Search for Meaning with Rabbi Yoshi - Search for Meaning with Rabbi Sari Laufer

Search for Meaning with Rabbi Sari Laufer

08/31/22 • 65 min

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.

The topic of Rabbi Sari's early Jewish learning brings up the subject of gender equity and representation.

A tangent about how New Yorkers use hands to talk—Rabbi Sari just finished reading "True Biz," a novel about the deaf community, which is all about non-verbal communication—leads to a fascinating discussion about liturgical sign language interpreters.

All of these are weaved into the story of how Rabbi Sari came to find her calling, and how she came to Wise.

The only child of a Conservadox mom and a classical Reform dad (both from Long Island), Rabbi Sari's story covers growing up in Manhattan, spending her summers at camp, her first trip to Israel, and her desire to work for the State Department and help solve the Middle East peace crisis.

A lover of languages (and now an avid viewer of Apple TV+'s "Tehran"), she was set to learn Hebrew and Arabic when she got to Northwestern University. When she arrived, though, she experienced something new: As a Jew, she was a minority. Growing up in New York, "There were no shortage of Jews," she says. "That was the overriding culture in New York City. All of these things are so baked in."

She sought out Jewish community in a way that she never had, and took a class that would change her life: Introduction to Judaism. For the first time, she encountered the academic side of Judaism—theology, theodicy, and philosophy—and fell in love.

The topic of Rabbi Sari's early Jewish learning brings up the subject of gender equity and representation.

All of these are weaved into the story of how Rabbi Sari came to find her calling, and how she came to Wise.

Previous Episode

Search for Meaning with Rabbi Susan Silverman

In the latest edition of his Search for Meaning podcast, Stephen Wise Temple Senior Rabbi Yoshi Zweiback hosts Rabbi Susan Silverman, the founder of Second Nurture, a nonprofit dedicated to supporting a path from foster care to adoption.

"I grew up in a family that fostered kids, so I saw that up close," Rabbi Silverman says. "Also, I'm a rabbi, and I really believe strongly in the power of community, so I put the two together."

In 2016, after meeting hundreds of people in dozens of cities across North America while touring with her book, "Casting Lots: Creating a Family in a Beautiful, Broken World," Rabbi Silverman was convinced that many more people would foster and adopt, if only they had support and direction.

"Parenting in general is daunting," says Rabbi Silverman, who has adopted two children. "Foster parenting is extra daunting. The process itself is overwhelming."

Rabbi Yoshi, who now serves on the organization's board, was one of the first people Rabbi Silverman approached with her idea: An organization that would lower the barrier to entry for foster and adoptive parents by providing guidance, fellowship, and community to those who had the desire to foster and adopt, but lacked the expertise, experience, and wisdom such a community could provide. In 2017, she founded Second Nurture.

Fully acknowledging the disproportionate rate at which minority children are separated from families who may very well be able to care for them, Rabbi Silverman has been adamant that Second Nurture operate with racial justice in mind. Studyafter studyhas found that aging out of foster care (or merely being "in the system") carries a strong direct correlation with future incarceration. Beyond providing logistical support to families willing to foster and adopt, Second Nurture also works to address the racial disparities and injustices endemic to the foster care system.

"We are not policy people," Rabbi Silverman says. "We are not the judges who decide these cases. But, we can say, 'We want to know what the situation is.' We want to have a special kind of program where we're able to foster kids and support the bio family ... We can be a part of a solution, and to partner with people who do have the power, so that we can move this forward in a positive way."

Next Episode

Search for Meaning with Alan Niku

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 language and a deep and abiding sense of curiosity.

That curiosity led Niku—who grew up speaking Farsi—to delve into the language his Kurdish grandfather spoke. The more he learned, the more he realized that his grandfather wasn't speaking Kurdish, but a dialect of Aramaic—the language of the Talmud and parts of the Hebrew Bible.

Niku has used language as a window to history, as he has used linguistics to explore the development and nuance in the politics, culture, and faith, not to mention sociology, psychology, and human geography. Through Persian and Jewish languages, he has charted the unique blend of Jewish ritual and worship that developed in Persian Jewish communities.

You won't want to miss a minute of this fascinating look into Jewish history, including a manuscript dating from the 1700s.