In this episode, I sit with Parshat Beshalach and share what its stories are teaching me about fear, trust, and timing. I reflect on what happens when faith collapses under pressure, how silence can be either oppression or power, and why learning when not to react is a form of spiritual maturity.

I speak about miracles that only arrive after movement, the difference between prayer and action, and what it means to walk forward before the path is clear. I explore the feminine capacity to hold discomfort, the danger of ignoring fear, and how trust is rebuilt one day at a time through daily dependence, like the manna in the desert.

I end with a personal reflection on vulnerability as a doorway to miracles, how God often speaks through people, and what it means to lead with an open heart even when certainty is absent.

Lea

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In this episode of More to the Story, I learn Parshas Bo and reflect on what happens when redemption finally turns from concept into movement. We walk through the last of the plagues and the first of the mitzvos, especially sanctifying the moon and Korban Pesach - the moment we leave Egypt with our families and reclaim our voice.

But Bo also reads like an inner map: redemption begins when we’re willing to face Pharaoh, the darkest chamber we’ve avoided, and say yes to G-d before we feel clean, ready, or worthy. I share what it means to move beyond “trust” as an idea and begin living with G-d as a felt reality by reclaiming our senses, clearing what numbs us, and letting the soul come fully home in the body.

Lea

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In this episode I reflect on the story of the plagues, not as history but as an inner map. Egypt is not only a place we once left, it is a state of constriction that lives inside us. Va’eira is the moment when redemption begins to touch what has been numb, defended, or frozen.

I explore how the plagues are not random punishments, but precise corrections to a worldview that separates G-d from nature, spirit from body, masculine from feminine. Each plague confronts a different form of coldness, indifference, denial, misplaced passion, and invites warmth, presence, and responsibility back into the system.

Va’eira teaches that healing does not begin by escaping the physical world, but by allowing divinity to enter it. Redemption starts when we stop outsourcing truth, stop blaming ourselves, and become a clear portal for what wants to move through us.

Lea

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0:00 Part 1 – Overview of the Parsha
1:09:28 Part 2 – Deep Dive + Commentary

In this episode, I explore why this Parsha is called “Names,” and what it means to hold onto your identity in a place that wants to reshape you. I talk about faith and scarcity, how money, food, and “security” can either strengthen trust in Hashem or feed exile-mindset. I reflect on how exile only has power when we internalize it, and how unity, especially guarding our speech, becomes a spiritual protection.

From there I touch on the confusion of masculine and feminine roles, what it does to the soul, and why returning to our design matters. I end with what felt like the beating heart of this Parsha for me: children, redemption, and the cost of bringing life into a world that feels unsafe, including a personal share I’ve never said out loud before, and what it means to trust prayer even when the process includes detox, discomfort, and waiting.

Lea

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In this episode, I explore Parshat Vayechi, the final Parsha of Sefer Bereishit, the moment where exile quietly begins. As Yaakov and Yosef prepare to leave this world, the Torah shifts us into a new phase: one where G-d is no longer revealed from above, but discovered from within.

I reflect on Yosef’s descent into Mitzrayim as the original map for Jewish exile, and on the role of Rachel as the hidden mother who accompanies her children through darkness. Through Midrash and Chassidic teachings, I look at how Yosef learned to see G-d in the pit, in betrayal, and in displacement, and how that vision becomes the foundation for our survival in golus.

We explore Yaakov’s insistence on burial in the land of his fathers and the blessing of Menashe and Efraim as two stages of avodah: restraint and transformation. I also reflect on the idea that tzaddikim do not truly die, and what it means to live with inner vision even when the light feels concealed.

This episode is an invitation to approach exile not as a punishment, but as a compassionate path through which the soul learns to see more clearly.

Lea

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In this week’s episode, I explore the Torah’s first deep conversation about jealousy, fragmentation, and what happens when the challenge is no longer outside us but within our own family. The jealousy between brothers, the wounds inherited from their mothers, and what it means that Yaakov loses his prophecy for twenty-two years.

We look closely at how Yehuda’s choice to go down as part of his search to change the new reality ultimately becomes the beginning of his own transformation, and how Tamar meets him with a braid of modesty, intuition, courage, and wisdom that opens the portal of malchus. Her actions don’t just save her life; they create the seed of Moshiach.

I also share a teaching on vows, the inner promises we make in fear or pain that quietly bind our lives, and how this Parsha invites us to release them. And we end with the Rebbe’s lens: learning to search for the redeeming intention inside the messiest parts of our stories, the way Hashem does.

Lea

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In this episode, I walk with Yakov as he leaves Charan after twenty years of inner work in Lavan’s home. Everything he lived through becomes the preparation he needs to face Esav, not only the brother he once fled, but the part of himself he has not yet made room for. We look at Yakov’s threefold approach to danger, the crossing of the Yabok River, and why he refuses to leave behind even the small jugs. We sit with his long night of wrestling, the wound he carries from it, the name he receives, and how identity takes shape in the moments between what was and what is coming next.

In the second half, I turn to Dina. Her story is one of the hardest in the Torah, and I approach it with care and honesty. We explore her character, the strength she carries from Leah, what it means that she goes out to see the daughters of the land, and everything that follows. We face the harm done to her, the response of the city, and the choices her brothers make. The parsha asks us to stay with questions of dignity, vulnerability, and safety without turning away.

Dina’s rupture teaches us what it is to carry every part of our story toward healing, even the ones we would prefer not to hold.

Lea

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In this week’s episode, we follow Yaakov as he leaves the holiness of his parents’ home and enters the world of Lavan, a place of concealment, deception, and spiritual challenge. I explore Yaakov’s preparation, his years of learning, the dream at Har HaMoriah, and the spiritual descent that becomes the foundation of the Jewish future.

I focus on Leah, the sister whose tears, prayers, and hidden world reshape her destiny and ours. We look at how our sages describe her as “destined” for Esav, and how through relentless tefillah she becomes the mother of most of the tribes. I also explore the quiet courage of sisterhood between Rachel and Leah: the signs under the chuppah, the willingness to spare a sister humiliation, and later, Leah’s willingness to give up another tribe that Rachel could merit a child. Together, they open the portal through which the Jewish people are born.

Leah teaches us that pain doesn’t disqualify us from greatness; it can become the very place we meet Hashem. Her journey, from tears to gratitude, from “hated” to the mother of Yehuda and Mashiach, offers a map for anyone longing to believe that their story can still be rewritten.

Lea

Subscribe to the More to the Story Podcast: www.youtube.com/@MTTSPodcast
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Listen to the More to the Story Podcast:
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