Or changing cultures where husbands feel a certain
[13:03] responsibility to support their wives in learning as well,
[13:07] right? We do, we have the reverse.
[13:09] I think that needs to be invested into that's sort of on
[13:16] the more on the broader level. But we do need training of
[13:22] educators, I think as well, high level educators for women.
[13:27] I think it's very, very hard to find great tour teachers.
[13:31] I, I hate to say this, but it's been a struggle because I've
[13:36] been so devoted to trying to find women scholars to teach.
[13:42] And here in the States, I think we have a real derf from Israel
[13:46] that can bring in a million Barack Hashem.
[13:47] There's so many brilliant women scholars who can teach, but
[13:52] they're all based in Israel. Kim, It's the ante Torah Zora
[13:55] comes from Zion. But here in the States we are
[14:00] dealing with the desert. And the question is really how
[14:02] can we invest in building and training women to put time into
[14:08] this and to honing their skills, both as students and also
[14:13] eventually as teachers, as presenters of ideas.
[14:15] The ability to present a number of sources, to go through them,
[14:21] to come with a theme, with a narrative arc of some kind, with
[14:26] a call to action at the end. Those are skills that can be
[14:30] taught, but we need to be putting more time into that.
[14:34] Yeah, if I could just push back on what you said a little bit.
[14:37] Sure. You know, so you were you were
[14:39] saying how a lot of women's room will be a little bit more like
[14:41] story oriented and and less rigorous.
[14:44] And there might be some people who say like, oh, that's what
[14:46] especially maybe, you know, woman at certain stages of life,
[14:49] and it's harder for them to kind of invest in more rigorous
[14:51] learning where like that's kind of what I want.
[14:52] That's what speaks to me. And some people might say like,
[14:55] oh, like the lived experience of Judaism, that's like also really
[14:58] valuable and important. So which I'm sure you're not
[15:01] arguing with, but I think what, what would you say is missing
[15:05] and like, why? Why is it so important to fill
[15:07] this gap for the more you know rigorous textual learning as
[15:11] well? There's definitely room for
[15:12] that. Don't get me wrong, there are
[15:13] many women who want that, but I think they want that because
[15:16] they've never experienced great, rigorous learning.
[15:20] And I say that as someone who myself feel that I've never.
[15:23] I did not experience great rigorous learning until I
[15:25] arrived in Stern. And I had a Tanakh teacher who
[15:28] just blew my mind with the way that she taught and the way that
[15:33] it was so obviously deeply connected to my life.
[15:39] And I think, I think just women are not aware of that.
[15:43] That's the truth, that they're not aware that like you can
[15:45] actually open a Hamas. Like I might just like, let's
[15:48] start with weekly Varsha, right? And just and, and, and feel
[15:53] instantly connected with the right teacher who's going to
[15:56] show you those connections. So I think a lot of it is just
[16:01] women don't have good experiences, frankly.
[16:04] And, and yes, of course everyone loves a good story, but there
[16:08] has to be a balance. There has to be some rigor,
[16:10] there has to be some challenge. People are not challenged in
[16:13] their duties on those adults. That's not that's a problem.
[16:17] And I think that's true both in the more modern spaces and in
[16:21] the more right wing spaces. People are not challenged to
[16:23] grow internally. I'm not saying throughout your
[16:27] smartphone type of growth. I'm saying actually maybe though
[16:31] that's a good idea, but it's not a bad idea.
[16:35] But you know what I'm saying, that the ability to grow and
[16:40] learning is not is not something that has pushed as much in
[16:44] American communities. So OK, so I think the perfect
[16:47] segue into what I want to talk about next, which is like your
[16:49] own personal journey. So you ended off that article
[16:51] with I'm just going to quote what you said.
[16:54] You said you asked yourself, how could I read another book on you
[16:57] a thought when I still have not tasted the most central text, my
[16:59] tour observance. So you said you picked up a
[17:03] Camaro bracha. So that's sort of what you
[17:04] thought to yourself and maybe tell us like more about what
[17:08] happened next. I know I've heard you talk about
[17:09] this a little bit in other places, a little bit about your
[17:12] journey of sort of as an adult, like challenging yourself to
[17:14] rediscover your like, you know, tour learning for yourself.
[17:18] So maybe tell us a little bit more about that, like what sort
[17:21] of like inspired that that push to rediscover and what was that?
