Rabbi Yoshi sits down with Gary Grappo, former U.S. Ambassador to Oman, Chief of Staff of the Quartet, and foreign policy expert with more than four decades of experience in the Middle East. Ambassador Grappo helps us understand the situation in Syria, the rise of Hay's Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and its leader, Abu Muhammad al-Jawlani.

Rabbi Josh Feigelson was appointed Executive Director of IJS in January 2020 and became President & CEO in April 2022. He received ordination from Yeshivat Chovevei Torah Rabbinical School in 2005, and served for six years as the Hillel Rabbi at Northwestern University, where he also earned a PhD in Religious Studies. In 2011, Josh helped found and served as Executive Director of Ask Big Questions, an initiative of Hillel International, which won the inaugural Lippman-Kanfer Prize for Applied Jewish Wisdom. Josh has also been a consultant and Senior Fellow at The iCenter for Israel Education. Most recently he served as Dean of Students at the University of Chicago Divinity School. Josh is a Wexner Graduate Fellow and was the founding co-chair of the Wexner Fellowship Alumni Committee. He is the author of Eternal Questions: Reflections, Conversations, and Jewish Mindfulness Practices for the Weekly Torah Portion (Ben Yehuda [...]

Rabbi Yoshi shares his Yom Kippur Yizkor sermon which honors the memory of his mother, Hermene Davis Zweiback, who died 25 years ago. A few weeks before the Jewish New Year while cleaning up around the house, Rabbi Yoshi came across the gratitude journal his mom kept in the last month of her life. The sermon is a reflection on the lessons it contains. While it's a very personal remembrance, it's also universal -- it's about the people who are dear to each of us and the meaning their lives give to ours. The outro music of this episode is a setting of the Sim Shalom prayer that Rabbi Yoshi composed in his mother's memory twenty-four years ago. You can listen to it wherever you stream your music.

Peter Himmelman is a Grammy and Emmy nominated singer-songwriter, visual artist, best-selling author, film composer, entrepreneur, and rock and roll performer with over 20 critically acclaimed recordings to his credit. In addition to his own creative work, he is the founder of Big Muse, a company, which helps organizations to leverage the power of their people’s innate creativity. Clients include The Wharton School, The UPennCLO Executive Doctoral Program, 3M, McDonald’s, Adobe, and Gap Inc. His most recent book, Let Me Out (Unlock your creative mind and bring your ideas to life) was released in October, 2016. Peter also holds an Advanced Management Certificate from The Kellogg School of Business, at Northwestern and a Certificate of Leadership Development from the United States Army War College.