Search for Meaning with Mandana Dayani

In this episode, Mandana Dayani joins Rabbi Yoshi Zweiback for a candid and wide-ranging conversation on maintaining a sense of purpose within an increasingly complex world.

Drawing on her personal history as an Iranian-born Jewish refugee, Mandana provides a vital human perspective on the impact of regime change and the nuances of Iranian history that often go overlooked. Together, they explore the core values—gratitude, creativity, and community—that anchor her work and life.

Key highlights of their discussion include:

• The "One Mitzvah a Day" Initiative: Exploring how a simple call to action, rooted in Jewish tradition, serves as a practical framework for purposeful living.
• Identity and Authenticity: A look at the importance of embracing one's full self and finding the courage to navigate significant life transitions.
• Meaning Amidst Uncertainty: Insights into how we can find opportunities for growth and connection, even when the world feels unpredictable.

This conversation is an invitation to live with greater intention and to discover that meaning is often found not by avoiding uncertainty, but by engaging with it. It is a thoughtful reflection on how individual actions can foster a deeper sense of global community.

https://www.mandanadayani.com/

One of Mandana's favorite recipes for lemon saffron chicken 

More Persian Jewish Food

One Mitzvah a Day

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Everything that I wanted to tell my kids was everything that sort of my mom and my grandmother and my grandparents and all of these sort of brilliant ancient minds sort of taught us that I just took for granted.

SPEAKER_03 0:23

Welcome to Search for Meaning. Thank you so much for joining me. My guest today is someone I've known for a long time, and I'm finally getting a chance to sit down and have her on the podcast, which I'm so, so grateful for. Mandana Diani, you're gonna, you probably already know her. But over the course of our conversation, I think you'll get to know her a lot better and you'll see why this is such an important moment, actually, for this conversation. So even though it took a while, I'm really, really glad that this is the moment that we get to be together. Mandana, obviously, as we're recording this, people will soon understand the context. We're recording this right in the middle of the war between Iran, United States, Israel. Your own experience as someone who was born in Iran and has Kurdish, Iranian, obviously Jewish background. Tell me a little bit about how you are navigating this moment.

SPEAKER_01 1:17

It's just surreal. It's hard to sort of explain how hard it is to hold so many truths at one time. Um, there's so much misinformation, there's so much polarization. I think when we fled Iran, I don't I never thought I could go back home, right? It's really weird to be forced out of Iran and then trying to figure out where you do belong, right? So I I mean, I was always raised with this profound sense of patriotism because America saved our lives. That the Persian culture was my culture, but that that homeland was not mine. And that anti-Semitism sort of engulfed the world again, that the only safe place for me would be Israel. And so it's weird because it's sort of all three of my identity is in turmoil right now without any real sense of sort of what is gonna happen. I don't think I ever contemplated that I could back to the park I grew up at, you know, like I could take my daughters there and that we could go and visit my favorite places and see the beautiful mountains and all the things that sort of like were so important to me as a child. So the idea that that's even a possibility is just like overwhelming the upwards. And then, you know, you think about as someone who's just does a lot in the political advocacy space. I I don't think there is one single thing that will have a greater impact on the world than the removal of this regime. I mean, across the entire world, this is the highest impact that could ever happen. This is the head of the snake, this is you know, the way that we stop the conflict in the Middle East, terrorism spreading, the misinformation wars that are happening, all the election interference. I mean, there's so much that comes from this and the destabilization that results from the obsessive and nihilistic nature of this terroristic regime. So, I mean, that feels surreal. The Shah who I grew up revering because it was sort of the golden age where my parents could live freely. And you know, they talk when I grew up and I had like a frame picture of the Shah of Iran and his wife. And so to see his son possibly return as this transitional leader that we've needed for so long to just help restore Iran to its greatness that it always was. I mean, I mean we talk about Iran forever, but yeah, it's um I I don't know, it's it's really surreal. I can't think of another word.

SPEAKER_03 3:53

Well, I can only imagine all the layers of memory and longing and hope, and then not just your own memories, but then the memories that you're inheriting from parents and grandparents' stories and photos and all those different things. So there's so much that you're carrying. How do you help someone understand? Because you do such a beautiful job online and with your Substack and in other places of really trying to communicate all of this. How do you explain that to someone who doesn't have the background and really bring it down to a level where anyone could get on board?