[17:26] What was the journey like? So I wish that I could give you
[17:30] a neat story in which there's like a perfect ending to it.
[17:34] Yes, I did. I did learn Brahot, Masaka,
[17:36] Brahot thanks to beautiful Koran edition of Masaka.
[17:43] But that's not the only piece of the story.
[17:46] I think whereby Sax it was who said that if you really want to
[17:51] learn, you have to teach. But the only way that you're
[17:55] going to be pushed to study deeply is by being pushed to
[17:58] teach. And in the last few years that's
[18:01] what I've taken on wholeheartedly.
[18:03] I don't know how I have found the time for it, but somehow I
[18:06] carve time out for it. It's the only way.
[18:10] And it's really been in pushing myself to teach within my
[18:13] community in different on totally different subjects,
[18:16] different groups of people. Sometimes it's 100 people fresh
[18:20] year after Shah, this morning after kiddish.
[18:24] Sometimes it's, you know, a monthly class I do for young
[18:27] women in the community. I've been doing all kinds of
[18:31] different formats and different subjects.
[18:34] So sometimes it, yes, it is a weekly partial, but many times
[18:37] I'll choose a theme and I will go through Tanakh on it.
[18:44] Gemara's on it certainly. And also later more modern
[18:48] sources, including fussy boots. So I enjoy really going looking
[18:53] at things thematically sometimes.
[18:57] But it's, it's been a journey because community service has
[19:03] pushed me to study. And it's so interesting because
[19:07] I never saw myself as that person.
[19:10] I never, I was not one of those girls going for Jewish
[19:13] education. I'm going to be a MO room.
[19:14] I'm going to go into administration.
[19:16] Like I, I had a lot of friends who were in that this direction
[19:19] professionally, and I never saw myself as that.
[19:21] I was sort of, I guess I said I was going for journalism, I was
[19:25] going in the literary direction. And obviously I care deeply
[19:31] about learning and there's a certain hole to my soul in it
[19:36] and that I wanted to learn more. But at the same time, I saw a
[19:39] real need in the community and I felt like if there is no woman,
[19:44] be the woman to say, to paraphrase rather.
[19:49] So that's, that's really the story.
[19:51] I mean, there's no, it's an ongoing journey for me and I'm
[19:54] definitely investing more and more time, I would say, into
[19:58] learning and also building my own curriculum.
[20:00] It's something I've spent a lot of time on building my own, not
[20:05] just source sheets, but also perspectives on things my own,
[20:11] even my own theses and certain ideas.
[20:14] And it's been. Really rewarding to be able to
[20:18] do that kind of learning. You know, the Gemara that talks
[20:22] about Shabbat, that talks about the six questions we were asked
[20:25] after 120 years, and it's a famous Gemara that talks about
[20:30] CPTA Ishua. One of the questions were asked
[20:33] is have you come up with Heducian, right.
[20:37] Not just Kobe Itim, not only have you made time to learn, but
[20:40] also have you come up with Heducian?
[20:41] And I think that's a really important piece.
[20:43] I think a lot of us are not, don't feel empowered or moved or
[20:48] inspired enough to get to that point that we're not only
[20:50] learning, we're actually being pushed to come up with our own
[20:53] ideas. We're actually being pushed to
[20:55] partake in a millennial old discourse between people of
[21:00] ideas. What, what role, what voice are
[21:03] we playing in that? And I think a lot of us believe,
[21:06] sort of not believe, but feel, Well, no, that was for previous
[21:09] generations. We're not great enough, but no,
[21:12] we are called upon to partake in that discourse.
[21:15] And, and I think that's a really, that's a forgotten
[21:18] piece. Yeah, yeah.
[21:21] So you mentioned your role as Rabbitson of a scholl.
[21:25] So there's another piece that you wrote actually that also I
[21:27] read a long time ago that really struck me where you wrote about
[21:30] going to the Kinesthashlikos convention and realizing that
[21:35] the woman there were, you know, an integral part of the, you
[21:39] know, Schloss, you know, enterprise.
[21:42] They weren't just like a, you know, a side, a sidekick
[21:45] alongside the rabbi, but they themselves had the title shloka,
[21:48] right? Not just and describe those like
[21:52] solving the rabbits and problem in a sense of like not just
[21:54] being a rabbit and being someone married to a rabbi, but like
[21:56] they having their own sort of role.
