What is Chassidus in a nutshell?!

00:00 Speaker 1 No headphones, no headphones. Come on, let’s do it spontaneously.

00:03 Speaker 2 Chani!

00:05 Speaker 1 How are you?

00:05 Speaker 2 How’s everything? I’m so glad you came on.

00:08 Speaker 1 Can you see what this is?

00:09 Speaker 2 Chani, sweetheart, you have to tell me a little about Chassidus by the Spoonful. I’ve seen some posts on Instagram, and sometimes I see videos, but I want you to explain it to me once and for all. What is Chassidus by the Spoonful? What am I—what is this amazing booklet?

00:24 Speaker 1 What’s with the spoon?

00:25 Speaker 2 What’s with the spoon? Honestly, it sounds exciting, like something small.

00:30 Speaker 1 What does it sound like? Or let’s hear—

00:31 Speaker 2 It sounds, first of all, delicious, because a spoon immediately makes me think of tasty food. And a spoonful of Chassidus is just a little bit. Why do I need a little? I need a lot. I’m a mess.

00:41 Speaker 1 Exactly. We need a lot. We need to learn Chassidus all the time.

00:44 Speaker 2 Right.

00:45 Speaker 1 I’m constantly posting about Chassidus on my page, on my status, on Instagram: Chassidus, Chassidus, Chassidus. Especially when 19 Kislev comes around every year. Girls, you have to learn Tanya! And that’s where it ends. Because girls come to me and say, “Chani, but how? Chani, come on, how do you learn Tanya?”

01:03 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

01:04 Speaker 1 Now, let’s be honest, it’s awkward. Every year when 19 Kislev comes around, I tell myself: That’s it, this year you have to put together some kind of program. You have to come up with something. Last year I actually did an incredible project. I compiled all the Tanya classes in Israel.

01:20 Speaker 2 Really?

01:20 Speaker 1 There was a chart: north, south—

01:23 Speaker 2 All the in-person classes there are?

01:24 Speaker 1 Yes.

01:25 Speaker 2 Okay.

01:26 Speaker 1 And it still didn’t provide an answer. First, because classes change. Suddenly, six months later, that class no longer exists and a new one has opened. So it’s not really up to date.

01:36 Speaker 2 Right.

01:37 Speaker 1 And second, it doesn’t work for everyone.

01:39 Speaker 2 Right, getting there. Right.

01:40 Speaker 1 And they aren’t available everywhere, either. Or there’s a class that doesn’t suit you, or—

01:44 Speaker 2 Evening, morning, afternoon—the times.

01:47 Speaker 1 So people asked me, “Maybe there’s something virtual, digital?” There are lots of Tanya classes online.

01:52 Speaker 2 Right.

01:53 Speaker 1 But often you want something more—in a specific style that suits you, like when you go to a class.

02:00 Speaker 2 Yes.

02:01 Speaker 1 And learning Tanya chapter by chapter takes a long time.

02:04 Speaker 2 A very long time.

02:05 Speaker 1 Every week for years.

02:06 Speaker 2 Right, right, right. You know, we’ve had a Tanya class for men at our house for nine years already. I think they’re on chapter 41 or 42, something like that—

02:15 Speaker 1 Yes, yes, it takes time.

02:15 Speaker 2 Nine years, every Sunday.

02:17 Speaker 1 We’ve had a Tanya class here for six months now, and we’re on chapter six.

02:20 Speaker 2 Wow, that’s incredible.

02:21 Speaker 1 Yes. Listen, when you learn together, there are discussions.

02:23 Speaker 2 And when you learn in depth, that takes time too.

02:26 Speaker 1 Now, that’s quality learning. I’m not saying otherwise; it’s the ideal.

02:29 Speaker 2 Yes.

02:30 Speaker 1 But I racked my brain. I said, “I can’t just dangle this in front of the girls”—because I really do talk about how it changes my life and has helped me deal with challenges and crises, big and small. You know, even the tiniest things that drive us crazy.

02:45 Speaker 2 Yes.

02:45 Speaker 1 Chassidus is the answer, and in life’s biggest challenges, Chassidus is the answer too. And you ask yourself: How do I make it accessible? How do I make it accessible? Then in the summer, I suddenly had this flash of inspiration. I said, “That’s it—Chassidus by the Spoonful.” I put together a five-session program on Zoom.

