Claim OwnershipChabadLife.TV Street Farbrengen
Subscribed: 5Played: 52
Subscribe
© 2025 ChabadLife.TV Street Farbrengen
Description
Farbrengen is Art. Art of the soul. It is a living palette of heart and mind, mixing the modern Chassidic culture and contemporary issues ….which perhaps we rather not talk about. Add honesty and simplicity, and you have a Street Farbrengen.“Our canvas is the Street corner we cherish - common sense, heart, and the spirit of adventure. Its what is ChabadLife.” Co- hosts Reuven Flamer and Zacharia Lipitz talk about what normally lives underground...Gimmel Tammuz.
103 Episodes
Reverse
The Rebbe said it clearly on Hey Teves: the books are talking to you — and they’re waiting to be expanded. Didan Natzach means learning. Not celebrating Torah. Not cheering for it. Opening it and drawing it outward. The sfarim aren’t finished objects. They are waiting for a learner who will struggle with them, break them open, and let Torah shebaal peh emerge through his own mind. If they stay closed, they’re still in captivity. The Rebbe’s cry wasn’t about ownership or victory; it was about ...
We can read Hanukkah as a turnaround story: oppression, resistance, triumph. Street Farbrengen questions that framing entirely. The Maccabees didn’t fight because they believed they would win. They fought because it wasn’t a question. Like Nachshon stepping into the sea. Like chassidim in Communist Russia. No cheshbon. No inner debate. No narrative. Through a deep dive into the Rebbe’s teaching on the Hanukkah oil — oil that burned miraculously without losing its identity — ...
In this episode, we take on a quiet but uncomfortable question: what does it mean when our relationship with G-d becomes transactional—show up, punch in, punch out, move on? Through a raw, sometimes tense conversation, we explore the Frierdiker Rebbe’s piercing claim that the root of all negative traits is not sin, but comfort with mediocrity. Not doing less—but being okay with less. From there, the discussion turns inward: discipline not as willpower or productivity, but as confronting the...
This week on Street Farbrengen, we start with an uncomfortable moment in shul. Someone tells me straight out: “My problem with Chabad is you think you have the emes – the truth of truths.” And I answered him, “You’re right. We do.” But under that answer is something much deeper: Chabad doesn’t live with a transactional relationship with Hashem. From there, we open up a raw conversation about what most people call emunah. For many, emunah has quietly turned into a coping mechanism: the holier...
What do you do when the farbrengen glow wears off and it’s just you… and your phone? In this week’s Street Farbrengen, we start from a Yud Kislev fabrengen and ask a very uncomfortable question: Is there even such a thing as “inspiration” in our generation anymore — and if yes, where is it supposed to come from? We push back on the quiet assumption that the Rebbe, the mashpia, or the “fire in the room” is meant to carry us, and instead talk about becoming self-inspired: a Yid whose sense of ...
Ever walk out of a great shiur or powerful davening totally on fire… and by 11:30 AM you’re scrolling, annoyed at people, and can’t even remember what you decided that morning? That’s where this week’s Street Farbrengen starts. Reuven puts a raw question on the table with Zakaria: “How come I learn every morning that the mind is supposed to direct the heart… and then, in real life, I forget to even use my mind?” From there, the conversation goes deep and very real: The to-do lists and lofty...
This week on Street Farbrengen, Zacharya pushes back on something Reuven brought to the farbrengen that many may feel but rarely say out loud: Is the Rebbe the mission? We go straight for the jugular: What happens when the Rebbe — or “being Lubavitch” — quietly becomes the goal instead of the path? When wearing the right slogan, screaming the right lines, doing Chitas and Rambam, or learning the maamar becomes the destination… but nothing actually shifts inside — not my emotions...
As we approach our 100th episode, Zacharia and Reuven turn the mic inward — to the Chabad community itself. We began nearly a year ago, with a simple question: Has Chabad’s leadership been living with unspoken post-traumatic stress since Gimmel Tammuz? Now, a powerful anonymous letter has surfaced - in response to the recent suicide of a young man — one that accuses Chabad of a generation gap so deep that it’s left some young people unseen, unheard, and in pain. In this wee...
Opening the Windows and Doors This Week’s Street Farbrengen When Chassidus stays in the head, it turns into philosophy. The mind is dazzled, but the heart and soul remain hungry. Prayer, seen through the lens of dirah betachtonim—making a dwelling place for G-d—means inviting Him into the tachtonim: the world of distraction, anxiety, and daily pressure. The dirah, the dwelling, is built when we let G-d speak into that very place. Instead of escaping emotion, we bring it inside—like Noach brin...
