Podcasts Archives - Jewish Sacred Aging Rabbi Richard Address-Jewish Sacred Aging

On this week’s episode of the Seekers of Meaning TV Show and Podcast, Lisa David, executive director, URJ Camps/Camp Harlam and URJ Camps Pipeline Strategy, and Lori Zlotoff, inclusion coordinator at URJ Camp Harlam, discuss the importance of summer camp experiences for Jewish children and teenagers.







Seekers of Meaning TV Show and Podcast Now Available on Roku Streaming Service







You can add the Jewish Sacred Aging TV channel to your Roku streaming subscription by visiting this page: https://channelstore.roku.com/details/600964/jewish-sacred-aging.







You can also watch this week’s show in the player below. The shows now include closed-captioning for the deaf or people with a hearing loss. Click the “CC” button on the video player to activate closed-captions.



















Listen to the Audio Podcast







You can listen to the audio podcast version in the player below, or subscribe to the podcast in one of the popular platforms by clicking one of the buttons below the player.















About the Guests









Lisa DavidExecutive Director, URJ Camps







Lisa returned to Camp Harlam as the Associate Director in April of 2014 and was promoted to be camp’s sixth Director in history in 2017. Lisa began her involvement with Camp Harlam as a camper in Arava in 1988, continuing through as a camper, CIT, staff member, Assistant Unit Head, and as the CIT Director in the summer of 2000. Her Harlam connections run far deeper, as she also met her husband Ben in the summer of 1988, and she has maintained connections to many of her counselors and campers, serving for a brief time as the Co-President of the Alumni Network as well.







Before returning to Harlam, Lisa worked as Associate Director of Camping for the URJ, working with all of the camps in the URJ system on a range of different programmatic initiatives. She also served as the Director of KESHER, the College Department of the URJ, and as the Assistant Camp Director and Director of Teen Services and the Jewish Community Center of Central New Jersey.







Lisa grew up in Bucks County, PA, and graduated from the University of Maryland in 1999 with a BS in Family Studies. In 2001 Lisa received her Master of Social Work from the University of Pennsylvania and her Master of Jewish Communal Service from Gratz College.







Lisa is thrilled to be back at the camp that inspired her personal and professional path. Beyond the Machanayim scar still visible on her knee (Red Team, 2nd session 1990), camp – and the inspiring leaders and peers she experienced it with – left an indelible mark on her identity as well. They inspired her to grow from a shy, quiet 1st time camper at 11 years old to a Jewish camping professional working to provide a meaningful and fulfilling camp experience for many more Jewish youth.







In Lisa’s role as the Director, she oversees Harlam’s complete summer program and all operations.   







Lisa currently lives in Jenkintown, PA with her husband, Rabbi Benjamin David, and their children Noa, Elijah and Sam, and is a member of Temple Keneseth Israel.











Lori Zlotoff







Lori Zlotoff, LCSW, grew up in Merrick, NY and was an active member of NFTY throughout high ...

On this week’s episode of the Seekers of Meaning TV Show and Podcast, Reb Simcha Raphael, Ph.D., discusses his new book of poetry, Musings with the Angel of Death: Poems of Love, Life and Longing.









Intense and deeply personal, this compilation of poetry, grapples with the reality of death, loss, and finding meaning in the face of life’s finitude in contemporary times. For more than three decades, Simcha Paull Raphael has written scholarly books on death and the afterlife, including his groundbreaking study Jewish Views of the Afterlife. In this collection of thirty-six poems, Raphael invites us into the inner sanctum of his own intimate wrestling with death and loss. As Rabbi Jill Hammer writes in the Foreword: “Raphael has done the brave work of exposing his own emotional life, the inner workings of his drive to address mortality and immortality. In a sense, he has let us know the behind-the-scenes of his academic and spiritual work.”







These poems reflect and wrestle with a spectrum of topics: the gamut of Jewish death rituals (funeral & shiva, Kaddish & Yizkor); personal tributes to the author’s deceased parents; his journey of making meaning in the face of grief and loss; challenges of love and marriage; the vicissitudes of family life; and thoughtful poetic reflections on the state of the world today. As a book mirroring the universal journey of awakening to the reality of life’s finality and eternity, Musings with the Angel of Death speaks to the heart and soul.