[21:58] So I'm curious if you could share a little bit about how
[22:00] about that experience it has that influence your own
[22:03] perspective on your role as a rabbitson in your soul and in
[22:07] general, like, how do you how do you see, you know, women's
[22:11] leadership and community settings in that way?
[22:17] So it definitely had a big intellect on me at this time.
[22:23] Not that anything was shocking to me about being at the Kansas
[22:26] locals. And I've been there a few times.
[22:29] I I knew what it is and, and what, how the enterprise works.
[22:34] But I think coming back to it as someone who had been as a wife
[22:39] of a rabbi for several years, sort of made me think about
[22:43] about the role of a woman as a community leader.
[22:48] And what's interesting is that when I wrote that piece, I was
[22:52] not really in the position that I'm in right now.
[22:56] So since then, Barack Hashem, my husband and I Co founded our own
[22:59] shul, which we Co lead in many, many ways.
[23:03] And it's very strongly Orthodox. There's no question about that.
[23:12] But I play a very a serious role, I would say, in in leaning
[23:19] at his side and making policy decisions, budget
[23:23] considerations, staffing questions.
[23:28] Where are we investing our time and effort into what?
[23:32] What ideas or what initiatives are we pushing?
[23:35] Are we encouraging our Congress to consider those types of
[23:38] things are like, I mean, all day and night, literally 24/7.
[23:42] That is my life. So in that way, ironically, when
[23:48] I wrote that essay years before, I never imagined that I would be
[23:51] in this position of very similar to a schluka in the sense that,
[23:57] you know, Co founding a community, Co leading it and it
[24:03] in there are a lot of interesting parallels.
[24:05] What was interesting was when I was when I was writing the piece
[24:08] at the time, we were at a sort of quote, UN quote, modern
[24:12] Orthodox, old stuffy Manhattan synagogue that had no, you know,
[24:18] certainly no room for a female leadership.
[24:20] But also it just, it was like I just happened to be married to
[24:25] the rabbi there. I was an appendage.
[24:27] You know, it's your arm candy. And then suddenly, you know, in
[24:32] this new chapter, Barack Hashem, I'm able to sort of step in in a
[24:37] different way. And frankly, the reason I do
[24:40] this is not because I need this in my life, and it's not because
[24:45] I enjoy the utter lack of privacy and constant scrutiny,
[24:51] but rather because I think, once again, if we have an issue in a
[24:57] wider orthodox community around women's leadership and roles.
[25:02] And I felt like Hashem was like almost laughing at me because
[25:07] for the 10 years beforehand, I had been writing very strongly,
[25:11] very passionately about women's issues.
[25:13] And I felt like Hashem put me into this position.
[25:16] And I was like, OK, you preached for 10 years.
[25:18] Now go do it. Like go figure this out.
[25:22] So that's really the only reason I'm, I've taken this on with as
[25:25] much force as I have because I really believe that it just
[25:28] doesn't exist as much in our community.
[25:30] There are a lot of reasons for why they do.
[25:33] Some of them are social conditioning, some of them are
[25:36] frankly economic. But I feel like it is my like
[25:41] really one of my tough kids in this life is to just to do this,
[25:45] to be this person in order for other communities and women
[25:50] generally to see that it could be done differently.
[25:53] Yeah, yeah. So on that point, like I know
[25:55] I've heard you speak about how sort of encouraging, you know,
[25:58] people in women in rabbits and roles to move beyond just like
[26:01] the cooking and the baking and the hosting, but also being
[26:04] engaged in a more serious way in the community issues in the
[26:06] teaching, in the, you know, more deep influential parts of the
[26:10] role. What like, I guess what advice
[26:13] would you give to the woman in those positions and how they
[26:14] can, I guess sort of learn from the model that you're that
[26:18] you're creating? Listen, I, I just want to
[26:21] acknowledge my bar Hashem, my privilege at this point.
[26:25] A lot of it is also because we Co founded a shul.
[26:27] I will say that if we had entered A shul where, you know,
[26:31] a board had chosen us and you know, I had gone through the
[26:33] usual rigamarole of rabbinical club, I'll go for interviews,
[26:36] you know, where they interview the wife even though she's not
[26:38] even being employed by the synagogue.