03:01 Speaker 2 Really?

03:02 Speaker 1 Five sessions. Deciding what to include in them was probably the hardest part.

03:07 Speaker 2 Of course. It’s a drop in the ocean.

03:09 Speaker 1 How do you choose? How, how, how? So I took the few ideas that, to me, are the most life-changing.

03:18 Speaker 2 Give me an example.

03:19 Speaker 1 For example, the entire first session is about hashgachah pratis, Divine Providence.

03:23 Speaker 2 Okay.

03:23 Speaker 1 But not Divine Providence like, “Wow, I missed the bus, and then there was a terrorist on it. What Divine Providence!” No.

03:30 Speaker 2 No.

03:31 Speaker 1 Not that at all.

03:31 Speaker 2 Okay.

03:32 Speaker 1 It’s Divine Providence in the sense that we don’t understand what Divine Providence really is. It’s a profound concept, and when you understand it deeply, you suddenly realize that nothing in the world happens—

03:42 Speaker 2 Just by chance.

03:43 Speaker 1 Just by chance, or without any connection to Hakadosh Boruch Hu. It’s Hakadosh Boruch Hu Himself behind it.

03:49 Speaker 2 Wow. Oh my goodness, how much do I need to hear this right now?

03:51 Speaker 1 It’s incredible. I’ll let you listen to the first class. You learn it from Tanya, from the source, but with a connection to practical life. Because each class has two parts. The first part is from Tanya, and the second part I call “Putting It into Practice”: what questions should I ask myself to bring this into my life? How do I connect it to—

04:10 Speaker 2 Put it into action.

04:11 Speaker 1 Exactly, exactly. We go through different areas of life. How do I bring this in? Where does it fit into my mornings, raising my children, my happiness—every part of life, from every angle.

04:21 Speaker 2 My eating, my running, my—

04:23 Speaker 1 Yes. And then, um, the next session is about the struggle between the souls.

04:27 Speaker 2 Wait, how long is one class?

04:29 Speaker 1 An hour and a half.

04:30 Speaker 2 An hour and a half—

04:30 Speaker 1 Yes.

04:30 Speaker 2 And how long is that practical part?

04:33 Speaker 1 No, that’s included.

04:33 Speaker 2 The whole thing is an hour and a half.

04:34 Speaker 1 Yes.

04:35 Speaker 2 Wow, Chani.

04:36 Speaker 1 So it’s a lot of content.

04:37 Speaker 2 Incredible.

04:37 Speaker 1 Yes, a lot of content.

04:38 Speaker 2 In an hour and a half, and it’s on Zoom. Meaning—

04:41 Speaker 1 It was on Zoom.

04:42 Speaker 2 Great.

04:42 Speaker 1 And then, uh, I saw that there was a lot of—first of all, it was amazing. The responses I got—you read them and think, “Okay, how do I even take this in?”

04:53 Speaker 2 It was something really good.

04:53 Speaker 1 Because it really was incredible. At the end, we also had an in-person meeting. They came here—

04:57 Speaker 2 No way.

04:57 Speaker 1 And we discussed all the material. It was incredible. Uh, and then lots of girls asked for a second round.

05:02 Speaker 2 Mm.

05:03 Speaker 1 I didn’t get around to it, didn’t get around to it. Eventually, after the holidays, I did a second round.

05:06 Speaker 2 A second round of the same thing, or—

05:08 Speaker 1 The same thing, from beginning to end. Five sessions—

05:10 Speaker 2 With five different girls.

05:11 Speaker 1 And I limited it to twelve girls so we could answer questions and have a group where everyone got to know one another.

05:16 Speaker 2 Is it a discussion? Is there discussion too?

05:18 Speaker 1 Yes.

05:18 Speaker 2 Is there conversation?

05:18 Speaker 1 A little during the class, but mainly afterward.

05:20 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

05:21 Speaker 1 And then, uh, I realized I wouldn’t be able to keep doing it. It takes up an evening every week, and I keep trying to fit it into my schedule, but it just doesn’t happen. It doesn’t happen. So I said, “That’s it, I’m turning it into a digital course.”

