Episode 122 - Vanilla Chassid?
“I can’t date vanilla.”
It sounded shallow. Until it wasn’t.
Because how many of us live vanilla flavor lives—
all the while thirsty for more color.
We escape. We explain. We call it faith.
Dr Edith Eger, in her book The Choice a 71-year-old woman tells of a woman stuck in grief since she was 16—to do something almost unthinkable:
Take off your shoes.
Stand on your mother’s grave.
And talk to her.
No answers. No theology. No “everything happens for a reason.”
Just stand there. Barefoot. Present. Real.
And something shifted. Not because it made sense—
but because she stopped running.
That’s where this gets uncomfortable.
Because the Rebbe didn’t ask for people who escape the world—
or people who disappear into it.
He asked for something far harder:
To feel everything… and still stand.
To live fully here… and still reach beyond.
To say “I only want You G-d, not a Gan Eden but just you”—
without leaving life on the street behind.
That’s not inspiration.That’s a demand.
So here’s the question: Where are you escaping? And what would it look like—
to actually stay?
This episode goes there.