SPEAKER_01 4:30

Prior to this regime, Iran was a leader in the world across so many sectors. I mean, the country was thriving across its economic prosperity, its contributions to art, literature, architecture, sciences. We produced some of the greatest doctors and scientists ever. Contributions going back as far back from Cyrus the Great to ideas of civil rights and human rights. Some of the greatest poets come from Iran. And so much of my personal inspiration, even in fashion and art, come from this territory. I mean, I think it's one of the greatest cuisines in the world. I think even Anthony Bourdain had talked so much about just sort of the richness and culture and the food and the spices. I mean, it's it's this magical place and magical people. And think about the since this regime has taken over in 1979, their singular obsession has been the destruction of Israel and the destruction of the United States. So when I was a kid in Iran, every single morning in school, I would have to chant death to America, death to Israel, death to America, death to Israel. That was the singular obsession and focus of this regime. And now you look at these women community as a full gender apartheid. And so, I mean, what they've done against rights for animals, human women, LGBTQ, economic freedoms, it's I mean, it's really just it's their own human rights violations internally are terrible. And then you think about the fact that they have funded all of the proxy wars in the so the Hamas, Houtis, Hezbollah are all funded by the Iranian regime. Not the Iranian people. The Iranian people are amazing. They feel like they have been held hostage by this regime, they want nothing but the removal of this regime. And so when you take away the funding, Iran has billions of dollars a year that it spends on proxy wars and on misinformation and um indoctrination of other people. So the amount of investment they put into terrorism, into training other people, to creating misinformation, to indoctrinating people on the internet, they are interfering with our elections, they're participating in what you're seeing on campuses now. There is so much that they're doing to meddle with us. They literally have people that they pay to focus on creating intersectionality between the Iranian regime and what they call like the stupid like Westerners in the United States. So literally have people that go on chat box and I mean in chat groups constantly all day and talk about the sort of, hey, let's build unity between the regime in Iran and this LGBTQ community or this Latinx community. Um, and it's all lies, right? But they spread misinformation that they make look real. And that has created so much division in our country, which is what they want. There is just so much instability that I believe would go away if they were replaced by anyone that was sane.

SPEAKER_03 7:42

Literally anyone. Um, I mean, one of the things that's so extraordinary about a moment like this is all the different scenario possibilities and all of the things that could happen. And one of the things that can be paralyzing is to acknowledge that, well, it could be worse. You know, it is possible for something to be worse. But it seems to me, as a non-expert who's taken great interest in this story for decades, I remember as a kid the hostage crisis in 1979. It's not like that's absent from my own personal experience. And then having spent so much time in Israel and knowing so many of the things that you just talked about as being deeply felt by everyday Israelis. And by the way, my conversations when I've called friends over the last several weeks asking, how are they doing? How are they holding up? The support for this war is extremely high. And everyday Israelis across the political spectrum uh really feeling like this is the moment to try to affect real change there. But even going back to the idea of not knowing what the future, yes, things could always be worse, but the likelihood that you would get something worse than this regime seems small enough that it's worth the risk. And everything I've been told by people who actually grew up in Iran, people who still have family there and spend uh time on the phone and you know connecting to people, is it is an extraordinary people. There's such incredible human capital. And that's one of the saddest things about any tyrannical regime is that you see what it does to everyday human potential. I wanted to side note that's uh not along the depth of the geopolitical things we were talking about, but you did mention Persian cuisine, which I have I have come to really appreciate and love having had the opportunity to spend many Shabbat meals and Rosh Hashanah seders and other kinds of things with people. What are some of your own go-to dishes? What are things that you love to prepare? And for listeners, um, you know, maybe we can put some links in there so they can find find their way to some of these recipes.

SPEAKER_01 9:52

Persian Jews have something called gondi. Um, there's a many, I think there's a few different kinds of it. The one that we have, which is made with chickpea and ground chicken, is amazing. Um, we usually have that on Shabbat's. There's a stew called rey meh, that's probably my favorite.

SPEAKER_02 10:06

How do you pronounce it?

