A Summertime to Engage

Plus: 14 Jewish books for the summer

Jun 19, 2026

Welcome back to Chutzstack, the Substack for Chutzpod listeners – or our Chutzsquad!

This Substack gives you a weekly dose of Chutzpod to keep you learning and pondering life’s questions, both big and small, and a community space to connect with each other.

You can support Chutzpod by subscribing to the podcast and donating today.

June 19, 2026 // 4 Tamuz, 5786

This week, Rabbi Shira writes about the tug between enjoyment and engagement.

There’s a sense of relaxation in Summer. It’s meant to be enjoyed.
But it always leaves me with a question, one that perhaps you are carrying from time to time as well. How do we allow ourselves to enjoy summer—this beauty, this community, this abundance—while the world around us is so deeply broken and in pain?
This week’s Torah portion—Parshat Korach—feels like a mirror held up to this very moment.
Korach, a communal leader, gathers 250 followers and challenges Moses and Aaron: “You have gone too far! All the people are holy—why do you alone lift yourselves above the congregation of God?”
On the surface, it sounds like an understandable critique. Democratic, even—no one elected Moses. Don’t we believe that all people are created b’tzelem Elohim, in the image of God? Why does only Moses talk to God?
But God becomes furious with Korach, so the rabbis spend a lot of time trying to figure out why. Some say that when Korach and his followers brought their argument before Moses and Aaron, they argued in a way that was decidedly not, in rabbinic parlance, a machloket l’shem shamayim, an argument for the sake of heaven, an argument grounded in the sincere search for truth, justice, and the common good. Instead, the rabbis teach that Korach’s argument was about ambition, not fact. Tearing Moses and Aaron down, not lifting the people up. Grounded in ego, not vision.
The result? In one of the cinematic images in the entire Torah, the ground itself revolts: a chasm opens and Korach and his band fall in and are swallowed whole.
At the very end of last week’s Torah portion, Rabbi Yeshayahu Leibowitz points out, the Israelites are taught לְמַ֣עַן תִּזְכְּר֔וּ וַעֲשִׂיתֶ֖ם אֶת־כׇּל־מִצְוֺתָ֑י וִהְיִיתֶ֥ם קְדֹשִׁ֖ים לֵאלֹֽהֵיכֶֽם׃ Thus you shall be reminded to observe all My commandments and then you will be holy to your God.
Leibowtiz connects Korach’s central claim—“All the community are holy”—to the verse that teaches that holiness will come only when we walk in God’s ways. In other words, for Korach, holiness is already granted. It requires nothing. It demands nothing. In last week’s portion, and in Judaism, Lebowitz argues, holiness is aspirational. It’s something we work toward through commitment and action.
Leibowitz warns against triumphalism based solely on who we are rather than what we do. Against assuming that because we are just Jewish we are automatically right and holy. That the work is done.
The Jewish tradition, however, asks of us not to rest on who we are, but to strive always towards who we might yet become. Korach’s sin wasn’t just ego, Leibowitz teaches—it was that he believed that he had no more learning to do.
In the current moment, if we truly want to build a safer, more peaceful world, we do not do not have the luxury to be Korach, to believe that we hold the whole truth, that we are holy just by virtue of being…fill in the blank…a certain age, or political party, or income bracket, or education level.
There is this great line in the pirke avot that teaches, In a world in which there are no human beings, strive to be a human being. I want to adjust that a little bit and say–in a world in which there are too many Korachs, strive not to be a Korach. The most countercultural thing we can do is to make space not for talking points but for thoughtful, layered, vulnerable ideas that stretch us. That demand we slow down, listen, and learn.
When we gather as Jews on Shabbat, we do so not just to pray and be inspired, but to be challenged. So yes—this summer, enjoy the hikes. Go to the market. Go to the concerts. Fill your soul. But don’t fall into disengagement.
We do not have to be Korach. We are not here just to yell and be angry–nor just to be fearful and frustrated. We are here to wrestle—for the sake of Heaven. For the sake of one another. For the sake of a vibrant and connected Jewish and American future.
May this summer be sweet. May it be joyful. And may it also teach us.

Support!

Donate!

If Chutzpod has kept you company on a walk, on a drive, maybe improved your mood at some point, or made you feel a little bit more steady in a wobbly world, please consider making a donation to our show. Even $5/month helps us keep Chutzpod running, and builds our community into the warm, inviting, funny space that you know and love.

Listen

Our season is finished, but we’re already revving up for our next. Got a question for us? Need some life advice? Want to complain about your mom? Email us at chutzpod@gmail.com and let Hanna and Shira talk you through it all.