Search for Meaning with Rabbi Yoshi

Rabbi Yoshi had the opportunity to speak to three current students at Princeton University's Center for Jewish Life along with the CJL director, Rabbi Gil Steinlauf. Stephen Bartell, Davi Frank, and Seth Kahn, all current Princeton students, share their stories of navigating challenges on the Princeton Campus in the wake of the October 7 attacks.
https://hillel.princeton.edu/

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 serving the Jewish community. Before taking over OFJCC, he spent 14 years as the Pacific Northwest Regional Director of AIPAC. During his time heading the OFJCC, he oversaw the launch of the Taube Center for Jewish Peoplehood, and helped create the Center for Social Impact, which is committed to tikkun olam initiatives that address poverty, disaster relief, racial justice, and more.

His new book discusses what it means to live a meaningful, relevant, and joyful Jewish life. Bodner touches on the role of Jewish education in general, and Jewish preschools in particular, including Wise's Aaron Milken Center. Bodner also touches on the evolution of interfaith marriages and Judaism's relevance to our increasingly multifaceted sense of personal identity.

What, though, does it mean to "do" Jewish, instead of just "being" Jewish?

"In my mind, how you live and what you do is way more important," Bodner says. "I start the book off with this quote from David BenGurion: 'Words without deeds are nothing,' because it really is, in my mind, about the doing."

There is a lot of tikkun olam in Bodner's conception of "doing" Jewish.

In the midst of an existential crisis while working as a legislative assistant in Sacramento shortly after graduate school, Bodner came to a realization: The meaning of life was to be God's partner in creation. He touches on the kabbalist tradition of divine light: "Our purpose in life, our meaning, is to be God's partners in creation, because when God created the universe, it was imperfect, it was incomplete, so we exist to finish the work, and we do that by fixing the brokenness, by making the pain go away, by helping bring other people joy, and enjoying it ourselves. That was the notion that hit me, all at once."

Documentarian Dr. Victor Pineda spoke with Rabbi Yoshi about his incredible story traveling the world as an activist and advocate for disability rights—he has 12 bends in his body due to a yet-unnamed muscular disorder. In the film "12 Bends," and in his discussion with Rabbi Yoshi, Dr. Pineda speaks about navigating a world that was not built for him or those like him.

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, presents Oskar Schindler with a ring. On it, he explains, are engraved words from the Talmud that say: "Whoever saves one life saves the world entire."

Schindler, played by Liam Neeson, is clearly moved. As he reaches out to shake Shtern's hand, he says, "I could have got more out ... if I had just ..."

"No, no, no," Shtern says: "... There are 1,100 people who are alive because of you—look at them ... There will be generations because of what you did."

"I didn't do enough," Schindler says.

"You did so much," Shtern tells him.

The survivors whose lives Schindler saved really did give him a ring as a token of their appreciation. The gold was sourced from their fillings which they volunteered to the ring maker.

But the part about the inscription from the Talmud was the invention of the filmmakers and, if you know your Talmud, you might actually think that they got the quote wrong.

The original text that teaches that "whoever saves one life saves the world entire" comes from tractate Sanhedrin and the context is interesting and important.

It's part of the instructions a judge gives to witnesses in a capital case, warning them to be extra careful with their testimony since a person's life is literally at stake. To prove its point, the Talmud quotes a verse from the Bible, the one that describes the world's first murder—a fratricide—Cain killing his little brother Abel in jealousy and rage

In the story from the Torah, immediately after the murder, God says to Cain, "What have you done?!?! The blood of your brother cries out to me from the ground." (Gen. 4:10) The Rabbis notice though that the word "blood" in Hebrew is in the plural, literally, "the bloods of your brother - דְּמֵ֣י אָחִ֔יךָ." Why the plural? Because, the rabbis reason, Cain didn't just kill Abel. He killed all of Abel's potential descendants—generations that might have come to be had he lived.

And then the Talmud teaches: "Therefore the creation of all humanity began with just one individual soul—the first human—to teach you that whoever destroys one soul ..., destroys an entire world. And whoever saves one soul ... saves an entire world."

A person is an entire world because all humanity can descend from that one soul.

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Jeremy Ben-Ami, President of J Street, recently spoke with Rabbi Yoshi for a fascinating discussion about finding common ground among American Jewry when it comes to Israel. Together they cover the current, evolving landscape of Israeli politics and how Jews can come together no matter where they stand.