24 years ago during candlelighting erev Yom Kippur, Chanie Bochner made the decision that she wanted to help others who were going through the same struggle as she was. What started as a grass-roots effort to support couples experiencing infertility morphed into an international organization that to date, has helped bring over 10,000 babies into this world. For this episode, we have the honor of speaking with Chanie Bochner who founded Bonei Olam. Bonei Olam is a Jewish organization that provide...
Oct 03, 2022•44 min•Season 2Ep. 22
We’re entering the high holiday season. Quick, what’s the first word that enters your head? If it has anything to do with lists, shopping or cooking, don’t worry, you’re not alone. But brownie points to any of you who thought teshuva! This period is filled with both spiritual and physical demands. And as busy women, it’s easy to get stuck in the material demands of this season, and neglect the spiritual side. Especially if we aren’t spending much – or any – time in shul. This episode, we were pr...
Sep 22, 2022•59 min•Season 2Ep. 21
Welcome to our 20th episode of DMC! In this episode, we sit down with Zahava List to discuss mental health. She shares with us her own journey to mental health, her perspectives on stigma surrounding mental health in the frum community, and how and why she founded Chazkeinu, an organization which provides chizuk for all Jewish women coping with mental illness. By the end of today’s episode, we hope you come away feeling inspired by one woman’s mental health journey and have developed a greater a...
Sep 08, 2022•1 hr 6 min•Season 2Ep. 20
For this episode, we’re going with “work-family synergy” instead of the ubiquitous “work-life balance.” Why? Because balance, quite literally, means 50/50. And we all know when it comes to work and home life, that’s not always realistic or ideal. Synergy connotes a combination, hopefully one that is mutually advantageous. And it doesn’t tell us that our work and our home life needs to be balanced. Sometimes it’s combined in a chaotic mixture! Join us for this DMC with Dr. Marian Stoltz-Loike who...
Aug 25, 2022•48 min•Season 2Ep. 19
This episode really feels like a tackle. We’re talking about kallah classes, in other words, premarital education. Frum women have many feelings about their kallah classes. Kallah classes are typically where engaged women learn about the laws of family purity. When it comes to premarital education about intimacy, the amount of information shared in a kallah class is going to depend on numerous factors: when you took your kallah classes, who your teacher was, and possibly the community you’re in....
Aug 04, 2022•57 min•Season 2Ep. 18
Humor is much more than cracking jokes and stand-up comedy routines. Tapping into the full power of humor has emotional and physical therapeutic benefits. It’s also a tool that is sourced in our Torah tradition. All in all, humor is actually good for you, and we wanted to know how we can utilize it more in our everyday interactions to improve our lives. Enter Yaffa Palti, who uses humor masterfully in her shiurim and social media content. As you’ll hear in this episode, Yaffa had us laughing – a...
Jul 21, 2022•1 hr 8 min•Season 2Ep. 17
S2 Ep. 16 | Mini DMC about Parenting with Alex & Rivki
Jul 14, 2022•35 min•Season 2Ep. 16
Tackling the topic of marriage DMC-style, we’re going with the assumption that everyone who is married experiences some sort of struggle or conflict. That there is at least one area in everyone’s marriage that needs improvement. But sometimes when we hear about “habits of highly effective marriages”, we can easily walk away feeling deflated and uninspired, disappointed that we don’t have those “effective habits” in my marriage. In this episode, we speak to Kayla Levin, Jewish marriage coach and ...
Jul 07, 2022•1 hr 3 min•Season 2Ep. 15
Social media: keep or delete? This has been the conversation of late in the Orthodox world, and Alex and Rivki get deep and meaningful about their relationship with social media, and why they're choosing to grapple with it -- and silence notifications. If you have any topics that you’d like to listen to Alex and Rivki have a mini DMC about, email them at dmc@meaningfulminute.org . Show notes: The Social Dilemma documentary https://www.thesocialdilemma.com/ Faces of Orthodoxy social media account...
Jul 03, 2022•42 min•Season 2Ep. 14
On this episode of DMC, Alex and Rivki tackle body image. They share their thoughts on how this impacts frum women: the messaging we receive about our weight and size during our upbringing from home and peers, pressure due to shidduchim, pressure to keep off weight after the wedding and post pregnancy, and more. The guest for this episode is Rachel Tuchman, LMHC. Rachel’s specialty is educating on weight stigma and diet culture, as well as starting conversations about mental health on social med...
