People of the Book

Rabbi Menny Chazanow

Some ideas don't just teach you something, they expand your world. In People of the Book, Rabbi Menny Chazanow sits down with thinkers, scholars, and visionaries to explore the Jewish ideas that change how we think, feel, and live.

Episodes

  1. Oct 25

    The Healing at the Heart of Chassidus | Rav Simon Jacobson

    Is Chassidus concerned only with serving Hashem, or is it also meant to cultivate an inner state of well-being, presence, and alignment? And what if that inner transformation is itself part of avodas Hashem? In this episode of People of the Book, I sit down with Rav Simon Jacobson for an extended conversation about Chassidus, psychology, and what it means to bring the inner teachings of Torah into the inner life of a human being. This conversation grew out of a wider discussion within the Chabad community about the relationship between Chassidus and contemporary therapeutic language. I spoke separately with Rav Kesselman and Rav Jacobson to explore the nuances of each perspective and what each might teach us. For Rav Jacobson, bringing Chassidus into the person is central to its purpose. Its teachings about Hashem, the soul, and creation are meant to take shape within the human psyche—to transform how we think, feel, relate, and live. Inner alignment and mental health belong within avodas Hashem: bringing our minds, hearts, and actions into harmony with the divine purpose for which we were created. Rav Jacobson asks whether, in learning Chassidus, we too often focus on achdus Hashem, the unity of God, without attending to achdus ha’adam, unity within the person. If someone can explain the deepest concepts in Chassidus but has little to say about shalom bayis, loving another person, finding peace within themselves, or relating to their children with patience and warmth, what does that say about their learning? What does it mean to understand divine unity if that understanding never reaches the divisions within us or the relationships around us? We also explore psychedelics, spiritual seeking, and the hunger for meaning and connection that so many people are experiencing. What responsibility do teachers, communicators, and mashpiim have to respond to that hunger? How can they offer guidance that remains faithful to Torah while reaching the person who is searching?

  2. Oct 16

    Have We Turned Chassidus Into Self-Help? | Rav Sholom Kesselman

    A conversation has been unfolding recently within the Chabad community about the relationship between Chassidus and psychology, the place of therapy in a Chassidic life, and what happens when the teachings of Chassidus are translated into the language of contemporary emotional and psychological experience. These questions have generated considerable discussion, and I wanted to hear the different perspectives at greater length, directly from the people articulating them. So I sat down separately with Rav Sholom Kesselman and Rav Simon Jacobson for two extended conversations. This episode is my conversation with Rav Kesselman. My conversation with Rav Jacobson will be released shortly afterward. In both conversations, I've tried as much as possible to approach the discussion with an open mind and to give each perspective a fair hearing. Of course, like anyone approaching a subject they care deeply about, I have my own thoughts, intuitions, and feelings about these questions. But my intention has been less to argue for a particular position than to genuinely understand what each person is saying, what concerns animate their perspective, and what we might learn from taking those concerns seriously. As I listened to the conversation unfold, I kept hearing what seemed to me to be one remarkably simple question beneath everything else: Who, ultimately, is Chassidus about? Is its central subject the human being or Hashem? Is Chassidus fundamentally concerned with cultivating a particular kind of person—a particular inner world, emotional life, and state of consciousness—or is its ultimate concern the service of God? And perhaps the deeper question is whether these are really two divergent visions, or whether Chassidus understands the cultivation of the human being as inseparable from the service of Hashem. At the heart of the discussion is a fascinating question: What happens when we begin speaking about Chassidus in the language of therapy? For many people, words like presence, healing, and self-acceptance have made ideas they learned for years feel newly accessible. But words carry assumptions. When we translate a teaching into a different language, do we bring its meaning closer—or subtly change what it is asking of us? Rav Kesselman challenges the way teachings centered on serving Hashem can become centered on the self. I push back on how neatly we can separate those things in a person's actual life. If someone learns Chassidus and becomes more present with their children, more attentive to their spouse, and more able to connect with Hashem, where does psychological well-being end and avodas Hashem begin? We talk about the difference between bread and challah, what makes an insight about the human mind specifically Chassidic, and what we mean when we translate bittul. We also ask whether a new language can reveal something that was always present in a teaching but that we hadn't yet been able to hear. I found myself agreeing, disagreeing, and being caught off guard. My own sense is that this is a deeply nuanced subject, with sincere intentions and important concerns on different sides of the conversation. I don't think these questions are best approached as a contest with winners and losers. I think they're worth exploring patiently, thoughtfully, and in good faith. Ultimately, I believe conversations like these are not only necessary, but can deepen our appreciation for the inner dimension of Torah and its profound relevance to our lives. A note on the recording: We experienced some technical difficulties during this conversation. We chose to preserve that portion because we felt the conversation was worth sharing in full. We apologize for the imperfections and appreciate your patience and understanding.

