On the eve of Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day), Rabbi Shira asks a surprising question: Do we actually have to teach our kids about the Holocaust? (Spoiler Alert: She didn’t.)

She looks back at her own choices about Holocaust education and finds a way forward.

As we celebrate Passover during the current climate, Rabbi Shira talks to Hanna about what Judaism says about violence, resistance and freedom. And they speak to a Jewish gun owner about his choice to protect himself. 

More on preventing harm and stumbling blocks in the Torah

Hanna asks the questions this week as we prepare for Passover. How do we tell and interpret the Passover story when it feels like we’re firmly stuck at the beginning of our own contemporary plight? Do we have the opportunity to have perhaps the most authentic seder any of us have had in our lived experience? Rabbi Shira has tips and wisdom for you as you prepare your own seders.

Are you Jewish enough? Too Jewish? Why are we Jews so judgy of one another? Rabbi Shira and Hanna receive a letter from a listener whose embrace of Judaism as an adult is making her less religious mother bristle.  

Ever wondered what an actual rabbi thinks about the temple board? What makes some temple communities work and others fail? Rabbi Shira and Hanna help a listener figure out whether or not to join her temple board.

Hanna talks to Rabbi Shira about her new book The Jewish Way to a Good Life. She distills thousands of years of Jewish wisdom into practical, time-tested strategies for living a more meaningful life and reminds us: You don’t have to be Jewish to do Jewish. And she tells us how.

Rabbi Shira makes a passionate plea to reclaim the holiday of Purim away from just the kids. But what does Jewish debauchery even look like? And why does it give Hanna the ick? 

Rabbi Shira and Hanna talk to “Sabbath Queen” Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie, co-founder of LabShul,  about his family story, drag and finding Jewish joy in dark times…even for us adults.

Rabbi Shira and Hanna read a letter from a listener who has been nagging her husband to go to the doctor for over a decade. What does Judaism say about being responsible for your partner? And are we commanded to be good patients?

We hear from a listener who spent a lifetime looking for love, hoping to become a parent. Now, single, childless and in his 70s he is asking WTF, God!?

Rabbi Shira Stutman and Hanna Rosin are back with new episodes for Season 5 of Chutzpod. They kick things off by answering a question from a listener named Moshe. His mother insisted he receive a “super Jewy name,” but what does Judaism say about this? What makes a name Jewish? And can we just name our kids Tom, Dick or Harry?

Saving seats at services is almost as old as Judaism itself. But should you do it? A newly converted Jewish listener bristles at this convention and wonders if it’s ok to make her friends and family fend for themselves if they can’t make it on time. 

Should second weddings be modest? Or is it kosher to go full bridezilla? A listener asks for advice on how to deal with her sister’s seemingly over-the-top requests for her second Jewish wedding.

A Grandma asks Rabbi Shira and Hanna how to share Jewish traditions with her grandchildren. How can she share these traditions without overstepping? How can she be a Jewish grandparent at a distance?

The news is awful, and everything feels terrible. Now go celebrate! A news-obsessed listener asks for advice on how to be less negative at home. Is it ok to check out and still be a good Jew? And could Debbie Downer have been Jewish?

The next best thing to being in the synagogue with Rabbi Shira…Tune in to hear her sermon for the New Year.

A special episode on October 7th:

A year after the attack by Hamas on Israel and the ensuing war in Gaza, Rabbi Shira and Hanna mourn the loss of life and talk about what else has been lost in the trauma of ongoing war with an uncertain future. 

A young Jewish listener asks for advice on how to navigate tension between her two friend groups on opposite sides of the Israel debate.

Rabbi Shira and Hanna are answering your real life questions live at a special event in Washington D.C. – a city known for its scandal and intrigue. A married listener is having an affair and has no plans to stop. Should he still repent on Yom Kippur?

After her wife of more than two decades passed suddenly, our listener is struggling how to spend time by herself again, and how to tell her wonderful, well-meaning community to give her space.

Rabbi Shira and Hanna are joined by Rabbi Sharon Brous to talk about what she calls the “The Amen Effect” – what it means to be heard and seen during times of joy and grief and how a deeper connection to the Jewish community can actually help us cross tribal lines. Rabbi Brous is the founder of IKAR, an influential progressive Jewish congregation in Los Angeles and the author of The Amen Effect: Ancient Wisdom to Mend Our Broken Hearts and World.

Rabbi Shira and Hanna help a new rabbi navigate her first high holiday season – what she calls “her Oscars and big debut.”