For many of us, confronting death raises urgent questions of faith, doubt, and the meaning and purpose of our lives. Yet we live in a culture that avoids talking about death, let alone the existential challenges it raises. Physician and ethicist Lydia Dugdale, author of The Lost Art of Dying, joins Rabbi Shai Held to draw on ancient and contemporary wisdom about mortality and meaning. Recorded in Fall 2025.
This conversation is part of the Faith WithHeld series, generously sponsored by the Schiller family.

Want the full Q&A? Catch the video version here: https://youtu.be/i1ktCH7ISoE

When the unthinkable happens, what remains of faith? Journalist Sarah Wildman, who lost her young daughter, joins Rabbi Shai Held in a searching conversation about grief, love, and the struggle to go on. They will probe how mourning collides with meaning-making, and how faith might fracture, endure, or be remade in the wake of devastating loss. Recorded in Fall 2025.
This conversation is part of the Faith WithHeld series, generously sponsored by the Schiller family.

Want the full Q&A? Catch the video version here: https://youtu.be/YNZb_AkS7Ec

Was Rabbi Kook a mystic, a radical, or a realist? And what did he really believe about redemption?
In this season finale, Rabbi Shai Held is joined by Professor Yehudah Mirsky to unpack the bold and complex messianic vision of Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook and the ways in which this vision still reverberates today. Together, they explore Kook’s hopes for a transformed humanity, his belief in the spiritual potential of the Jewish people, and how his messianism shaped (and was shaped by) the politics of his time.