Search for Meaning with Rabbi Yoshi

Recorded on the third anniversary of October 7, this episode of Search for Meaning features Rabbi Yoshi Zweiback in conversation with filmmaker Kari Hollend, co-director and producer of The Campaign: Disinformation in a Time of War. Created as a companion to Warren Kinsella’s book The Hidden Hand, the documentary investigates coordinated disinformation, digital propaganda, and their role in fueling antisemitism and threatening democracy.
Kari shares how the aftermath of October 7 shook her sense of belonging in Toronto’s arts community—and how making the film deepened her Jewish identity and renewed her sense of purpose. Together, she and Rabbi Yoshi explore the challenges of confronting falsehoods, the importance of including uncomfortable and competing perspectives, and what it takes to help people listen across deep divides.
It is a candid conversation about truth, responsibility, and Jewish resilience—and the hope Kari finds in community, unexpected allies, and the next generation.
Learn more about the film at campaigndoc.com.

Recorded on the third anniversary of October 7, this episode of Search for Meaning features Rabbi Yoshi Zweiback in conversation with filmmaker Kari Hollend, co-director and producer of The Campaign: Disinformation in a Time of War. Created as a companion to Warren Kinsella’s book The Hidden Hand, the documentary investigates coordinated disinformation, digital propaganda, and their role in fueling antisemitism and threatening democracy.
Kari shares how the aftermath of October 7 shook her sense of belonging in Toronto’s arts community—and how making the film deepened her Jewish identity and renewed her sense of purpose. Together, she and Rabbi Yoshi explore the challenges of confronting falsehoods, the importance of including uncomfortable and competing perspectives, and what it takes to help people listen across deep divides.
It is a candid conversation about truth, responsibility, and Jewish resilience—and the hope Kari finds in community, unexpected allies, and the next generation.
Learn more about the film at campaigndoc.com.

What does Zion mean to the Jewish people—and what happens when Jews themselves profoundly disagree about its meaning? In this Kol Nidrei sermon, Rabbi Yoshi Zweiback traces Zion through the arc of a Jewish life and explores two ancient teachings: U’vacharta bachayim—“Choose life”—and Atem nitzavim hayom kulchem—“You stand this day, all of you.” At a moment of deep division, he offers three challenges for sustaining the Jewish story: Know it. Teach it. And make room for one another inside it.

Rosh Hashanah morning at Stephen Wise Temple, Rabbi Yoshi Zweiback explores an ancient Hebrew word — Hineini, "Here I am" — through the lens of one of the newest challenges facing us: artificial intelligence.
 
Weaving together the Binding of Isaac, a teaching from the Mussar master Rabbi Eliyahu Lopian, and the work of Israeli thinker Micah Goodman, Rabbi Zweiback asks what AI can and cannot give us — and what it means to keep practicing the very human capacities technology can't replace: listening, patience, forgiveness, showing up for one another when there's nothing to fix.

A personal reflection on loss, presence, and the difference between a tool that serves us and a person who makes a claim on our lives.

What can Torah teach us about anxiety, grief, resilience, shame—and the work of healing a shattered heart?
On this episode of Search for Meaning, I sit down with Rabbi Dr. Tal Sessler, author of Torah for Mental Health: Jewish Wisdom for Psychological Growth. A rabbi, philosopher, spiritual counselor, and psychotherapist-in-training, Tal has spent his career exploring the intersection of Jewish wisdom, philosophy, and the human search for meaning.
His new book begins with a striking Jewish idea: brokenness is not an aberration. According to the Kabbalistic teaching of shevirat ha-kelim—the breaking of the vessels—it is woven into the very fabric of creation. From there, Tal brings Torah into conversation with contemporary psychology, exploring Moses’s despair, Jacob’s wrestling, Joseph as a “wounded healer,” and the extraordinary human capacity for resilience and growth.
We talk about what rabbis can learn from therapists—and therapists from rabbis; the difference between surviving trauma and growing through it; and whether faith and religious practice can actually help heal what the Psalmist calls the “shattered heart.”
We also discuss a particularly moving connection between Tal and Rachel Goldberg-Polin. At the beginning of her memoir about her son Hersh, When We See You Again, she quotes three words from Tal: “Words are redemptive.” We explore what those words mean in the aftermath of unimaginable loss—and why telling our stories can itself become part of the work of healing.
It’s a conversation about brokenness and resilience, Torah and psychology, the power of language, and what Jewish wisdom can teach us about becoming more whole.
Learn more about Tal at https://www.rabbisessler.com