05:33 Speaker 2 Amazing.

05:33 Speaker 1 And I already had everything recorded. So I edited it. Of course, I removed the participants so they wouldn’t be seen, along with the questions and anything that wasn’t relevant.

05:42 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

05:43 Speaker 1 Now it’s set up as a digital course. It costs less, too. And I added something to it. One of the girls who was there—a wonderful young woman from the first round—I kept talking with her long afterward. She told me how she was putting it into practice, how she would go out to the beach and answer the questions, and how all kinds of insights about life would come to her. She actually told me, “My life has changed completely.”

06:06 Speaker 2 That’s amazing, Chani!

06:07 Speaker 1 So I took all those questions and created a booklet where you actually—

06:12 Speaker 2 Oh, write things down.

06:13 Speaker 1 After every class... It’s incredible. Honestly, it’s incredible. A personal coach saw it, and she told me, “Well, there’s no work left for us!”

06:19 Speaker 2 Really.

06:20 Speaker 1 Now, obviously, it stays with you, and you have to do the work yourself.

06:24 Speaker 2 Right.

06:24 Speaker 1 Five sessions aren’t magic. You have to engage with it and use it to make changes in your life.

06:31 Speaker 2 So your recommendation is to study one chapter a week, do one chapter a week?

06:35 Speaker 1 Yes. You can’t do more than one chapter a week.

06:36 Speaker 2 Uh-huh.

06:36 Speaker 1 It’s on, uh, an app—um, a platform called Scholar.

06:40 Speaker 2 Okay.

06:40 Speaker 1 You watch one class, and then for a whole week you can’t watch the next one, because in my opinion you can’t absorb it all at once. It’s a lot of content.

06:46 Speaker 2 Can you go back to a chapter you’ve already watched?

06:48 Speaker 1 Yes, always. It’s always available to you.

06:49 Speaker 2 Uh-huh.

06:50 Speaker 1 Then you have a week to sit down and do the exercises.

06:53 Speaker 2 What an idea.

06:54 Speaker 1 There’s nothing like it.

06:54 Speaker 2 How did the author of Tanya know? Seriously, think about it—250 years ago—

06:59 Speaker 1 Incredible.

06:59 Speaker 2 To give us tools for today.

07:02 Speaker 1 It’s incredible.

07:02 Speaker 2 Wait, so now I need to know, on a practical level: I want to buy this course today.

07:08 Speaker 1 You go to the link.

07:09 Speaker 2 Yes.

07:10 Speaker 1 You have two options. One option is just to watch the course.

07:13 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

07:13 Speaker 1 You get the recorded class. At the end of each recorded class, there’s a little quiz on the material where you answer questions.

07:20 Speaker 2 So that—

07:20 Speaker 1 You get a score.

07:21 Speaker 2 Okay.

07:21 Speaker 1 To see that you—

07:22 Speaker 2 Understood.

07:23 Speaker 1 Understood the Tanya material. And there’s also the practical questions we talked about. Lots and lots of practical application. And then there’s an extra option.

07:31 Speaker 2 The booklet.

07:31 Speaker 1 That’s the second option—

07:33 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

07:33 Speaker 1 Which costs a little more. The booklet is delivered to your home, and it’s really for sitting down and putting it into practice. It’s another way to help you connect it to your life.

07:40 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

07:40 Speaker 1 To bring it into your actual life.

07:42 Speaker 2 Amazing.

07:42 Speaker 1 Honestly, I spoke a little with the girls who took part, and they told me—one of them said to me at the in-person meeting, “I would have paid ten times as much if I’d known how much this would give me in life.”

07:51 Speaker 2 Amazing.

07:51 Speaker 1 And they paid 700 shekels for the Zoom sessions—

07:53 Speaker 2 For the Zoom sessions.

07:53 Speaker 1 Because they could ask questions and discuss things, and it was an in-person meeting. And she says to me—I said to her, “But you know, that’s afterward.”

08:00 Speaker 2 Right.

08:01 Speaker 1 So she says to me—

08:01 Speaker 2 That was after the fact.

08:02 Speaker 1 “I want them to know this beforehand.”

