Search for Meaning with Rabbi Yoshi

 As we reflect during the High Holy Days on issues of life and death, Rabbi Yoshi shares an interview with Lauren Ullmann, a Stanford Business School student and former MIT varsity goaltender player whose life was saved by a donation of peripheral stem cells. Fans of the Search for Meaning podcast will know who made that donation. Determined to use her experience as a team leader and the lessons t...

If you have been any kind of nerd or geek or pop culture enthusiast in the last 20 years, chances are you know the voice of Rabbi Yoshi's guest this week on the Search for Meaning Podcast: voiceover actress Vanessa Marshall. Though she has lent her voice to 226 shows, games, and movies, Vanessa is perhaps most famous for originating the role of the Rebel Alliance's Twi'lek pilot and...

In this 66th edition of his Search for Meaning podcast , Stephen Wise Temple Senior Rabbi Yoshi Zweiback hosts board game designer Brian Hersch. Taboo. Outburst. Super Scattergories. Have you played any of these modern classics at family game night? You have Brian Hersch to thank. Now a General Partner at Hersch and Company, with over $850 million in sales under his belt, Brian didn't set out...

In this edition of his Search for Meaning podcast , Stephen Wise Temple Senior Rabbi Yoshi Zweiback hosts Orly Erez-Likhovski, Executive Director of the Israel Religious Action Center. Erez-Likhovski is an expert in the Israeli judicial system and the reasonableness doctrine, which have been the target of a massive reform push by the far-right current ruling government. Erez-Likhovski helps listen...

In this edition of his Search for Meaning podcast , Stephen Wise Temple Senior Rabbi Yoshi Zweiback hosts artist and educator Suzanne Horwich. Horwich, who hails from Rabbi Yoshi's hometown of Omaha, is the founder of Artists Giving Back , a program she started to bolster the spirits of Ukrainian refugees who have fled their warn-torn country for Poland. Horwich has long been drawn to the Syr...

In this edition of his Search for Meaning podcast , Stephen Wise Temple Senior Rabbi Yoshi Zweiback hosts Ben M. Freeman , author, educator, and founder of the modern Jewish Pride movement. Born in Scotland, Freeman rose to prominence during the Corbyn Labour Jew-hate crisis and quickly became one of his generation's leading voices against anti-Jewish racism. In February of 2021, he published...

In this edition of his Search for Meaning podcast , Stephen Wise Temple Senior Rabbi Yoshi Zweiback hosts writer, educator, and human rights advocate Rabbi Michael Marmur, Ph. D. Until 2018, Rabbi Marmur served as the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Provost at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion. Before that, he served as Dean of HUC-JIR's Jerusalem campus, where he hired Rabbi Y...

In this edition of his Search for Meaning podcast , Stephen Wise Temple Senior Rabbi Yoshi Zweiback hosts old friend Rabbi Zoë Klein Miles of Temple Isaiah, author of the new book, Candle, Feather, Wooden Spoon (CCAR Press, 2023). Rabbi Klein Miles serves Temple Isaiah in West Los Angeles, where she brings her unique blend of innovation, tradition, creativity, and wisdom.  The two speak about the...

In this edition of his Search for Meaning podcast , Stephen Wise Temple Senior Rabbi Yoshi Zweiback hosts Josh Klausner , who, in addition to being Rabbi Yoshi's college roommate, is a screenwriter, playwright, and director. Klausner's writing credits include Wanderland (2018), Date Night (2010), and Shrek Forever After (2010). He's also worked as a second unit director on Dumb and...

In this edition of his Search for Meaning podcast , Stephen Wise Temple Senior Rabbi Yoshi Zweiback hosts Carol Mabeya, gynecologist Dr. Debbie Matityahu, and Ariela Zweiback of Beyond Fistula.  During his sabbatical, Rabbi Yoshi spent two weeks in Eldoret, Kenya working with Beyond Fistula , a non-profit charity that aids women and girls in Africa who have recently undergone surgical repair for f...

In this edition of his Search for Meaning podcast , Stephen Wise Temple Senior Rabbi Yoshi Zweiback hosts Ariela Cohen, founder of aliyah resource Your Soft Landing, for a discussion about Israel , from military service to current events. Why should making aliyah be so difficult ? That’s the question Cohen asked herself after moving to Israel by herself at 17. Her answer was to create Your Soft La...

In this edition of his Search for Meaning podcast , Stephen Wise Temple Senior Rabbi Yoshi Zweiback hosts Rabbi Josh Weinberg for a discussion about the current situation in Israel . Rabbi Weinberg serves as the Vice President for Israel and Reform Zionism for the Union for Reform Judaism. On Wednesday, March 29, Rabbi Weinberg gave a Zoom briefing (co-sponsored by Wise) on the state of Israeli de...

In this International Women's Day edition of his Search for Meaning podcast , Stephen Wise Temple Senior Rabbi Yoshi Zweiback hosts Beata Poźniak, a multitalented Polish-born filmmaker and artist who helped convince the United States Congress to officially recognize International Women's Day in the United States, celebrated every March 8. In this special episode, Poźniak discusses the im...