“Hey friends, welcome back to Street Farbrengen. We’re in that first quiet week after the many holidays of the Tishrei month, stepping into Mar-Cheshvan, where the calendar goes from fireworks to ordinary but Dynamic . And a real question hits: did anything actually change? Is my sigh of relief for the return to the same old rhythm an indication of an answer of "No"! ? In this episode we unpack teshuvah in the context of —fantasy vs. dream, narrative vs. goal, and how havi...
At Starbucks this week, Reuven’s daily journaling yanked him back 50 years—to a 3 AM café in Vancouver, same pen, same seeker. From Vancouver nights to the Rebbe’s court: am I the “same guy,” or did I just change what I’m looking at? What if that’s exactly what Selichos is—teshuvah not as self-replacement, but re-aiming the lens. Hear the convo on Street Farbrengen.
Americana glorifies the lone cowboy, the self-made man, the myth of total independence. But what happens when the Rebbe redefines independence — not as isolation, but as a deeper kind of freedom within Jewish life? In this farbrengen, we wrestle with the tension between American individualism and the hidden power of Chai Elul. Can you be truly independent… while still connected to something outside and higher?
In this week’s Street Farbrengen, Reuven shares a gripping “Hasidic geneiva” Yechidus story that an elder chossid confided to him—how, at his brother’s bar mitzvah, he slipped the Rebbe a three-page letter about a toxic mashpia, his confusion, and the urge to leave yeshiva. The Rebbe’s response was razor-clear: in Lubavitch there are always two mashpiim—find the one you connect with; then “forget the past—have Kabbalas Ol—and your job is to learn.” From there, the conversation dives into Elul...
There”s an old joke about the man shipwrecked on a deserted island who builds the shul he goes to and the shul he'd never step into"? But what happens when both of those shuls live inside the same room, or in the same heart and mind?? In this episode, we dive into the “two shuls within one shul” phenomenon—where some come to daven and others come to schmooze, and the tension it creates in Chabad communities worldwide. Why does this culture of tolerance exist? Is it ...
The awesome and wonderful month of Elul begs participation. It asks for something new from you. A " cheshbon hanefesh” What is it, this "tally of self? Street Farbrengen looks at the control and chaos of making good for a full year by peering into the self from the past year
Are We Living Our Spirituality Dynamically? In this week’s episode of Streetfarbrengen we dive into a thought-provoking question sparked by a morning shul conversation: Do we live our spirituality symbolically, practically, or dynamically? Using the famous Talmudic scenes of Rabbi Akiva at the destruction of the Beis HaMikdash, we explore how two different moments — seeing the Temple’s ruins from afar and witnessing a fox emerge from the Holy of Holies — reveal distinct ways of experiencing r...
What does it take to go against the grain? How do you defy the gravity of culture of 'this is the way things are' and lift off into your intended orbit? “Zacharia, I am almost twice your age ", remarks Reuven in this week's episode of Street Farbrengen! "People insist I should slow down and "act my age". Chill out they say! But, I am in a renewal and on a number of new journeys. Today and tomorrow are not yesterday. And, I am just getting going!" What does it take to go against the str...
The 12th of Tammuz highlights courage and sacrifice in the fight for your values and truth - no matter the size and authority of your opponent! In this episode of Street Farbrengen let's tackle how to bridge with the Yud Beis story and ask "Is the behavior of the Rebbe leave me inspired or aspiring!?
Chassidic circles stress the story of the spies' reluctance to enter Israel as the choice for spiritual isolation and comfort over the task of grappling with the physical realities of turning a land ( of Israel) into a heavenly oasis. How is it possible not to be eaten alive by the time consuming and emotional rollercoaster of making a living, raising a family, fighting wars, or the pulling the weeds between the vegetable rows? Street Farbrengen ...
We often call success winning, like when you cross the goal line. We look to the end of the line, to know the end game, and to finding our cherished goal at the “end of the rainbow.” There is the “ end of days.” When Zechariah and Reuven last met they pledged to contemplate for 30 days the scene of Rabbi Akiva by the river seeing a constant drip of water on a rock by the side of the river making an impression on the stone. What is our rock to making an everlasting imprint? W...
Comments
Download from Google Play
Download from App Store
United States