[26:40] That happens all the time. If we had gone through that sort
[26:43] of more classical model, which is why I think the Chabad model
[26:47] is more relevant to us, it would be very different here.
[26:51] I felt like I had much more agency that I think it's typical
[26:55] Rabbitson does. But if that agency is within
[27:00] reach to a rabbinic couple and to specifically to Rabbitson, I
[27:04] encourage everyone to take it really to new La Nua Akuza, take
[27:11] that Akuza, take that portion. And I mean, there's so many
[27:17] things to be said about what it takes to to lead a community and
[27:20] to do so with grace and also while protecting yourself.
[27:25] I'm still working on the latter. And frankly, but a lot of it I
[27:31] think is actually comes back to learning, which is what you
[27:34] said, that learning is leadership.
[27:35] As we talked about at that conference where we met.
[27:38] I really believe a lot of it is that.
[27:41] And by the way, there could be different ways of doing this.
[27:43] I for example, something else I learned from Habad when I as a
[27:49] journalist, interestingly, I visited Russia in 20.
[27:53] It must have been 2013 or 2014. It was 2013.
[27:59] I was in Moscow and actually for tablet and I was doing a story
[28:02] about the Lava Cherubbas library that was in dispute with the
[28:06] Russian government. And one of my conversations was
[28:11] with Rabbi Gordon OK. He's a respected rabbi in in
[28:18] Moscow, in the Chabad community there.
[28:21] And he was showing me in his office one of the one of his big
[28:24] initiatives, which is a publishing house called
[28:27] Konnichniki. OK, Konnichniki is a Russian
[28:30] language literary publishing outfit that he, I don't know
[28:35] exactly the structuring of it, but bottom line is they
[28:38] translate and published great Jewish literature in like a
[28:42] beautiful new Russian translation.
[28:45] Because he explained to me that Russian Jews relate to like one
[28:49] of the entry points to Judaism is through culture and
[28:53] specifically through high literature.
[28:56] And the way to do it is to just, you know, sometimes is to give
[28:59] people Isaac the chef, a singer or Isaac Babel to connect to
[29:03] Judaism in this sort of not a roundabout way, but like it's,
[29:07] it's not the usual cure of tactic that you're used to
[29:10] hearing at like, you know, an Ola me conference, like how to
[29:13] make people from in 5 minutes. So I was really taken by that
[29:19] approach because obviously I'm a Russian Jew myself and I come
[29:22] from that world. But I think it was so
[29:25] beautifully sensitive to people to understanding, to really
[29:28] understanding your audience understanding, OK, this is what
[29:31] makes people tick. They care about literature, they
[29:34] care about the arts, they care about all these things that the
[29:38] typical from person from the American Jewish community might
[29:41] not think is so essential to Judaism.
[29:44] But for this population it is right.
[29:46] And they and they went into that direction.
[29:49] And I think that's so powerful. So which brings me to my point,
[29:52] which is I think we often have to think creatively about how to
[29:56] bring people closer to Judaism. And I think that's true again,
[30:01] both in more modern spaces and more right wing spaces,
[30:04] regardless of the flavor of your Judaism.
[30:08] And it's to think also as a rabbits and what makes you tick.
[30:11] What I don't think every woman is naturally dreaming of running
[30:16] holla bakes. I just don't.
[30:18] So for some women it's wonderful and it's beautiful, but it's
[30:21] just not every woman's colony. So there are other things that
[30:24] can be meaningful and it doesn't always need to be also giving a
[30:27] high level share. It can also be organizing.
[30:31] Again, one thing that I'm very busy with is organizing Jewish
[30:35] book events. We started an art gallery within
[30:38] the shul. We're bringing in religious
[30:40] Jewish artists to present their work in order to support them
[30:43] specifically for coming from Israel, but also for people to
[30:47] connect to Yiddish Kite through art, right?
[30:49] Doing things like that, that's a little bit out-of-the-box.
[30:52] It makes me so happy. And I think, and I see obviously
[30:56] my community loves it as well. Otherwise I wouldn't do it.
[30:59] But I think a lot of rabbitsons have opportunities to think
[31:03] creatively about community programming that can really,
[31:05] really deepen and expand and and tighten their communities in
[31:09] beautiful ways. And they just have to think
[31:11] about what makes them excited. For some people, mental health
[31:15] is a very big passion, right? So like doing more events around
[31:18] that or maybe it's running support groups of that kind,
[31:21] something that whatever makes you lighten up, excited,
[31:26] activated, figure that out and how you can channel that into
[31:30] community service. Nice.
