Political tensions, anxiety, and loneliness are on the rise,

but problems like these aren't new, and the solutions don't have to be either.

For thousands of years, societies have asked questions about how to live, thrive, and love.

And it was spiritual traditions that offered wisdom and tools to help people find their way.

Tools that science is now discovering offer real benefits. Join me, Dave

Desteno, to explore how we can all use this wisdom, whatever our beliefs. Listen to How God

Works from PRX, wherever you listen to podcasts.

Hello and welcome back to Chutzpahd, real life lived better, where each week we apply Jewish tradition and the wisdom of Ross, Rachel, and Monica, to answer a letter sent by you, the listener, about an issue that is live in your life.

I'm Rabbi Shira Stuttman.

And I'm Hannah Rosen.

Rest in peace, Matthew Perry.

May his memory be for a blessing.

Do you know of all people, I listen to the Matthew Perry autobiography beginning to end with my children in the car one time?

We were taking a drive that was exactly six hours long,

and it was about exactly six hours. And they are of the generation that's incredibly nostalgic

for Friends. So they have watched every episode of Friends. Not with me. I am not and have never

been a fan of the show, and I don't know why. I think it's a failing in me and not a failing in the show, but they love it. And it's interesting watching them delve into the nostalgia

of a kind of pre-cell phone friendship when all people did was hang out. Oh, that's it. That's

actually, that's interesting. That's not where I thought you were going to go with this, right? I thought

you were going to go into deep conversations about drug use and what it means to live in the public eye,

as you do in some ways, Hannah. But instead, the conversations were about what it was like when people

like you and me were growing up. And the ways to talk to your friends were literally to talk to them,

...