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In these stormy times, take a few minutes each week to find your balance and nourish yourself with wisdom from Rabbi Angela Buchdahl, one of America’s foremost spiritual leaders. Join IJS for a “Weekly Meditation with Rabbi Angela Buchdahl,” a short, weekly podcast featuring a brief, accessible, and engaging teaching and meditation based on the weekly Torah portion, an upcoming Jewish holiday, or wisdom from Jewish tradition. In just a few minutes each week, Rabbi Buchdahl, Senior Rabbi of Central Synagogue in New York City, will help you pause, breathe, and find balance and clarity to weather today’s storms and meet our personal and collective challenges with Jewish wisdom. Whether you are in your car, on a walk, or at home, join us to learn, nourish your spirit, and deepen your practice.

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Check latest episodes from Weekly Meditation with Rabbi Angela Buchdahl podcast

Until We Meet Again: The Jewish Art of Sacred Goodbyes

2025/06/12

For this, the final episode of this podcast, Rabbi Angela Buchdahl explores the Jewish approach to goodbyes, revealing how Hebrew farewells like lehitra'ot ("until we meet again") and hadran alach ("I will return to you") express hope for reunion rather than finality. Reflecting on traditional blessings recited when seeing someone after a long separation, she notes that how Jewish tradition doesn't take reunions for granted. Join her for a short meditation on honoring both the difficulty of parting and the sacred nature of return.

The Wheat Will Grow Again

2025/06/05

Join Rabbi Angela Buchdahl for a short teaching and meditation for finding hope amidst tragedy. In this episode, she weaves together the story of a young Israeli scientist, Zechariah Haber, who was killed in the current war while researching crop resilience, and "The Wheat Grows Again," a song that emerged from devastating losses in Israel in 1973. The teaching explores how Haber's doctoral thesis, completed posthumously by his friend and beginning with lyrics about wheat growing again after loss, offers a metaphor for choosing smaller, sustainable solutions over seeking perfect answers. Join Rabbi Buchdahl for a short practice for developing resilience that comes by nurturing what grows naturally and the legacy we inherit.

Lift Up the Head of Every Person

2025/05/29

In this episode, Rabbi Angela Buchdahl explores why Jewish tradition forbids directly counting people, requiring census-taking through numbering coins instead of individuals. She connects this ancient wisdom to modern dehumanization, explaining how the the Torah's instructions to "lift up the heads" means to see each person's unique gifts rather than as a number. Join her for a short guided meditation for recognizing the sacred worth of every soul — including our own.

To Everything, There Is a Season

2025/05/22

In this episode, Rabbi Angela Buchdahl explores the emotional complexity of life transitions through her experience at her son's college graduation, reminding us that even joyful milestones can evoke tears of both celebration and loss. She offers a four-step framework for navigating transitions with meaning: begin with gratitude, name the loss, ritualize the moment, and set intentions for what comes next. Join her for a meditation to embrace the bittersweet nature of change, while finding rituals that honor both endings and beginnings.

Exposing the Good

2025/05/15

In this episode, Rabbi Angela Buchdahl reflects on the emotional return of Edan Alexander, the last American living hostage, and the longing it stirred for hope and good news in dark times. She explores how journalism’s focus on dysfunction over solutions shapes our worldview—and what might change if we told stories driven by curiosity rather than fear. With insights from personal stories of empathy across divides, join her for a short meditative practice which can help us ask deeper questions, stay open, and practice sakranut—curiosity—in our daily lives.

What’s in a Name?

2025/05/08

In this episode, Rabbi Angela Buchdahl leads a teaching and meditation on the power of naming. She explores how ancestral memory can connect generations across faiths and cultures, highlighting the deep spiritual resonance of names. Join her for this meditation exploring the many names we have for God — and to consider what name we might give to the Divine today, as an act of relationship and sacred recognition.