[31:34] That's good. Good answer.
[31:36] Thanks. So, OK, I want to turn the
[31:37] conversation now to a fascinating article you
[31:39] published recently about materialism in the From
[31:43] community, which I read and was really, yeah, fascinated by.
[31:47] Of course, I was specifically excited about the part where you
[31:50] speak about how it effects women in particular.
[31:54] And you spoke about how to like some of the influential Orthodox
[31:57] women today are those who are, I'm just quoting your article,
[32:00] those who peddle wigs, food, attire, and general aspirational
[32:03] lifestyle content. So I guess maybe share a little
[32:07] bit about your thoughts on that. And because you, you mentioned
[32:10] this earlier, how you feel like the lack of serious, rigorous
[32:13] learning is linked to this materialism and specifically how
[32:17] the materialism, the cultural materialism effects women
[32:20] specifically. So I'd love to hear you share a
[32:22] little bit more about that. It was a very short few lines in
[32:24] your articles so I want to hear more.
[32:27] Like there was an article but toca article.
[32:30] You know, like. Levels of it, yes so I mean I
[32:35] don't think this is a big thesis statement at this point.
[32:38] I think it's pretty much accepted that some of the
[32:41] biggest, I don't know if leaders is the right word, but
[32:46] influencers in the sense that cultural culture makers are
[32:52] people who are peddling and pushing certain lifestyle and
[32:58] largely that is materialistic. And I think they're largely the
[33:02] reason for that is first of all, it's generally cultural.
[33:05] This is not at all uniques. Our community, I don't want to
[33:09] point a finger at our community is uniquely culpable in this.
[33:14] By the way, if you look at other religions, we see the same
[33:16] thing. We see this in the evangelical
[33:18] Christian community for women specifically and also in the
[33:21] religious Muslim community. If you look at Muslim American
[33:24] female influencers, you'll see a lot of this and there's a lot of
[33:30] what we talked about in that article.
[33:32] Doctor Professor Heinz Salmon and I, we spoke about the
[33:35] misfilification of materialism. So it's like, well, if you spend
[33:43] a lot on X piece of Judaica, on dresses, on chaitles, whatever
[33:48] it is that the items, the objects or the experiences that
[33:54] define our lives as Orthodox Jews, then it's OK because it's
[33:58] a mitzvah. It's a mitzvah, it's a mitzvah.
[34:01] So there are obvious, I mean, the challenges here are
[34:06] self-evident, right? I don't really have to lay them
[34:08] out. Number one, classism is a big
[34:11] issue in our community. And I say this as someone who
[34:14] does not come from a privileged background at all.
[34:17] My parents are Russian speaking immigrants.
[34:19] We really, really came to this country with nothing.
[34:23] I was a scholarship kid my entire life.
[34:26] I to the extent that I remember once my parents couldn't make
[34:30] the issue of solution payments on time and they did not give me
[34:35] textbooks at the beginning of the year as a way to punish me.
[34:39] And I'll never forget that for the rest of my life.
[34:42] So I think there's a lot of that in our community and we don't
[34:45] really talk about it because it's uncomfortable.
[34:47] It's certainly uncomfortable to talk about money and everyone is
[34:50] very busy with presenting their most successful selves.
[34:56] But we we have an issue. We have a real issue here on
[35:00] affordability. People are just making like
[35:03] barely making it work. And then at the same time, the
[35:06] average person is being pushed to spend inordinate amounts of
[35:13] money in order just to make it in the from community.
[35:18] And that's true, by the way, out of town as well.
[35:20] I've spoken to a lot of women. I think even in communities
[35:23] where you don't think this is as prevalent, it's all relative
[35:27] certainly, but you're seeing versions of this in different
[35:30] ways. So that that to me is the most
[35:33] concerning part of this is that there's this the haves and the
[35:38] have nots and what happens to the have nots in a community
[35:43] where the haves when the focus, when you're self actualization
[35:48] is only through the material, right?
[35:50] And I think that's specifically true about women.
