6 Minutes With Brad Hirschfield: Politics and culture through a spiritual lens

It may sound inspiring, but the message behind the latest Nike ad is actually a lesson in extremism.

Why the SCOTUS decision should be causing reflection rather than anger or concern.

I let my visceral anger about Trump blind me to an injustice being corrected. And this is something I've seen happen in more and more people.

Chelsea Handler justified her body shaming of Sarah Huckabee Sanders by calling Sanders "pure evil." But it is exactly that justification that has led to so many problems in the world.

Republican support of a known sexual abuser shows just how much women are worth to us as a nation.

That distinction is really significant precisely because we need to pay close, careful and ongoing attention to the issues of sexual harassment in our culture.

For those of us who are pleased about the results of yesterday's election, there is also a danger. In the long term, it is the only way we can make yesterday's results truly effective.

So often, our instinct is to act to change things when tragedy occurs. But if we want the change to be real, and effective, we must first deeply feel the reason we want that change.

The kneeling debate has become so polarizing that it is almost impossible to find something within it that can unify us as a nation. But we must try.

The Israeli Ultra-Orthodox response to a recent Supreme Court decision requiring them to take part in mandatory military service has been to call for a bill that would not just subvert the decision, but not allow the Supreme Court to rule against it. This is a terrifying attack on the Israeli government's checks and balances, and one that we must speak up about. But there is also much more to this, and lessons that we can gain not just about Israeli politics, but about our own lives.

If we expect the right to condemn the marchers at Charlottesville, then we must also speak up against Charlie Hebdo.

Digital communication has been a godsend for groups like the alt-right. But that same digital blessing also has very big downsides that is now causing the group to break apart. Here's why it matters and what we can learn from them.

Instead of bemoaning the terrible state of political discourse in this country, it's time we all did some introspection.

According to a new study, the power of friendships gets stronger with age and may even be more important than family relationships in extending not only our quality of life, but in how long we live. Brad examines what wisdom we can glean from this in today's episode.

Donald Trump asked God for wisdom when he went to the Western Wall on his trip to Israel. Rabbi Brad Hirschfield decides to share what many Jewish scholars consider to be the essence of wisdom.

Have you heard of the latest hot trend in schools, and even among adults? They're called fidget toys, and they are marketed as a solution to an inability to focus. Brad examines whether there is any validity to this claim, as well as the deeper truths this exploration can reveal about our own lives.

On the National Day of Prayer, Brad meditates on how the day and the act have both been so overly-politicized that we've started to use them for our own ends, and to get others to act as we wish. He urges us to repair them by looking inward, and using prayer as a vehicle for growth and understanding of others.

And saying he did puts us all in danger.

Pope Francis recently compared refugee camps to concentration camps, and almost immediately received a huge backlash for what many considered to be truly insensitive comments. Rabbi Brad Hirschfield shares his uncomfortability with the comments, but what he also realized may be his own failing (as well as, perhaps, our own).

Okay, he's gone. But why are we so happy about it? Brad does some introspection, and asks us to join him.

"These numbers don't mean a thing." It is with these words that Rabbi Brad Hirschfield asks us to confront ourselves, as opposed to simply what's wrong in others, when we hear things like poll numbers. It doesn't matter which side you take on this, Brad's message applies to us all.

How does the new McDonald's menu connect with healthcare? And how do those connect with our personal decision-making process?