Inspiring Stories, Inspiring Chesed

In the summer of 2001, twelve-year-old Michal Belzberg was weeks away from the bat mitzvah party she'd been dreaming of her whole life. Then the Sbarro pizzeria bombing in downtown Jerusalem killed fifteen people, including children, and her father told her: I don't think it's the right time to celebrate. That decision became One Family Fund — an organization that has since supported tens of thousands of Israeli terror victims and their families, from the height of the Second Intifada through October 7th and beyond. In this episode, Michal talks about growing up inside the Intifada, the necklace she brought to an eight-year-old bombing survivor as a twelve-year-old herself, and the decades of relationships — weddings, births, birthdays remembered — that grew out of that first visit. She's candid about the emotional toll of a life built around other people's trauma, how becoming a mother of her own son (after years surrounded by mothers who'd lost sons) reshaped her relationship to the work, and why she believes hesed has to start with being connected to yourself, not by erasing yourself. This is a conversation about grief, resilience, and what one twelve-year-old's decision can grow into over twenty-five years — proof of the episode's core idea: you don't need a plan, you just need one hesed to start. Credits Video Shooting & Editing: Sasha Gorev Video Editing: Ari Schlacht https://explainablemedia.com Producer: Gilad Brounstein | ThePodwaves.com --- Have a great Chesed story to share? We'd love to hear it. Email us at giladb@justonechesed.org

Welcome to the first episode of Just One Chesed! Join hosts Yosi Sasson and Naftali Kalfa for a conversation with Tzachi (Aaron) Turen, who, after more than 20 years of declining kidney function, finally found a donor — then got a phone call that changed everything: another recipient, a stranger in Ashdod, was a better match and needed the kidney urgently. Without hesitation, Tzachi gave up his donor. The next day, his brother in Chicago turned out to be a perfect 6-out-of-6 match. Tzachi shares the full story — from a routine checkup in his early twenties to a hospital room in Beilinson where his brother prepped for surgery beside him, praying together as the doctors around them asked for prayers of their own. It's a story about chesed on every side of a kidney transplant: the donor, the recipient, and the stranger in between who almost got Tzachi's kidney instead. Along the way, Tzachi talks about living with an immunosuppressed system, the emotional weight of nearly giving away his one shot at a transplant, and how he's learned to read hardship not as "why me" (lama) but as "what now" (lemah) — a question of what message he's meant to receive. This is a conversation about hashgacha pratis, surrender, and the quiet, enormous chesed of organ donation — a mitzvah that costs the donor almost nothing and gives the recipient everything.

There's a word our people have said in prayer and story for thousands of years. Chesed. We say it when someone gives, when someone saves, when someone shows up in the dark for another person — but what does it actually mean, really? In this trailer for Just One Chesed , hosts [Host 1 name] and [Host 2 name] introduce a show built around one idea: that a single act of kindness can set off a chain reaction no one could have planned. Coming up — stories from soldiers, teachers, mystics, and everyday givers who gave a kidney, built something from nothing, and showed up for others when it mattered most. Subscribe now so you don't miss the first one.