The Guest on the #1 Podcast in the World Is An Orthodox Jewish Harvard Psychologist

The world’s most popular podcast featured a guest in a yarmulke. And he wasn’t there to talk about Judaism. He was there to talk about anxiety, and why it might not be something to fear.

“How can I set up an appointment with him?”

“What a sincere gentleman and scholar.”

Those were just two of the hundreds of comments flooding the YouTube version of The Mel Robbins Podcast featuring Dr. David H. Rosmarin. The episode—titled “The Secret to Stopping Anxiety & Fear (That Actually Works)”—quickly shot to #1 on Apple Podcasts, racking up more than 1.6 million downloads in just three days. “I couldn’t believe it. I almost fell off my chair,” Dr. Rosmarin said.

The pairing made sense. Robbins—a bestselling author, motivational speaker, and former CNN legal analyst—is known for helping audiences navigate life’s hardest emotions with science-backed tools and radical vulnerability. Dr. Rosmarin—an Orthodox Jew, founder of the Center for Anxiety, associate professor at Harvard Medical School, and director of the Spirituality and Mental Health Program at McLean Hospital—has built his career around doing the same.

“From what I understand, they were intrigued by the idea that not all anxiety is a disease and not all anxiety is a disorder,” he said of Robbins’ team. “I got that idea from from a Torah concept. There are lots of different words for anxiety in the Torah, in Talmud. But in the clinical world, we speak about anxiety as being a disorder, disease or problem that people have to get rid of.”

For Dr. Rosmarin, that distinction runs deep. Through his Torah learning, he’s noticed that emotional struggle isn’t something to be pathologized, it’s often a sign of spiritual depth. “There are countless leaders throughout Jewish history who grappled with anxiety and sadness and suicidal thoughts,” he explained. “Yona and Moshe Rabbeinu… David HaMelech—he literally cried himself to sleep at night. It’s in Tehillim. Emotional struggles are part of being great.”

This perspective is one Rosmarin knows firsthand. On the podcast, he spoke candidly about his own experiences with anxiety—an uncommon move in clinical settings. “I’m getting a lot of good feedback about the fact that I’m speaking about my own anxiety,” he said. “Thank God I don’t have clinical anxiety, but I do have anxiety. I’m human.”

His core advice? Don’t resist it. “When you feel anxiety and you fight it, you get more anxious. You go from a two to a ten in a hot second. But when you accept it, your body doesn’t feel the need to send stronger signals.”

That mindset was put to the test when he agreed to appear on the show. As an identifiably Orthodox Jew stepping onto one of the world’s most visible media platforms—at a time of rising antisemitism and anti-Israel rhetoric—Rosmarin felt the inner tension before he even walked into the room.

“I was a little nervous walking in there… in Central Boston with her Gen Z employees,” he admitted. “What are they going to think? Is the topic of Gaza going to come up? Are people going to look at me a certain way?”

For perhaps the first time in a very real way, Rosmarin wondered whether the yarmulke on his head would change the way he’d be heard or how he’d be perceived. In that moment, he stood at the same crossroads he helps others face every day: retreat in fear, or step forward with purpose and courage.

He chose to step forward. And it’s the same message he offers to the global Jewish community grappling with the fear of rising hate: embrace who you are. “Owning your Jewish identity historically has been the best strategy, ironically,” he said. “By leaning into it, you become stronger in your own identity, more focused on your values, more emotionally resilient.”

Sometimes, the path to peace isn’t about eliminating discomfort. It’s about meeting it with meaning, identity, and faith. And when Dr. Rosmarin sat down in his yarmulke, on the most popular podcast in the world, and modeled exactly that, people listened. As one viewer commented: “I believe I will be OK. Thank God.”

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