Jun 23, 2022•1 hr 14 min•Season 2Ep. 13
Staying connected to our Yiddishkeit during the various seasons of our lives is a challenge for many. In this mini DMC, Rivki and Alex share the times they’ve felt it, the times they haven’t, and what they’re doing these days to help keep connected. If you have any topics that you’d like to listen to Alex and Rivki have a mini DMC about, email them at dmc@meaningfulminute.org .
Jun 16, 2022•23 min•Season 2Ep. 12
Keeping up our friendships seems like a nice thing in our hectic lives, but is it a necessity? Well, according to research on loneliness, it actually is. Having friends benefits us emotionally, physically and spiritually. There is real power in sisterhood. Don’t believe it? Believe it but don’t have the time or energy to invest in finding and maintaining friendships? Take a listen. On this episode of DMC, Alex and Rivki speak with Aliza Bulow, the founding director of Core, an organization desig...
Jun 09, 2022•1 hr 1 min•Season 2Ep. 11
Jealous? Who's jealous? Me? NEVER. In this mini DMC, Rivki and Alex talk take a vulnerable plunge into the areas of their lives in which they struggle with jealousy (and maybe a little envy too), and how they work on being more content. We’d love to hear from you. You can find us on social media, or email us at dmc@meaningfulinute.org. Let us know if you have topic requests for future Mini DMC episodes. And don’t forget to check out the video of this episode on Meaningful Minute’s YouTube channe...
Jun 02, 2022•20 min•Season 2Ep. 10
Who doesn’t want to live more joyously? On this episode of DMC, Rivki and Alex talk about what joy means to them, how they find it in their lives and how it can be hard to attain during the challenging times. Their guest for this episode is Shaindy Plotzker, singer and songwriter. Shaindy is well-known in the Jewish music world as a soulful and talented singer, but she’s also well-known for her positivity and general simchas hachayim (joy for life.) Rivki and Alex sit down with Shaindy to hear a...
May 26, 2022•1 hr 7 min•Season 2Ep. 9
In this Mini DMC, Alex and Rivki shmooze about Shabbos: what they love about it and what they find challenging about the day in the week they can’t live without! If you have any topics that you’d like to listen to Alex and Rivki have a mini DMC about, email them at dmc@meaningfulminute.org.
May 19, 2022•18 min•Season 2Ep. 8
Tznius , or Jewish modesty, is a hot button topic for many frum women. It brings up lots of various feelings. Each frum woman has her own relationship with this value of modesty and its application in our everyday lives, whether it’s how she dresses, how she acts and how she expresses herself. For some it’s a love relationship, for some it’s a hate relationship and for others it’s a love/hate relationship. In this episode of DMC, Alex and Rivki get real about tznius the things they most apprecia...
May 12, 2022•47 min•Season 2Ep. 7
If you’re a business owner, an aspiring one, or an admirer of the incredible female entrepreneurs in our communities, then this episode is for you. On this episode of Deep Meaningful Conversations, Rivki and Alex have a DMC with Chayale Kaufman, the CEO of the Jewish Content Network which provides advertising to the Jewish world, offering digital, print and social ads across dozens of different publishers. They discuss how Chayale got started, the risks she took, how she’s achieved success and h...
Apr 28, 2022•41 min•Season 2Ep. 6
On this episode of Deep Meaningful Conversations, Rivki and Alex talk about managing the very real human emotions of overwhelm and burnout. As frum women, we have a lot of responsibilities to juggle, and sometimes it feels like we can’t do everything we need to do as well as we’d want to. Rachel Hercman, LCSW to the rescue! On this DMC with Rachel, we discuss: What the struggles of the overwhelmed frum woman typically looks like Solutions for managing overwhelm The role of burnout in meeting our...
Apr 06, 2022•56 min•Season 2Ep. 5
Orthonomics, a.k.a frum finances. Don’t start having heart palpitations and pass up this episode. While the discussion about the mystery of how to pay for the lifestyle we lead as Orthodox Jews can be stressful, on this episode of DMC, Alex and Rivki talk with Yael Trusch, host of the Jewish Money Matters podcast, and get a whole mindset overhaul on how we approach the concept of money as Jewish people. Don’t let this episode get away. On this episode we discuss: -A recap of Alex’s “Fuzzy Math” ...
Mar 20, 2022•42 min•Season 2Ep. 4
We all want to be more resilient, to bounce back during times of stress and upheaval. But is resilience just about bouncing back to who we were before we experienced adversity, or is it more? On this episode of DMC, Rivki and Alex sit down with Professor Leslie Gutman, who recently published Resilience: A Jewish Guide to Facing Adversity, Fostering Strength and Living your Best Life, who shares some fascinating insights and helpful tools to help us grow our grit when (and before) the going gets ...
