Gayle Kirschenbaum: Learning to Forgive My Mother [Teshuva 4/6]
18Forty Podcast
18Forty
4.7 • 704 Ratings
🗓️ 16 September 2025
⏱️ 98 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In this episode of the 18Forty Podcast, we speak with Gayle Kirschenbaum—author of Bullied to Besties: A Daughter’s Journey to Forgiveness—about how she repaired her fraught relationship with her mother.
At the end of the podcast, we hear from her mother, Millie, herself, now over 101 years old. In this episode we discuss:
- What does a “forgiveness coach” teach her students?
- How can we repair relationships across generations?
- What does it take to try to understand the full humanity of our parents?
Interview begins at 14:29.Gayle Kirschenbaum is an Emmy-winning TV producer, writer, photographer, coach, and speaker. She was invited to give a TED Talk called "No More Drama With Mama," about forgiveness and transforming difficult relationships into healthy ones.
References:
Top 5 by David Bashevkin
Bullied to Besties: A Daughter’s Journey to Forgiveness by Gayle Kirschenbaum
“No More Drama With Mama” by Gayle Kirschenbaum“
Cut! She's Chewing the Scenery; A Shih Tzu and Her Stage Mother Strive for Stardom”
The Godfather Part III
My Nose
The Nanny
You Can Heal Your Life by Louise Hay
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | You know what made Rabbi Sachs distinctive? |
| 0:03.0 | He created Torah commentary for this generation, people who want to engage thoughtfully with the world while staying rooted in tradition. |
| 0:11.0 | He didn't ask you to choose between serious Torah study and intellectual engagement with contemporary ideas. |
| 0:17.0 | Instead, he showed how Torah wisdom can engage with philosophy, science, ethics, the big questions |
| 0:23.2 | thoughtful people care about. Now his approach is available in complete Chumish format. It's called |
| 0:29.7 | the Rabbi Sachs Chimish, and his commentary is integrated right with the Torah text alongside |
| 0:35.5 | Rashi and Unkelis. If you're someone who wants Torah study that engages seriously with the intellectual currents of our time, this is the Torah commentary for our generation. Now available at koranpub.com. That's k-O-R-E-N-P-U-B-com or at your local bookstore. |
| 0:55.4 | And I'll just add, just on a personal note, I have seen the Rabbi Sacks-Klemish. |
| 0:59.7 | It is really incredible, and I think Rabbi Sacks as a translator, in the greatest sense of the word, when I say translator, I don't mean somebody who took a word from one language and rendered into another |
| 1:12.3 | language. What I mean is somebody who is able to translate ideas and values in a way that |
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| 1:24.5 | that resonates for our generation. I have seen the Rabbi Sachs-Homish. |
| 1:29.2 | I have learned it. I have studied from it. And I could not recommend it more to our listeners. |
| 1:34.3 | This should be in every Jewish home. It's now available at corinpub.com or at your local bookstore. |
| 1:41.2 | By the Rabbi Sachs-Humish now. |
| 1:48.5 | Hi, friends. It's Dev david here in a longer letter a listener recently wrote to me about an experience he had during one of our episodes this is a real |
| 1:53.8 | direct quote i found myself driving with tears rolling down my face completely overtaken by what i was |
| 2:00.4 | hearing and i realized I had to thank |
| 2:03.1 | you. Not just for that episode, but for what 1840 has become for me. Not every reaction is quite like |
| 2:10.0 | that, but your support for 1840 ensures every Jew has a place to cry, to question, to discover parts |
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... |
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