Human & Holy

How can we experience crushing pain without experiencing it as suffering? Again and again, life brings us to a crossroads: will we hold our pain by ourselves, or let G-d meet us in it?

In this conversation, Chaya Cowen reflects on grief, personal experiences of devastation, and the leap of allowing G-d into moments shaped by self-blame and anger toward Him. She shares how the loss of her first pregnancy, which ended in stillbirth, shaped her relationship with Hashem, and offers a moving reading of Eicha as a journey through self-blame, anger, and the search for connection.

We also talk about how to pass Judaism on with honesty and joy: welcoming children’s questions, meeting the feelings beneath them, and modeling what it looks like to balance exploration with commitment.

* * * * * * *

Chaya Cowen is a Sacks Scholar, the Head of Learning & Teaching at Beth Rivkah Ladies College in Melbourne, and oversees a comprehensive high school curriculum and teaches courses in Tanach, Jewish History, and Jewish Philosophy. She has a passion for education with a focus on meaningful, empowered and personalized Jewish learning, and explores the interface between Judaism and the wider world. Chaya resides in Melbourne, Australia with her husband and four children. She can be reached at cowen.chaya@gmail.com

To inquire about sponsorship & advertising opportunities, please email us at info@humanandholy.com
To support our work, visit humanandholy.com/sponsor.
Find us on Instagram @humanandholy & subscribe to our channel to stay up to date on all our upcoming conversations ✨
Human & Holy podcast is available on all podcast streaming platforms. New episodes every Sunday & Wednesday on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Google Podcasts.
* * * * * * *
TIMESTAMPS:00:00 The difference between pain and suffering
00:15 Welcome and the episode’s central question
03:35 Meet Chaya Cowen, educator and mother
05:13 Choosing a relationship with Hashem through life’s challenges
08:57 Fertility, loss, and facing what we can’t control
11:26 Reading Eicha as a journey through grief
17:31 Why we blame ourselves after tragedy
18:37 What happens when anger turns toward G-d
21:16 The leap of letting G-d into our pain
23:02 Drawing strength from ancestors and Jewish stories
24:42 The story of Zusha and a different view of suffering
26:04 Finding a way to express and process grief
28:01 How to acknowledge pain without being alone in it
30:58 How to support someone who is grieving
34:23 The lasting mark of pain and asking it for a blessing
36:14 Helping children build a relationship with Hashem
37:11 The educator as a “midwife” to Torah
41:10 Welcoming students’ questions without judgment
45:12 Balancing exploration with commitment
46:28 Modeling beauty and meaning in Jewish practice
49:34 Teaching Torah with joy and continued learning
52:25 Finding a personal path into Jewish life
54:33 Bringing joy, Shabbos, and questions into the home
55:21 Chaya’s closing message

Get a free download of Human & Holy's conversation cards for your Sukkah by becoming a monthly supporter of Human & Holy at humanandholy.com ❤️

* * * * * * *

The sukkah is called the "shade of faith," but what happens when we sit inside it and feel nothing? What if we are entering Sukkos feeling more tapped into the uncertainty of life's winds, than the certainty of G-d's hug?

Today, we explore Sukkos as a full-body experience of faith, absorbed simply by showing up to be there. Shoshana shares how she envisioned herself in the Sukkah's embrace when she was curled up inside the radiation machine for cancer treatment, and teaches the deeper Torah behind how we can carry the Sukkah's lingering touch through the inevitable joy, uncertainty, illness and hiddenness that we experience in daily life.

* * * * * * *

Shoshana Judelman is passionate about learning and growing through Chassidus. She is the founder of Nekaveh Lecha women’s seminary. She gives shiurim in Chassidus for women across Israel and in Midreshet Rachel V’Chaya in Jerusalem. Her shiurim can be found on Spotify and SoundCloud (Shiurim with Shoshana Judelman). Shoshana is also a guide at Yad Vashem and leads journeys to Poland and other countries for JRoots. She can be contacted at shoshanaj613@gmail.com

To inquire about sponsorship & advertising opportunities, please email us at info@humanandholy.com

To support our work, visit humanandholy.com/sponsor.

Find us on Instagram @humanandholy & subscribe to our channel to stay up to date on all our upcoming conversations ✨

Human & Holy podcast is available on all podcast streaming platforms. New episodes every Sunday & Wednesday on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Google Podcasts.

