Search for Meaning with Rabbi Yoshi

What began in a family garage during the COVID-19 pandemic has grown into one of Los Angeles's most inspiring volunteer movements.
In this episode of Search for Meaning, Rabbi Yoshi Zweiback sits down with Yossi Segelman, founder of Our Big Kitchen Los Angeles (OBKLA), to explore how a simple act of kindness became an extraordinary force for good.
In 2020, Yossi and his wife, Chaya, began assembling snack boxes for hospital workers and first responders. Soon, they were preparing meals for people experiencing food insecurity. Today, OBKLA has welcomed some 80,000 volunteers, prepared more than 700,000 meals, and inspired similar kitchens across the country.
But for Yossi, the numbers tell only part of the story.
Guided by four principles—Meals, Love, Unity, and Community—OBKLA brings people of different faiths, backgrounds, and generations together to prepare fresh, nutritious kosher meals for anyone in need. Along the way, volunteers discover something equally nourishing: connection, purpose, and the joy of doing good together.
Rabbi Yoshi and Yossi discuss the Jewish values that animate OBKLA's work, the remarkable story of Holocaust survivor Margaret Feder, whose memory lives on through the kitchen, and the unexpected ways that preparing meals together can build bridges in an increasingly divided world. They also reflect on a recent gathering of volunteers from Stephen Wise Temple and Greater Zion Church Family in Compton, who came together to prepare 900 meals in a single evening.
For Yossi, who spent decades in the jewelry business before finding his calling in community service, the work has transformed his understanding of success. Every volunteer represents a world of possibility, and every meal is an opportunity to honor another human being.
It's a conversation about gratitude, generosity, Jewish identity, and the extraordinary ripple effects of a simple mitzvah.
Because sometimes the most meaningful way to change the world is one meal at a time.
Want to get involved? Experience the joy of volunteering at OBKLA! Whether you come on your own, with family and friends, or with colleagues, you'll help prepare delicious meals for Angelenos in need while building connections with others.
Visit www.obkla.org to learn more, or sign up for a volunteer session.

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