  3. Aug 25

    Because It’s True: Courage, Conviction, and Being an Unapologetic Jew — with Shabbos Kestenbaum

    I’ve admired Shabbos Kestenbaum for a while. There are obvious reasons for this. He sued Harvard. He has become one of the most recognizable young Jewish voices in America. He is willing to walk onto stages where neither Jews nor Israel are especially welcome, wearing a yarmulke, and say plainly what he believes. But that isn’t really what I admire most about him. What I admire is his clarity. Shabbos seems to possess something increasingly rare: a willingness to decide what is true before deciding what it will cost him to say it. At one point in our conversation, I asked him where he gets his courage. He resisted the question. He doesn’t experience himself as courageous. When it comes to Israel, the Jewish people, and the 3,000-year-old story he inherited, he doesn’t feel that he is bravely defending some controversial position. He believes these things are true. He feels profoundly fortunate to belong to this story. And standing up for it is, as he puts it, simply “what you do.” I found that answer striking, because it gets at something deeper than courage. Courage suggests overcoming fear. Shabbos was describing something that comes before fear: knowing who you are. That became, for me, the thread running through our conversation. We spoke about his unusual childhood and Jewish upbringing; Harvard and October 8th; Israel; Kiddush Hashem; the story of Yonah; and what Jewish resistance actually looks like. Sometimes resistance means taking Harvard to court. But it can also mean wearing a Magen David. Dating Jewish. Learning Torah. Building a Jewish home. Becoming, quietly and deliberately, a little more Jewish than you were yesterday. And beneath all of it was a question I kept returning to: What happens when a person knows who he is deeply enough that he no longer needs the world’s permission to be it? This is a conversation about courage, although Shabbos might reject the word. It is a conversation about conviction, responsibility, Jewish pride, and the peculiar freedom that comes from knowing that your life belongs to a story that began long before you and, God willing, will continue long after you.

  4. Aug 5

    "Faith Is Not the Absence of Doubt" — with Rav Sholom Kesselman

    Almost everyone I know who takes their emunah seriously has, at some point, gone through a stretch where the ground felt less solid than they wanted to admit — not necessarily a crisis, just a season of questions that didn't come with tidy answers. I don't think we talk about that enough in our world. We speak about emunah as if it's something you either have or you don't, when for many people it's closer to a current running through a life: it moves, it gets tested, and it comes back different than it left. Rav Norman Lamm once defined emunah as "the continuous tension between itself and the doubt within itself." And the Alter Rebbe points out in Tanya that emunah shares its root with oman — the Hebrew word for artisan, for art. Emunah isn't a fact you accept once and set down. It's something practiced, something honed, something that grows in nuance and richness across the whole journey of a life. Rav Sholom Kesselman directs the OK on the West Coast and serves as a mashpia in the Chabad community here in Los Angeles. I deeply admire him for the clarity of his thinking — the depth and spaciousness he gives to nuanced ideas, and the precision with which he articulates them without ever flattening what makes them nuanced in the first place. That quality runs through this entire conversation. If it resonates with you, you'll find more of his thinking on his substack, Rethink. We don't resolve the tension neatly, because I don't believe it resolves neatly. But I want to say clearly, up front, what I hope this episode says on its own: if you've had questions about your faith, you are not broken, you are not alone, and there is room in Yiddishkeit for you and for your process. I hope you find this conversation as meaningful as I did.