08:04 Speaker 2 Right.

08:04 Speaker 1 How do I actually tell everyone about this? And why did I do it? Because, as you say, I can’t keep it to myself.

08:10 Speaker 2 Here, for example, I have to read this for a moment. “To identify my natural tendencies and choose a response consciously: Throughout the day, notice situations in which you recognize one of the following tendencies. Fire”—as in the four elements, fire, water, earth and air. “What is fire? Anger, hurt, jealousy, or another fiery emotion. Water: the desire to satisfy a craving—eating, shopping, pleasure. Earth: heaviness, sadness, despair, inertia. And air: the need to talk too much, to busy yourself with things. Now pause for a moment and ask yourself: What am I feeling right now?” Wow, Chani, this is amazing. It’s really like—

08:47 Speaker 3 Yes, that’s one of my exercises.

08:49 Speaker 2 Yes, I opened it completely at random to an exercise, and I also see that you’ve put a photograph from the Tanya into the booklet—the Alter Rebbe’s words.

09:00 Speaker 3 Those are the actual sources. So when you watch the recording, you can sit with them, and, you know, it’s nice to have the sources there in front of you. You feel like you’re in a class. Sometimes we get caught up in the rush of life, and you just want a moment to feel like a student again.

09:13 Speaker 2 Right.

09:13 Speaker 3 In a classroom, learning.

09:14 Speaker 2 You know when I’m going to do this, Chani? I’ve started getting up early and giving myself twenty minutes for Tanya—chapter 41 and things like that. And I think I’ll start the day with this too, even if it’s just one assignment. One assignment one day, another the next. I mean, taking the assignments you’ve given and spreading them out, one per day. Listen, Chani, this is amazing. Mapping your personal choices, the constant struggle.

09:39 Speaker 3 I think it’s a gift for life.

09:41 Speaker 2 What an enormous amount of information.

09:41 Speaker 3 One woman wrote to me that she loved the idea. She said, “I’m buying this for my daughter.”

09:46 Speaker 2 Wow.

09:46 Speaker 3 Think of a girl of sixteen, seventeen, eighteen receiving something like this to take through life. By the way, many of the girls who went through the process—there were twenty-four altogether, two rounds of twelve—were single. I feel there’s something about that stage when you’re still building your worldview.

10:06 Speaker 2 Absolutely.

10:07 Speaker 3 There’s value in facing life’s challenges already and having this help you. And there’s value in saying, “I’m a young woman building my worldview. Let’s do it right.”

10:14 Speaker 2 And I’m also shaping my idea of what I want my life to look like.

10:17 Speaker 3 Yes, so you can enter that life with the right outlook. And I think there’s more time to build that foundation before children, marriage, a home and all of that. To pause and nourish yourself with this, it’s—

10:29 Speaker 2 It’s amazing. And the fact that it’s digital means you really can access it anytime, anywhere, on your phone.

10:34 Speaker 3 I said, “You have no excuses.” Some girls told me, “Look, I don’t have the money right now. I’m not free on Tuesday evenings.” Well, now there are no excuses.

10:41 Speaker 2 No excuses. Tell me, is it audio or video?

10:44 Speaker 3 It’s video.

10:45 Speaker 2 It’s video.

10:45 Speaker 3 I’ll tell you, the entire class is accompanied by an amazing presentation that really makes everything clear.

10:51 Speaker 2 So you need to sit down with it? You can’t, say, listen while you’re walking?

10:54 Speaker 3 You can, but you get much more out of it when you watch, because there’s a lot of visual material.

11:01 Speaker 2 I see.

11:02 Speaker 3 Yes.

11:02 Speaker 2 Chani, much success. I’m getting it. My Chassidus will be in my pocket too.

11:07 Speaker 3 I’m going to run with it.

11:08 Speaker 2 Thank you so much! Really, thank you for making your shlichus not only a way of life for yourself, but something you share with others, so that Chassidus can become part of their way of life too.

11:19 Speaker 3 Yes, yes, yes.

11:20 Speaker 2 Thank you so, so much, Chani.

11:21 Speaker 3 Thank you, Miri.

11:21 Speaker 2 Wonderful! Thank you. Goodbye.