* * * * * * *

TIMESTAMPS:
00:00 — Introduction
01:48 — Welcome to Human & Holy
02:24 — Why Sukkos is Shoshana’s favorite holiday
03:25 — Entering the sukkah and reenacting the Clouds of Glory
05:17 — How lockdown changed the way Shoshana’s family celebrates Sukkos
06:19 — Intellectual versus embodied knowing
08:27 — Why do we celebrate Sukkos after Yom Kippur?
09:09 — The Golden Calf and the departure of the Clouds of Glory
10:21 — Yom Kippur, forgiveness and returning to relationship with Hashem
11:39 — The deeper embrace that follows rupture and repair
13:09 — Sukkos as a bridge between Yom Kippur and ordinary life
15:50 — A mitzvah rooted in presence rather than constant action
16:36 — Learning to see life through the lens of Hashem’s reality
18:00 — Building a reservoir of emunah for a random Tuesday in February
20:11 — The storm that destroyed Shoshana’s sukkah
22:42 — How the community rebuilt the sukkah within hours
24:00 — What a temporary structure teaches us about uncertainty
25:22 — The sukkah as the shelter of trust and haven of faith
27:33 — When it feels as though the Clouds of Glory have holes
28:02 — Life as a spiritual training ground
30:25 — Can painful experiences really be understood as expressions of love?
31:31 — Turning the sukkah into an “emunah gas station”
33:19 — Receiving a breast cancer diagnosis shortly before Sukkos
35:53 — Carrying the sukkah’s embrace into treatment
37:11 — Did Shoshana feel Hashem’s presence during radiation?
38:31 — The different “flavors” of Hashem in celebration and hiddenness
39:30 — “I don’t like it, but I know that this is also You”
40:55 — Practical ways to experience the sukkah more deeply
41:25 — The spiritual meaning of the arba minim
43:34 — Drawing embodied knowledge into the heart
44:28 — Bringing Divine love into our eyes, speech, posture and emotions
47:11 — How deeper Torah transforms our experience of a mitzvah
48:54 — Slowing down and using imagination while shaking the lulav
50:04 — Spending more time in the sukkah without pressuring ourselves to feel
52:11 — Shoshana’s message: believe that you can grow and change
53:05 — Growth is happening even when we cannot see it
54:02 — Carrying hope into the new year
55:00 — Closing and ways to support Human & Holy

A short excerpt from this week's Human & Holy pre-Yom Kippur morning in New Haven, CT. A poem, a conversation with Sara Rosenstein about returning to Hashem after years of disconnection, original music by Rivka Fenton about finding safety in leaning into God, and personal notes on being carried by God by our host, Rosie Gurevitch.

* * * * * * *

To inquire about sponsorship & advertising opportunities, please email us at info@humanandholy.com

To support our work, visit humanandholy.com/sponsor.

Find us on Instagram @humanandholy & subscribe to our channel to stay up to date on all our upcoming conversations ✨

Human & Holy podcast is available on all podcast streaming platforms. New episodes every Sunday & Wednesday on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Google Podcasts.

A conversation about Teshuvah through the dual lens of clinical attachment theory and Torah sources. We explore why perfect attunement in any relationship is a myth, and how the rupture and repair cycle of Teshuvah is actually what deepens our connections, rather than threatening it. Rus Devorah walks through how our early attachment styles get unconsciously projected onto our relationship with God, and offers concrete practices for moving toward a more secure, honest connection with Hashem during this season of return.

Rus Devorah Wallen is the founder and owner of Torah Therapeutics. She is an accomplished musician, performer, social worker, psychotherapist, administrative consultant, lecturer, and community leader whose work bridges psychology and Torah wisdom. Find out more at toratherapeutics.com.

Article referenced in this episode: https://substack.com/@toratherapeutics/p-212834537

* * * * * * *

To inquire about sponsorship & advertising opportunities, please email us at info@humanandholy.com

To support our work, visit humanandholy.com/sponsor.

Find us on Instagram @humanandholy & subscribe to our channel to stay up to date on all our upcoming conversations ✨

Human & Holy podcast is available on all podcast streaming platforms. New episodes every Sunday & Wednesday on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Google Podcasts.