  5. Jun 29

    "We Change Enough to Remain the Same": On the Anatomy of Daas Torah, Orthodox Judaism's Indeliberate Theology, and Wisdom That Reshapes How You See — with Prof. Benjamin Brown

    Prof. Benjamin Brown is a Professor in the Department of Jewish Thought at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and one of the world's leading academic experts on Orthodox Judaism, its ideology, and Halacha. He is the author of many books, among them a towering intellectual biography of the Chazon Ish, and his warmth through a screen and across an ocean was as palpable as his brilliance. We trace the evolution of Daas Torah, the idea that Torah speaks to every facet of life, even beyond the strictly halachic. We explore the revolution of Chassidus and how revolutions mature and stabilize over time. And we arrive at a perspective on change within Yiddishkeit that I found profound: that we evolve precisely in order to remain the same. I found this conversation deeply enjoyable and illuminating, and I hope you do as well. This episode is dedicated in honor of the birthday of my dear Bubby, whose birthday was on Yud Aleph Tammuz. May she have a beautiful and blessed year, full of health and happiness — physically and spiritually — and filled with nachas from her loving family. Bubby, all my love.

  6. Jun 1

    Elliot Wolfson: Mysticism, Paradox, and Speaking the Unspeakable

    Professor Elliot Wolfson is one of the most remarkable minds working in Jewish academic thought today. A scholar, philosopher, poet, and artist, Wolfson holds the Marsha and Jay Glazer Chair in Jewish Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and has spent decades mapping the innermost terrain of Jewish mysticism with a rigor and depth that few can match. Born on the nineteenth of Kislev — the holiday known in Chassidic tradition as the Rosh Hashanah of Chassidus, the day the Alter Rebbe was released from Czarist imprisonment and the inner teachings of the Torah were given new license to flow into the world — one might say his birthday itself portended a life devoted to the depths of Jewish mystical thought. We speak about mysticism and philosophy, paradox, the unspeakable, and what this lifelong quest means to him personally. Thank you for listening!

  7. May 18

    Rav Shlomo Einhorn: The Talmud, AI, and the Future of Jewish Learning

    Rav Shlomo Einhorn is a talmid chacham, a master educator, and one of the most dynamic Rabbis I have encountered. For years he served as dean of Yavneh Academy in Los Angeles before stepping into a world most rabbis haven't touched — artificial intelligence. He is the founder and CEO of Mallacore, an AI consulting firm, and has been thinking and writing seriously about what this technology means for Torah, for learning, and for what it means to be human. What I love about Rav Einhorn is that none of this feels like a contradiction. For him, the move from yeshivah to AI was not a departure — it was a natural development. Because he sees in the architecture of the Talmud something that the builders of AI have been trying to approximate without knowing it. In this conversation we explore his claim that the Talmud is humanity's most sophisticated training manual for artificial intelligence, what AI can and cannot do when it comes to learning Torah, what a yeshiva might look like in 2036, and what will be gained and lost when the next generation learns with tools we can barely imagine today. We also talk about what all of this means for what makes us irreducibly human. This was a genuinely fun conversation. I hope you enjoy it.

  8. Apr 26

    Rav Schneur Kessler: How to Give Guidance That Actually Reaches Someone, Openness Without Relativism, and the Path to Innerness in Judaism

    Friends, I am so excited to share this next episode of People of the Book — a conversation with someone I truly admire and who has been especially important and transformative in my own life. Rav Schneur Kessler is the Rav of the New Haven community and Rosh Kollel of the Kollel there. He is a talmid chacham par excellence, and one of the rare people whose depth of learning is matched only by his largesse of spirit. We talk about what it means to be a rabbi, how to maintain openness and curiosity amidst the specificity of one's own tradition, how to cultivate interiority in one's Judaism, and so much more. I hope you enjoy.

  9. Mar 29

    The Soul You Can't Lose: A Pesach Torah

    There are two kinds of holiness in this world: the kind that is given to you, and the kind that you claim for yourself. Shabbos arrives like a gift, and then withdraws when the sun goes down. But the sanctity of Pesach, the added soul that a Yom Tov awakens, is something you reach for from within. Once you claim it, it can never be taken away. Based on a teaching from the Kedushas Levi, and a machlokes between Tosfos and Rashbam about the Neshama Yesaira.

  • 9 Episodes

Ratings & Reviews

5
out of 5
2 Ratings

About

Some ideas don't just teach you something, they expand your world. In People of the Book, Rabbi Menny Chazanow sits down with thinkers, scholars, and visionaries to explore the Jewish ideas that change how we think, feel, and live.

Information

  • Creator
    Rabbi Menny Chazanow
  • Years Active
    2026
  • Episodes
    9
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Rabbi Menny Chazanow
  • Show Website
    People of the Book

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