AI Summary
5 min readBen and Yael de Toledo never had a dramatic break with their past. Ben grew up in a Reform temple in Los Angeles, Yael in a mix of Chabad and Reform summer camp in Michigan. Neither was told they couldn’t build a community in Jerusalem. That absence of a “no” turned out to be the most important thing they carried with them.
Their community, called Panima (Hebrew for “inward” or “interior”), meets in the Katamon neighborhood of Jerusalem. It started in their living room. Within a year, they outgrew the space and moved to a larger venue. The community is aimed primarily at English-speaking olim (new immigrants to Israel), but it draws a remarkably diverse crowd: Yemenite Jews, Sephardim, Ashkenazim, yeshivish, charedi, modern Orthodox, and non-observant. The founders made a deliberate decision to keep the service in English, even though both Ben and his co-founder Yonatan are fluent in Hebrew. Their reasoning: olim spend all day navigating Israeli bureaucracy in Hebrew; shul should be a place where their souls can open, not where they prove their Israeli bona fides.
The organic path to observance
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What you'll learn
- 1 (00:07) **Episode Introduction & Host Monologue** - David Bashevkin frames the episode around a new form of teshuva (return): not just returning to God, but returning to community, especially in Israel post-October 7th.
- 2 (11:02) **Yael's Origin Story: A Cholent of Jewish Experiences** - Yael describes her upbringing in a non-Orthodox, engaged Jewish home in Michigan, blending a Chabad synagogue, a Reform summer camp, and Israeli cousins.
- 3 (15:30) **Ben's Origin Story: The Spark of an Embodied Judaism** - Ben describes his upbringing in excellent Jewish institutions in Los Angeles, where a Jewish summer camp and day school showed him a "visceral" experience of Shabbos for the first time.
- 4 (18:13) **The Nexus Event: Recognizing the Need for a Container** - Both guests describe the moment they realized their communities of origin would not be their final home, driven by a need for a more permanent "container" for their Jewish practice.
- 5 (22:51) **Ben's Inflection Point: Discovering the Yeshiva League** - Ben details his discovery of the modern Orthodox "Yeshiva League" during a gap year in Israel, which provided a peer group equally excited about practical Judaism.
- 6 (29:51) **The Organic Journey vs. Formal Outreach** - Both guests explain that their transformations were organic, not the product of formal Jewish outreach (Kiryuv), and they don't fully identify with the term "Baalei Teshuva."
- 7 (38:09) **Navigating Relationships with Family and Mentors** - The couple discusses how their families and non-Orthodox mentors reacted to their transformation, emphasizing continuity rather than a break.
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Show Notes
Join Talmud Daily! A new free program from 18Forty. Ten-minute episodes a day (video + audio). Plain English. No prior knowledge assumed. No Hebrew required. Join here: Talmuddaily.org.
In this episode of the 18Forty Podcast, we talk to Ben and Yael de Toledo, founders of Pnima Jerusalem, a soulful community in Jerusalem, about doing teshuva by returning to community.
In this episode we discuss:
—What are the ingredients necessary for finding and building a community?
—How does one emotionally handle integrating into the Torah world without the benefit of a yeshiva background?
—How should Torah-centered communities relate to the full spectrum of Jews?
Interview begins at 6:16.
Tune in to hear a conversation about letting go of barriers, having faith in oneself, and creating space for Jewish life to thrive.
Rabbi Ben de Toledo is a Jewish educator and community builder, and a founder of Pnima Jerusalem. He and his wife, Yael, previously served as the founding rabbinic couple-in-residence at the Moses Ben Maimon Synagogue at the Abrahamic Family House in Abu Dhabi.
Yael de Toledo is a Jewish educator and musician who teaches Torah and music and studies at the Shirat HaLeviim Music Academy. She helped found Pnima Jerusalem with her husband, Rabbi Ben de Toledo.
References:
Listening to God: Inspirational Stories for My Grandchildren by Rabbi Shlomo Riskin
Netivot Shalom
The Sabbath by Abraham Joshua Heschel
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