* * * * * * *
TIMESTAMPS:
00:00:00 ---- "Back to the future," not back to who you were
00:00:18 ---- Host intro
00:01:33 ---- Rupture, Repair, and the God We Think We Know
00:02:42 ---- The myth of perfect attunement
00:04:46 ---- Why rupture & repair creates a more stabilized relationship
00:05:07 ---- Attachment
00:07:55 ---- Projecting childhood attachment templates onto God
00:09:44 ---- Is it trauma,or is it truth?
00:10:49 ---- The HALTS acronym
00:13:12 ---- "The prisoner can't free himself from his own cell"
00:15:20 ---- Mapping secure / anxious / avoidant attachment onto our relationship with God
00:15:50 ---- What secure attachment looks like relationally
00:19:30 ---- Bringing the secure-attachment framework into relationship with Hashem
00:20:19 ---- Avoidant attachment with God
00:23:09 ---- Moving from an unhealthy attachment pattern toward a more secure connection with God
00:24:23 ---- Step one: learning to love yourself unconditionally
00:25:26 ---- The shofar's sounds (tekiah, shevarim, teruah) as a metaphor for inner emotional release
00:27:12 ---- "Back to the future" — becoming fuller, not returning to a former self
00:30:35 ---- Teshuvah as "a descent for the sake of an ascent"
00:34:12 ---- The difference between reunion and real repair — Rambam's stages of teshuvah
00:41:31 --- Controlled stress as models for growth
00:42:44 ---- Starting with the smallest possible action
00:43:48 ---- Practical example: rebuilding belief in God one tiny step at a time
00:45:22 ---- Finding an outside perspective to guide the process
00:45:48 ---- Secure attachment with God makes room for doubt
00:47:00 ---- Coming to God honestly, without whitewashing pain
00:48:31 ---- Needing secure human relationships first
00:52:13 ---- Reconciling a loving, all-seeing God with the felt experience of suffering
00:52:59 ---- Her stroke story; trusting there was a purpose in crisis
00:55:26 ---- Teshuvah creates something new, not a return to a childhood faith
00:56:52 ---- Holding childlike wonder within an adult relationship with God
00:58:23 ---- Using imagination and visualization to access sweetness
01:00:20 ---- What if your childhood has no sweet memories to draw from?
01:03:26 ---- Building everyday resilience through imaginal rehearsal
01:04:16 ---- Bringing our full, imperfect selves to God
01:06:40 ---- Avinu Malkeinu: God as both King and Father
01:07:25 ---- Closing question
01:08:01 ---- Host's outro

What is Rosh Hashanah, the birthday of the world, inviting us to? In this recording of our Human & Holy Rosh Hashanah event in LA, we sit with powerful Torah sources to look at the opportunity available right now to co-create a new year with G-d.

This episode explores why Rosh Hashanah is a relationship story, this time of year as a renewal of our capacity for choice, why being fully seen by Hashem can fill us with safety rather than dread, and why the mitzvah of the shofar has no single "right" sound, because the sound it's supposed to produce is whatever it produces in you.

Join us on Youtube to follow along with the slideshow of sources.
* * * * * * *

To inquire about sponsorship & advertising opportunities, please email us at info@humanandholy.com
To support our work, visit humanandholy.com/sponsor.
Find us on Instagram @humanandholy & subscribe to our channel to stay up to date on all our upcoming conversations ✨
Human & Holy podcast is available on all podcast streaming platforms. New episodes every Sunday & Wednesday on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Google Podcasts.
* * * * * * *
TIMESTAMPS:
00:00–01:44 Capacity for choice & waking up from sleep
01:45–03:56 Breath and the Shofar
03:57–07:25 Moving to a shorter line
07:26–07:53 Judgment or compassion?
07:54–12:09 Being fully seen by Hashem
12:19–14:07 What if you have a fear of being seen?
14:08–16:38 Teshuvah as ongoing relational repair
16:40–20:13 Hour by hour of the first day of creation
20:14–24:22 Ayeka: where are you?
24:41–29:36 What if.I bring no intention to Shofar?
29:37–30:16 Only the individual can say "You are my King"
32:31–35:15 What does the Shofar's sound produce in you?