Mar 06, 2022•46 min•Season 2Ep. 3
In this episode of Deep Meaningful Conversations, we talk all about utilizing our creativity as frum women. We all have creative streaks that express themselves in different ways, but the key is how we make sure we’re expressing our creativity in the context of our lives so we feel whole as human beings. In this episode, we speak with two creative frum women, Bracha Goetz and Devora Rhodes. Bracha has written 40 children’s books as well as a memoir for adults about overcoming food addictions and...
Feb 20, 2022•58 min•Season 2Ep. 2
What this podcast is all about, and why you should absolutely listen.
Feb 06, 2022•1 min
Welcome to Deep Meaningful Converstions! On today’s episode, we talk all about vulnerability and oversharing. Vulnerability is a popular topic these days, thanks to the work Dr. Brene Brown has done on the subject, and of course its relevance for anyone on social media. It’s really a fine line between being vulnerable in a healthy way and exposing too much. We talk with Shira Lankin Sheps, the author of The Layers Project, about her work in telling the stories of frum women via photography and i...
Feb 06, 2022•49 min•Season 2Ep. 1
Today, we’ve got a fun, light-hearted topic for you. In-Town/Out-Of-Town. No, there won’t be any fights here about which one is morally superior. We’re just here to share the experiences of normal frum women who are living in-town and out-of-town, whatever that means. We’re going to be talking with three women: one who lives “in-town”, one who lives “out-of-town” and one who grew up out-of-town but currently lives in-town. We want to share with you their experiences and insights about what it’s ...
Dec 08, 2021•51 min•Season 1Ep. 21
Mazel Tov! This is our 20th episode! And it promises to be a good one. Today’s episode is all about toxic positivity. We discuss our understanding of and opinions about this concept, and we’ve invited therapist Yocheved Davidowitz to weigh in on the Jewish perspective towards toxic positivity. What is toxic positivity, you may ask? It's the belief that a person should put a positive spin on all experiences, even tragic ones. No matter how difficult a situation is, one should make sure he or she ...
Nov 17, 2021•51 min•Season 1Ep. 20
We’re all under construction, aren’t we? In this episode, we talk with Ruchi Koval, author Soul Construction: Shape Your Character Using 8 Steps From the Timeless Jewish Practice of Mussar. Her book delves into 8 key traits from mussar teachings, but it really reads like a self-help book as well as a memoir because Ruchi shares parts of her life throughout the book. We give you a behind-the-scenes look into her book through our conversation. In this episode we discuss: How Ruchi’s book is helpfu...
Nov 03, 2021•42 min•Season 1Ep. 19
Neurodiversity may be a relatively new term, but about 30%-40% of the population are thought to be neurodiverse. This means that someone in your life probably falls into this category. Maybe it’s a student, a child, a spouse -- maybe it’s you. On today’s episode, we talk with Dr. Ilyssa Bass, a clinical psychologist and mother of four unique and wonderful children. Dr. Bass shares her own journey being a parent to a neurodiverse child. She’s passionate about helping parents appreciate and connec...
Oct 20, 2021•57 min•Season 1Ep. 18
In this episode, we talk about staying connected to our Yiddishkeit. In other words, not putting our relationship with Judaism and Hashem on the bottom of our to-do list. (And boy, is that list long post-yom tov.) You’ll hear from Gila Ross, host of the Power Up! podcast. Gila shares lots of insights about how she works on staying connected, how she defines “connected” in terms of Yiddishkeit, and the need to tweak things as we fight for connection in our ever-demanding lives. Gila also talks ab...
Oct 06, 2021•48 min•Season 1Ep. 17
In this episode, we talk about transitions. Settling into life after transitions, managing big transitions such as the one we are all experiencing in a world we thought was post-Covid. We speak with Dr. Aviva Goldstein whose passion is positive psychology and who focuses her work on the transitions that gap year students experience, particularly spending their year in Israel and coming home from their year in Israel. So if you have a child who just came back from Israel or who is there now, this...
Sep 14, 2021•56 min•Season 1Ep. 16
On this episode we talk all about the shidduch system with Merissa Gross, who has been setting up couples for 20 years. We also speak with Tziporah Zelmanowitz on her perspective and insights from her decade-plus dating experiences. We’re here to discuss it all with our guests: the good, the bad and the ugly when it comes to shidduchim. And we’ve thrown in some of our shidduch horror stories for fun. This episode is supported by the Grove Kosher Market. We are sure you’ve heard the buzz around t...
Sep 01, 2021•48 min•Season 1Ep. 15