Seekers of Meaning TV Show and Podcast Now Available on Roku Streaming Service







You can add the Jewish Sacred Aging TV channel to your Roku streaming subscription by visiting this page: https://channelstore.roku.com/details/600964/jewish-sacred-aging.







You can also watch this week’s show in the player below. The shows now include closed-captioning for the deaf or people with a hearing loss. Click the “CC” button on the video player to activate closed-captions.



















Listen to the Audio Podcast







You can listen to the audio podcast version in the player below, or subscribe to the podcast in one of the popular platforms by clicking one of the buttons below the player.















About the Guest











Rabbi Simcha Raphael











Reb Simcha Paull Raphael, Ph.D.







SIMCHA RAPHAEL, Ph.D., is the Founding Director of the DA’AT INSTITUTE. He has worked as a death awareness educator, bereavement counselor and hospice chaplain for over twenty-five years. Ordained as a Rabbinic Pastor by Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, he received a doctorate in Psychology from the California Institute of Integral Studies, and has written extensively on the topics of death, bereavement and the afterlife

On this week’s episode of the Seekers of Meaning TV Show and Podcast, Rabbi Mark Washofsky, PhD, discusses his new book, Reading Reform Responsa: Jewish Tradition, Reform Rabbis, and Today’s Issues, now available from CCAR Press or Amazon.com.









The responsa literature, in which rabbis answer questions about halachah (Jewish law), is a vast treasury reaching back nearly fifteen centuries; Reform rabbis have been writing responsa since the 1800s. In Reading Reform Responsa, Rabbi Mark Washofsky, PhD, presents a deep dive into this literature, boldly arguing that Reform Judaism is indeed a movement fundamentally based on halachah. By inviting and guiding readers to understand Reform responsa with a critical eye, he shows that our movement has always been informed by Jewish law as well as Reform history. A teacher and mentor of generations of students at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, Rabbi Washofsky gives us a peek inside his classroom, making Reform responsa — and their history, framing, and context — engaging and accessible for all.









Seekers of Meaning TV Show and Podcast Now Available on Roku Streaming Service







You can add the Jewish Sacred Aging TV channel to your Roku streaming subscription by visiting this page: https://channelstore.roku.com/details/600964/jewish-sacred-aging.







You can also watch this week’s show in the player below. The shows now include closed-captioning for the deaf or people with a hearing loss. Click the “CC” button on the video player to activate closed-captions.



















Listen to the Audio Podcast







You can listen to the audio podcast version in the player below, or subscribe to the podcast in one of the popular platforms by clicking one of the buttons below the player.















About the Guest























Rabbi Mark Washofsky, Ph.D.







Rabbi Mark Washofsky, PhD, is an emeritus professor of Jewish Law and Practice at Hebrew Union College–Jewish Institute of Religion in Cincinnati. He served as chair of the Responsa Committee of the Central Conference of American Rabbis from 1996 to 2017. He is currently the chair of the Solomon B. Freehof Institute of Progressive Halakhah. His publications include Jewish Living: A Guide to Contemporary Reform Practice, a href="http://ravblog.ccarnet.org?action=user_content_redirect&uuid=bbb188f1b25d87ac4298861e335bc2dfa55db2cd47cedfdcd34105c9d32aca6e&blog_id=51719418&post_id=6355&user_id=94231411&subs_id=565560562&s...

On this week’s episode of the Seekers of Meaning TV Show and Podcast, Shira Zemel, Abortion Access Campaign Co-Director for the National Council of Jewish Women, discusses the organization’s efforts to protect women’s reproductive freedom.







Since its founding, NCJW has been a leader in the reproductive health and rights movement, and while much advancement has been made in the past 100 years to legally secure a person’s right to abortion and contraception, there is so much more that needs to be done to truly ensure reproductive freedom for all.







Seekers of Meaning TV Show and Podcast Now Available on Roku Streaming Service







You can add the Jewish Sacred Aging TV channel to your Roku streaming subscription by visiting this page: https://channelstore.roku.com/details/600964/jewish-sacred-aging.







You can also watch this week’s show in the player below. The shows now include closed-captioning for the deaf or people with a hearing loss. Click the “CC” button on the video player to activate closed-captions.



















