23. What Even Is Emunah? Emulating Hashem and Getting Back to the Basics with Educator Yaffa Moskowitz

Hi everyone! Welcome back to another episode of The Chai on Life Podcast. I’m Alex Segal and today, we are speaking with Yaffa Moskowitz, the Director of Education at Midreshet Rachel V’Chaya, a seminary in Jerusalem. 

Here’s a little more about Yaffa: She is a native member the Far Rockaway community and was active in that community and the Five Towns for many years. Yaffa, her husband Danny, and seven children made aliya in the summer of 2013 and now live in Mitzpe Yericho. Yaffa served as teacher and Director of Ateres Seminary for women on the Queens College Campus for 13 years and she was also involved in the Neshei Shor Yoshuv community where she gave chaburas for married women.

I met Yaffa when I was a student exactly seven years ago at Midreshet Rachel and have continued to learn from her and with her since. She has such a wealth of knowledge and this conversation really turned into the perfect thing to listen to right in the middle of Elul preparing for the chagim.

During this time at Midreshet Rachel, the students learn from the sefer, Tomer Devorah, which teaches us about Hashem’s 13 Attributes of Mercy. As we learn about Hashem and understand who He is more, so to speak, we learn how we can emulate Him more in our own lives, and we used that text as the jumping off point for our conversation. 

As we spoke, we explored:

-What a “sin” actually is in Judaism (it may not be what you think) and how we can always get back on track

-How to separate ourselves from the sin and retain our confidence and closeness to G-d through the process

-How we can get to the core of what emunah really is on the most basic level and use these foundational concepts to connect to Hashem more deeply

-The restraint Hashem has with us every day and how we can apply that concept to our own lives and actions

-How to work on letting go of control

-Why we should speak to ourselves with more compassion from a Torah perspective

-When fear is appropriate in Judaism and what kind of fear that actually is talking about

-How we can continue to grow and elevate ourselves year after year

…and SO MUCH MORE!

To learn more about Midreshet Rachel V'Chaya, click here.

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