[35:53] Guys can push back on me about this, but because women don't
[35:57] have the same opportunities to identify themselves as
[36:04] professionally or also and also spiritually in the way that men
[36:07] might. We put ourselves into the
[36:10] material aspects and if you look at anything out from magazine,
[36:14] that is going to be the main focus.
[36:18] So how do we get out of that? How do we get out of that rut
[36:23] that a lot of us are find ourselves in when we are being
[36:27] told to focus on? I don't even want to get into
[36:33] like examples, but just just the many.
[36:35] There are myriads of examples. And I think that any from woman
[36:38] listening to this can color in the lines here and what I'm
[36:42] saying and whatever she's personally struggling with in
[36:46] that moment. And how do we move beyond that?
[36:49] How do we move beyond those aspirations to something much
[36:51] deeper? Yeah.
[36:54] So I'll just share a perspective that I've heard from other
[36:55] people, which is that, you know, maybe we could say that like,
[36:58] OK, traditionally the woman's role is more of like, you know,
[37:04] a homemaker, a, you know, having this more maternal figure where
[37:07] a part of her like spiritual role is to care for her home and
[37:12] be invested to some degree in those more material things.
[37:16] I'm about. That doesn't have to be viewed
[37:18] as a bad thing. That could be viewed as a
[37:19] positive thing for her to be like invested in in those
[37:22] things. And I guess what would you say
[37:25] to that in terms of what, what's the where?
[37:30] Where does the materialism, to an excessive degree come in
[37:33] where it's actually becomes, you know, harmful or detrimental and
[37:37] no longer like a spiritual? Pursuit, I think we should just
[37:41] take a step back. That's true about a homemaker.
[37:43] Well, let's take a step back and consider the differences in the
[37:46] way that homes looked. I was born in 1991.
[37:48] I'm 33 in the way that the average from home looked in the
[37:52] 90s versus today. Yeah, that's the question and I
[37:56] don't need to answer that question, right.
[37:58] Have kids shared bedrooms. They didn't, you did not need a
[38:02] massive estate in Toms River or Monster or whatever you're
[38:05] living with each, you know, child with their own private
[38:08] room. I mean, just like, and by the
[38:09] way, I'm saying things that people say to me all the time
[38:12] from my sources within the front community, right?
[38:15] Look, this is not something that I'm even busy with, but it's
[38:18] something that a lot of people have shared with me.
[38:20] And I think people share with me both because of my journalist
[38:23] role and also my Rabbitson role. People share their pain with me.
[38:26] And there's a lot of pain around this.
[38:27] There's a lot of pain in the expectations that we have
[38:30] somehow built of keeping up with the Cohens, right?
[38:33] So I think let's just take a step back.
[38:35] Like homemakers looked very different a few decades ago,
[38:39] right? You did not have a linen closet
[38:41] filled with, you know, 10 different three $400.00
[38:46] tablecloths for Shabbos and Youngs.
[38:48] It like that was not a warm but these things are becoming normal
[38:52] are expectations or pressures on a lot of specifically women.
[38:57] The amount of food that we feel we have to serve at a Shabbos
[39:00] meal the like the clothing. I mean, I, I don't know if I put
[39:05] this into the article in the end, but someone once told me,
[39:07] and it's hilarious because I later found out to be very true
[39:11] that there was a woman who was packing for a pays off program
[39:16] and she used to pack a different outfit for every single meal of
[39:20] the whole 10 days. And she said now she doesn't
[39:24] have to do it anymore because she already married off all her
[39:26] kids so she could wear the same outfit for a whole day.
[39:30] Doesn't have to, you know. So whatever those things are,
[39:34] right? Whatever this nourish kite is
[39:36] that we are busy with, I think the homemaker thing is still
[39:41] true. But the question is how much do
[39:44] we allow it to get to us? How much do we allow it to
[39:46] affect us? A lot of our perceptions are
[39:50] created by social media and I think also print media from
[39:53] community. We get a really a lot, a lot of
[39:56] the pressure comes from there. With those aspirations, with
[40:00] those expectations, how do we know it's too much?
[40:03] We know it's too much when it distracts us from.
[40:07] From loftier aspirations, we know it's too much from it
[40:10] affects us in our professional decisions and the way that we
[40:14] spend our time, and that looks differently from every single
[40:17] person. But I really believe that that's
[40:20] sort of the best way to crystallize.
