Inspiring Stories, Inspiring Chesed

Rabbi Ari Haber was in Caesarea for Simchat Torah with his wife, his in-laws, and a group of gap year students when word came that something terrible had happened in the south. Within hours, he was in the car in his Shabbat clothes, driving north to his artillery unit, past tanks heading up the road and families heading down. In this episode, Rabbi Haber shares what those first days and the months that followed looked like from the inside. He describes the phone call from a former student that he will never forget, the impromptu words he gave to hundreds of soldiers before they headed to the border, and the seven months he spent on the northern front. He also talks about the hesed that carried his unit: a tiny sefer Torah his sons tucked into his bag, tents and mattresses that arrived through the Just One foundation in Efrat, drawings from children that his unit taped to the cannons, and a meal brought by a man from a secular kibbutz who first called a rabbi to make sure his kitchen was kosher for the soldiers. Before the war, Rabbi Haber's day-to-day was teaching: gap year students, and hundreds of conversion candidates each year at Nativ. He shares the stories of young Israelis who discover they aren't halachically Jewish when they reach the army, and the one who decided to convert to "beat Hitler." This is a conversation about unity, faith, and the hesed that turns up exactly when it's needed. This episode discusses October 7th and the war, including difficult moments.

In 2005, Don Fine asked a Yahoo group if anyone could help a coworker pay a $2,000 electric bill. An anonymous woman dropped an envelope of cash at the door. He never learned her name. Eleven years later, on a bus ride home to Beit Shemesh, a stranger's Facebook post about not having money for Shabbos food brought that memory flooding back. Don texted two friends, brought a few hundred shekels to her door, and unknowingly started what would become the Mitzvah Opportunity WhatsApp group: today more than 1,300 members who raise roughly 250,000 shekels a month for Israeli families in need. In this episode, Don shares how a self-described "regular guy" from Brooklyn and Staten Island, who made Aliyah in 2009 with a collapsed insurance business and no clear plan, ended up running one of the most responsive hesed networks in Israel, all from his phone. He tells the stories that stay with him: two brothers flown to Philadelphia for brain surgery with a whole network of strangers carrying the logistics, an Australian mother fighting to get her kids back, and a wedding funded within minutes of the request, with timestamps to prove it. He also talks about the friends who taught him to build a real relationship with Hashem, the funeral that changed how he thinks about legacy, and why he believes giving has the best ROI of any investment. This is a conversation about stepping up when you're sure someone else will, and why you might be the one who was chosen.  

Tanya Halevy has spent her life building connection — as an educator, a mashpia, and through her work at Kol Hanearim, an organization that sends volunteers from English-speaking countries to live inside Israeli children's homes each summer, cooking meals, running camps, and showing up for kids who don't have stable families of their own. In this episode, Tanya talks about the deep end of hesed: what it actually means to give without needing to be the one who "saves" someone, and why the kids who come as volunteers often leave having received more than they gave. She shares a story from a year bedridden after complications with her second son's birth — and how that forced stillness became the root of the deep, wordplay-filled conversations she still has with her children today. She talks through the mantra that reshaped how she handles hardship ("stop looking at what life is doing to you, start looking at what it's doing for you"), and tells a powerful, personal story from a tense Kotel demonstration between opposing groups — and the stranger holding a hateful sign who taught her something she's never forgotten about love, intention, and why the opposite of hatred isn't automatic, it has to be earned. This is a conversation about raising children, healing from hardship, and choosing — again and again — to find a reason to love people you don't agree with.