Living in our Bodies

2025/05/01

Join Rabbi Nicole Auerbach as she leads a guided meditation focused on bodily awareness and appreciation, to notice pleasant sensations as part of the Jewish practice of counting the Omer between Passover and Shavuot. Drawing inspiration from the Torah portion Tazria-Metzora and the concept of Tiferet (beauty/harmony), she emphasizes how our bodies contain wisdom that helps us discern when to engage with community and when to turn inward for healing. The meditation invites participants to experience the continuous renewal of creation through mindful attention to bodily sensations, using the mantra uvtuvo michadesh (new each moment) as an anchor for awareness.

Eating as Mindfulness Practice

2025/04/24

In this episode, Rabbi Angela Buchdahl reflects on the end of Passover and the spiritual significance of food in Jewish tradition, interpreting the Torah's ancient laws of kashrut as a contemporary gateway to mindfulness. She explores how our eating can be transformed into a sacred practice of gratitude, intention, and connection. Whether you keep kosher or not, join her for a short teaching and meditation which might elevate your next meal into a moment of presence and purpose.

Passover Meditation: Leaving Egypt

2025/04/17

In this special Passover episode, Rabbi Angela Buchdahl gently guides us into presence through breath and gratitude, reflecting on the spiritual meaning of Mitzraim—the "narrow places" we each carry. Through meditation and reflection, Rabbi Buchdahl invites us to imagine our own path to liberation, drawing strength from community, tradition, and the possibility of spaciousness and renewal.

Time Traveling to Other Seders

2025/04/10

In this episode for preparing for Passover, Rabbi Angela Buchdahl explores the unique Jewish concept that there is "no before or after in the Torah" and how this perspective transforms our experience of the holiday. Through a guided meditation, she invites listeners to transcend linear time and personally experience the Exodus—not as distant history, but as their own lived story. Join her to explore how this spiritual time travel connects us with our ancestors, and reminds us that liberation remains an ongoing struggle requiring faith and courage in every generation.

Conversation in the Womb: A Parable of Life After Birth

2025/04/03

In this episode, Rabbi Angela Buchdahl explores how endings simultaneously serve as beginnings. She highlights the connection between the Hebrew words for "womb" and "compassion," suggesting that comfort and mercy accompany us through life's transitions. Join her for a short teaching and soothing meditation inviting us to recognize that with every ending or loss, something new is being born.

Learning to Sit with Not Knowing

2025/03/27

In this episode of Weekly Meditation, guest teacher Rabbi Nicole Auerbach leads a mindfulness practice centered on embracing uncertainty. Drawing inspiration from the Hebrew month of Nisan and the Israelites’ journey through the wilderness, she invites listeners to release expectations and be present in the moment. Using the mantra Mi Yodea—“Who knows?”—she encourages deep breathing and awareness, guiding participants to sit with the unknown and find peace in the present. The session closes with a reflective song, offering a gentle reminder of the beauty in not knowing.

Letting Go of False Idols

2025/03/20

In this episode, Rabbi Angela Buchdahl examines the story of the Golden Calf to explore why we create idols during times of insecurity and fear. Through guided breathing and reflection, she helps us identify our own modern forms of idolatry—whether success, material possessions, or relationships—that we turn to when feeling anxious or uncertain. Join her for a meditation on surrendering false idols and reconnecting with the divine source, focusing on life's true light rather than worldly substitutes.

Unmasking Ourselves: A Purim Meditation

2025/03/13

In this episode, as we approach Purim, Rabbi Angela Buchdahl explores the concept of masks, connecting the holiday's traditions to our deeper psychological tendencies to hide our true selves. Drawing parallels between theatrical masks, pandemic face coverings, and the metaphorical masks we wear daily, she invites us on a meditative journey toward authentic self-revelation and vulnerability. Join her for a short practice to cultivate the courage to unmask and free ourselves for deeper, more genuine connection with ourselves and others.

Fred Astaire as Esther, The Hidden Jew

2025/03/06

In this episode, Rabbi Angela Buchdahl explores the Purim story through the lens of identity, fear, and assimilation. Reflecting on the hidden nature of Esther’s Jewishness—and an unexpected connection to Fred Astaire—she invites us to notice where we may be hiding parts of ourselves and how mindfulness can help us respond with awareness instead of fear. Through breath and reflection, this meditation encourages us to embrace what is most essential within us and let it shine.