In the latest edition of his Search for Meaning podcast , Stephen Wise Temple Senior Rabbi Yoshi Zweiback hosts friend, colleague, collaborator, and author Rabbi Matthew Gewirtz, who has just published his memoir: " To Build a Brave Space: The Making of a Spiritual First Responder ." The senior rabbi at Congregation B'nai Jeshurun in New Jersey, Rabbi Gewirtz had finished a manuscri...

In the latest edition of his Search for Meaning podcast , Stephen Wise Temple Senior Rabbi Yoshi Zweiback hosts Matan Koch, the Senior Vice president for Strategic Change at RespectAbility , a nonprofit organization fighting stigmas and advancing opportunities so people with disabilities can fully participate in all aspects of community. Born 11 weeks premature with cerebral palsy and confined to...

In the latest edition of his Search for Meaning podcast , Stephen Wise Temple Senior Rabbi Yoshi Zweiback hosts Zack Bodner , CEO of the Oshman Family Jewish Community Center and author of " Why Do Jewish? A Manifesto for 21st Century Jewish Peoplehood ." The founder of the Z3 Project, which fosters renewed conversation on world Jewry and Israel relations, Bodner has spent his career ser...

WARNING: This episode of Search for Meaning with Rabbi Yoshi contains some explicit language. In the latest edition of his Search for Meaning podcast , Stephen Wise Temple Senior Rabbi Yoshi Zweiback hosts singer-songwriter Veronica Zweiback , who talks about her journey in music, as well as her journey of self-discovery in terms of gender identity. Rabbi Yoshi's niece comes from a musical fa...

 In the latest edition of his Search for Meaning podcast , Stephen Wise Temple Senior Rabbi Yoshi Zweiback hosts Julia Mintz, the director of acclaimed Holocaust documentary "Four Winters," a story of Jewish resistance against the Nazis now playing at the Lumiere Cinema in Beverly Hills for a limited engagement. You can purchase TICKETS HERE , and watch the trailer HERE. Awarded the &quo...

In the latest edition of his Search for Meaning podcast , Stephen Wise Temple Senior Rabbi Yoshi Zweiback hosts his friend of 40 years, Rabbi Ken Chasen . The Ordination Seminar instructor at HUC-JIR's Skirball Campus, Rabbi Chasen is also the Senior Rabbi at Leo Baeck Temple , which partners with Wise's Center for Youth Engagement and currently hosts our Aaron Milken Center Parenting Ce...

In the latest edition of his Search for Meaning podcast , Stephen Wise Temple Senior Rabbi Yoshi Zweiback hosts 9-year-old actress Romy Fay Rosen, who is currently playing the roles of Young Sally and Mimi in the acclaimed Broadway production of " Leopoldstadt ." The play, which follows a Viennese Jewish family from 1899 through 1955, grapples with the aftermath of the pogroms, assimilat...

In the latest edition of his Search for Meaning podcast , Stephen Wise Temple Senior Rabbi Yoshi Zweiback hosts Stephen Wise Temple's Center for Youth Engagement director, Rabbi Josh Knobel. From the finer points of the classic summer camp game of gaga (which may very well have a Hebrew origin) to "the Army way,"  to the invasion of Iraq, to the lessons Rabbi Knobel teaches to our y...

In the latest edition of his Search for Meaning podcast , Stephen Wise Temple Senior Rabbi Yoshi Zweiback delivers his 2022 (5783) Yom Kippur sermon, entitled, “Letting Go - To Grow.” You can view the full video here . The full transcript follows: Last month, Jacqueline and I dropped our youngest daughter off at college. This was our third time so we knew the drill: the first order of business aft...

In the latest edition of his Search for Meaning podcast , Stephen Wise Temple Senior Rabbi Yoshi Zweiback delivers his 2022 (5783) Rosh Hashanah sermon, entitled, "Circles of Concern." You can view the full video here . The full transcript of Rabbi Yoshi's Rosh Hashanah sermon is below: At the end of the movie, "Schindler’s List," Yitzhak Shtern, played by Ben Kingsley, pr...

In the latest edition of his Search for Meaning podcast , Stephen Wise Temple Senior Rabbi Yoshi Zweiback hosts writer, filmmaker, linguist, and self-described "nerdy Indiana Jones" Alan Niku, who may or may not moonlight as a vigilante superhero. The Berkeley-educated Niku has a unique background, coming from an Iranian Jewish family. That background spurred his lifelong love of languag...

In the latest edition of his Search for Meaning podcast , Stephen Wise Temple Senior Rabbi Yoshi Zweiback hosts Wise's Chief Engagement Officer, Rabbi Sari Laufer. The wide-ranging talk between two colleagues covers Israel, summer camps, sign language, their respective Torah portions, authenticity, and the recent Supreme Court decision to restrict reproductive freedoms in Dobbs v. Jackson . T...