Listen to the Audio Podcast







You can listen to the audio podcast version in the player below, or subscribe to the podcast in one of the popular platforms by clicking one of the buttons below the player.















About the Guest























Shira Zemel







Shira Zemel is the Co-Director of National Council of Jewish Women (NCJW)’s abortion access campaign, the coordinated Jewish movement for reproductive health, rights and justice. In this role, Shira activates and mobilizes the Jewish community to take action for abortion access.







Prior to coming to NCJW, Shira was the Director of Youth Leadership Development at the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism (RAC). There, Shira led the L’Taken Social Justice Seminars; these high school leadership conferences–focused on advocacy, Jewish values, and the legislative process–bring 2,000 students to Washington D.C. each year to lobby their members of Congress. Over nearly eight years at the RAC, Shira transformed these seminars into the centerpiece of a leadership development pipeline to foster the next generation of Jewish social justice advocates. 







Shira serves as president of the ARCH board, a local abortion fund serving patients seeking care in northern Virginia. When not getting into good trouble and fighting for a just world, Shira enjoys curating feminist yard signs for her front lawn, listening to news and politics podcasts, and working on seasonal craft projects–preferably with her two young kids.

On this week’s episode of the Seekers of Meaning TV Show and Podcast, Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch, senior rabbi of the Stephen Wise Free Synagogue in New York, discusses the upcoming second annual Re-Charging Reform conference, being held at the synagogue May 29-30.







The conference expects to consider these key topics:









* Israel’s and world Jewry’s confidence in the importance of the Zionist enterprise and its most basic promise — to protect the lives, liberty and dignity of Jews;







* Our liberal values and examine the partnerships we’ve spent decades building in pursuit of social justice;







* Liturgy and spirituality, anchoring them to eloquent expressions of Jewish peoplehood and a yearning for Zion; and







* Educational models that guide the next generation in valuing the significance of Israel and the Jewish people to our identity as Reform Jews.









Seekers of Meaning TV Show and Podcast Now Available on Roku Streaming Service







You can add the Jewish Sacred Aging TV channel to your Roku streaming subscription by visiting this page: https://channelstore.roku.com/details/600964/jewish-sacred-aging.







You can also watch this week’s show in the player below. The shows now include closed-captioning for the deaf or people with a hearing loss. Click the “CC” button on the video player to activate closed-captions.



















Listen to the Audio Podcast







You can listen to the audio podcast version in the player below, or subscribe to the podcast in one of the popular platforms by clicking one of the buttons below the player.















About the Guest











Shahar Azan Photo











Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch







Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch is the senior rabbi of Stephen Wise Free Synagogue in New York City. With a fiery voice, a listening heart and a brilliant mind, Rabbi Hirsch articulates a clear vision for the survival and success of American Judaism while tending compassionately to the needs of his growing congregation.







Internationally recognized for his leadership in Jewish affairs, Rabbi Hirsch is frequently cited in the media. In 2018, The Jerusalem Post named him among “The 50 Most Influential Jews of the Year.” City & State praised him as “the borough’s most influential voice” for Manhattan’s more than 300,000 Jews and The New York Observer named him among “New York’s Most Influential Religious Leaders.”







The son of Rabbi Richard G. Hirsch z’’l and Bella Hirsch z’’l, Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch grew up in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area before moving to Israel for his high school years. From 1977 to 1980, he served as a tank commander in the Israel Defense Forces.







Rabbi Hirsch earned his LL.B Honors law degree from the London School of Economics and is a member of the New York State Bar. He received his ordination at the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in New York City,

On this week’s episode of the Seekers of Meaning TV Show and Podcast, Rabbi Address offers a Pesach message and some questions for conversation around the Passover table.







Seekers of Meaning TV Show and Podcast Now Available on Roku Streaming Service







You can add the Jewish Sacred Aging TV channel to your Roku streaming subscription by visiting this page: https://channelstore.roku.com/details/600964/jewish-sacred-aging.







You can also watch this week’s show in the player below. The shows now include closed-captioning for the deaf or people with a hearing loss. Click the “CC” button on the video player to activate closed-captions.



















Listen to the Audio Podcast







You can listen to the audio podcast version in the player below, or subscribe to the podcast in one of the popular platforms by clicking one of the buttons below the player.