[40:22] How are you spending your time? Yeah, right.
[40:25] Are you shopping? Are you whatever it is.
[40:28] I don't even know like, but I think a lot of for a lot of
[40:30] people, it takes up so much time and also mental energy to be
[40:35] busy with this right to even discussions like over all of
[40:39] this. I it's, it's so when you take a
[40:43] step back and you realize how a role that it plays in your life,
[40:47] that's when you probably understand, you have to, you
[40:51] know, scale back and again for every single person that's a
[40:55] different, that answer looks differently and in different
[40:57] communities it looks differently.
[40:59] But I think a lot of it is materialism has it's the only
[41:04] way that a lot of women can self actualize, can identify that can
[41:07] differentiate themselves from other women.
[41:11] And it gives them sadly almost a sense of purpose, a fleeting,
[41:17] very fleeting sense of purpose that will never be satisfied.
[41:21] And if it could be redirected towards obviously towards
[41:25] spiritual growth. And frankly, again, I think we
[41:28] need to think more broadly about spiritual growth.
[41:30] It doesn't mean that. Yeah, I think a lot of reason
[41:33] why women are not drawn to that spiritual growth trajectory is
[41:36] because the options and the way that it looks and feels isn't
[41:40] always exciting. If it's to listen to a not great
[41:45] speaker on, I don't know, on some website that that you're
[41:50] trying to find a share on, like of course it's not going to
[41:53] excite you. Of course you're not going to
[41:54] grow. You're just not going to do it.
[41:56] You're just going to go find something else to do with your
[41:58] time. So we need to be offering better
[42:01] trajectories for women to and better aspirations for women to
[42:06] be going in that direction against me.
[42:08] Yeah, OK. Give us an underrated learning
[42:11] suggestion, something that women might not know about or might
[42:14] not think is for them, but you believe could be really
[42:16] transformative for them. I.
[42:17] Kind of referred to this earlier, and I cannot say this
[42:21] enough, learn Hebrew. It's so basic, but I really
[42:28] believe every is the tool to everything and a lot of us don't
[42:33] have it And when I sometimes when I sit with women who are
[42:36] day school graduates who went to grade schools and I realize how
[42:42] weak their Hebrew is I. I I'm shocked, I'm shocked.
[42:47] And I really, if there's any way to improve your Hebrew again,
[42:50] think creatively about it. Read Israeli newspapers.
[42:53] If you're follow Israeli news, people on Instagram, you know,
[42:58] watch Israeli films. It sounds crazy.
[43:01] Like, what does that have to do with Torah?
[43:03] It has to do with it because you have to be able to be fluent in
[43:06] this in order to really unlock what we're learning.
[43:09] Certainly learning with translation is wonderful and do
[43:12] it and don't be afraid of it. It's just as meaningful.
[43:15] I every cheer I give Ioffer always both because and
[43:19] sometimes by the way, the from women are like they're not even
[43:22] sure if it's real. That like doesn't really count
[43:24] as learning. If I'm doing it in English, yes
[43:25] it does count as learning, but learn Hebrew.
[43:31] Yeah, totally. I think the fluency is so key
[43:33] and I feel like the way someone wants to says to me is like when
[43:36] you open a sitter and you say the words and it's your for
[43:40] whatever your fluent language, it it's the.
[43:42] Dialogue, you're 100% right. Just in davening like the
[43:46] ability to really feel that you are speaking to really connect
[43:48] to it in that way I think is really important and we don't
[43:52] invest enough into that. Yeah, awesome.
[43:56] Avitala, thank you so much. I really appreciate the time.
[43:58] Helpful. Yeah, this is great.
[44:02] If you listen to this episode and it inspired you to want to
[44:05] take the next step in investing in your own tura learning and
[44:09] really trying to rediscover Yiddish, Kite and Tara in a new
[44:12] way. Then I invite you to come check
[44:15] out some of the offerings that we have on our website.
[44:17] We have courses that we offer. We have books that you can buy
[44:21] to do learning on your own. We have an online and in person
[44:25] based measures if you wanted to invest in a more intensive
[44:29] committed learning routine in your day.
[44:32] We have so much to offer and really want to do what we can to
[44:35] help you start that journey of investing in Tara in a way
[44:39] that's meaningful and personal and really transformative.
[44:44] I hope you enjoy.

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