Rabbi Shlomo Katz spent years living the dream so many musicians chase — packed rooms, songs spreading like wildfire, real success. And he kept coming home from it asking his rabbi the same question: is there something wrong with me? Why doesn't this feel like everything? In this episode, Rabbi Katz traces his path from a fourteen-year-old who fell in love with the voice of Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach, to a touring musician, to the leader of a growing community in Israel built around one idea: an open heart. He tells the story of how a Carlebach recording, passed hand to hand years after Carlebach's death, led his wife to the very class he happened to be teaching — and how a chance encounter with a man named Jerry (now his close friend) planted the seeds of what would become the Just One Project, born out of gatherings in Chicago. Along the way, the conversation moves through imposter syndrome on stage, the vulnerability of staying open after being hurt, why he stepped back from music to focus on building community, and what it actually means to hold a Geula-centered vision for Jewish life today. He closes with the three teachings he'd want to leave behind if everything else — the music, the books, all of it — were stripped away. This is a conversation about chasing meaning past the point where success stops being enough. Credits Video Shooting & Editing: Sasha Gorev Video Editing: Ari Schlacht https://explainablemedia.com Producer: Gilad Brounstein | ThePodwaves.com --- Have a great Chesed story to share? We'd love to hear it. Email us at [email protected]  

In the summer of 2001, twelve-year-old Michal Belzberg was weeks away from the bat mitzvah party she'd been dreaming of her whole life. Then the Sbarro pizzeria bombing in downtown Jerusalem killed fifteen people, including children, and her father told her: I don't think it's the right time to celebrate. That decision became One Family Fund — an organization that has since supported tens of thousands of Israeli terror victims and their families, from the height of the Second Intifada through October 7th and beyond. In this episode, Michal talks about growing up inside the Intifada, the necklace she brought to an eight-year-old bombing survivor as a twelve-year-old herself, and the decades of relationships — weddings, births, birthdays remembered — that grew out of that first visit. She's candid about the emotional toll of a life built around other people's trauma, how becoming a mother of her own son (after years surrounded by mothers who'd lost sons) reshaped her relationship to the work, and why she believes hesed has to start with being connected to yourself, not by erasing yourself. This is a conversation about grief, resilience, and what one twelve-year-old's decision can grow into over twenty-five years — proof of the episode's core idea: you don't need a plan, you just need one hesed to start. Credits Video Shooting & Editing: Sasha Gorev Video Editing: Ari Schlacht https://explainablemedia.com Producer: Gilad Brounstein | ThePodwaves.com --- Have a great Chesed story to share? We'd love to hear it. Email us at [email protected]

Welcome to the first episode of Just One Chesed! Join hosts Yosi Sasson and Naftali Kalfa for a conversation with Tzachi (Aaron) Turen, who, after more than 20 years of declining kidney function, finally found a donor — then got a phone call that changed everything: another recipient, a stranger in Ashdod, was a better match and needed the kidney urgently. Without hesitation, Tzachi gave up his donor. The next day, his brother in Chicago turned out to be a perfect 6-out-of-6 match. Tzachi shares the full story — from a routine checkup in his early twenties to a hospital room in Beilinson where his brother prepped for surgery beside him, praying together as the doctors around them asked for prayers of their own. It's a story about chesed on every side of a kidney transplant: the donor, the recipient, and the stranger in between who almost got Tzachi's kidney instead. Along the way, Tzachi talks about living with an immunosuppressed system, the emotional weight of nearly giving away his one shot at a transplant, and how he's learned to read hardship not as "why me" (lama) but as "what now" (lemah) — a question of what message he's meant to receive. This is a conversation about hashgacha pratis, surrender, and the quiet, enormous chesed of organ donation — a mitzvah that costs the donor almost nothing and gives the recipient everything.

There's a word our people have said in prayer and story for thousands of years. Chesed. We say it when someone gives, when someone saves, when someone shows up in the dark for another person — but what does it actually mean, really? In this trailer for Just One Chesed, hosts [Host 1 name] and [Host 2 name] introduce a show built around one idea: that a single act of kindness can set off a chain reaction no one could have planned. Coming up — stories from soldiers, teachers, mystics, and everyday givers who gave a kidney, built something from nothing, and showed up for others when it mattered most. Subscribe now so you don't miss the first one.