SPEAKER_01 10:08

Um, that's probably one of my favorites. It's amazing also. Um it's like it's it's tomate, it's like red and tomato base, and there's yellow lentils in it, and you can make it with beef or chicken. Um, it's it's fantastic. I love it.

SPEAKER_03 10:23

What's what's horses?

SPEAKER_01 10:25

I mean stew. That's that's just a general so there's like korash dip or masabzi. I'm sure you've had fest and sabzi. There's a lot of them. They're amazing calfs. But yeah, I love those. I love all the different rices. Zerash polo is one of my favorites. That's the one with with like the mini, mini currants. It's a little sour. It's amazing. Um, I love saffron, so I cook a lot with saffron. I actually make my own saffron oil that I put on everything and I give to my friend. Um, it's great. I love, I mean, I love Persian. So to me, that is like it's always been the great like greatest expression of love because I think I was just raised by these like amazing, powerful women who, you know, my grandma would always say, like, touch food, and that's how you express love. And uh, so yeah, that's cool. My grandmother actually, when she moved to the US and came to Lai, she bought a house here. And so she was the grand matrix, and we called her the dawn. Um, every time someone adulted, they would buy a house near her because they wanted to be near her, because she was a legend. Um, so all of us sort of moved there. And I always say, like, one of the greatest things she left us, her legacy was this little village on the top of the hill. Because we all now live within walking distance of each other. We have Shabbat dinners every Friday, and our kids walk, run over to each other's houses, and it's just this magical sort of like life.

SPEAKER_03 11:43

I was at your house when I delivered your daughter her Torah in the middle of COVID. Is that the same place?

SPEAKER_00 11:51

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 11:52

So we I was just talking about this this morning because our sixth graders this year were the class who were kindergartners in 2020. And it was right about you know, this time of the year that everything closed down. And in May of 2020, we were going to invite all of our kindergartners in person to receive their little baby Torah scrolls. And it was actually a really beautiful moment, and uh which we did on Zoom, the staff, because we were not with each other in person, and we figured out well, if we divided the list up and everybody went, we could hand deliver every single Torah scroll to every family. And looking back on it, I mean, it it's just so bizarre that we went through that, you know.

SPEAKER_01 12:33

It was yeah, I remember that meant so much that you did that. It was also like that sort of peak insanity of COVID where I went on, I don't know what to do with my kids. So I went on Target and bought every bouncy house they had, and it created an entire like bouncy house gym in my like entryway. So when you came over, it was like guys closed.

SPEAKER_03 12:54

Don't come, don't come flying out the door.

SPEAKER_01 12:56

Oh, let him see what we build inside our house.

SPEAKER_03 12:59

The the indoor bouncy house is great. We had when my kids were little, we lived in Palo Alto, and we had a house with kind of an open plan and it was very high ceiling in one room. And I was at Target one day and there was like a clearance sale on a bouncy house. Yeah. I came home with it, and my wife was like, What have you done? I was like, check it out. We can set this up inside. If it's a rainy day, if the kids are going crazy, we can have indoor bouncy house, which we did, and it was awesome.

SPEAKER_01 13:27

Yeah, and then we got more, and then we started connecting them. It was um probably crazy.

SPEAKER_03 13:32

So I think it was about a year ago you reached out with your one mitzvah a day initiative. Was it about a year? Does that sound about right? Maybe.

SPEAKER_01 13:41

Yeah, we launched January of last year.

SPEAKER_03 13:44

It was just such a beautiful concept and beautiful to learn about. Tell everybody a little bit about the origin of that and where you came up with this idea and maybe a story or two about things that people shared with you about some of the mitzvahs they were doing.

SPEAKER_01 13:59

So after October 7th, I went to Israel, I would say three weeks after the attack. I'd done a lot of work in the misinformation space. And when I got to Israel, it was very clear uh that there was an entire other war front that was happening in the digital sphere. And uh I raised a fund and got a big group of people together. We spent a lot of time working on intervention. And after about six months, um I really wanted to focus on building sort of this incubator, focusing on anti-Semitism. I, you know, I had created I'm a voter, which is uh a very big national uh nonpartisan civic engagement organization. And through that, I think learned so much about grassroots organizing and infrastructure. And so I think my, and as someone who's just built brands my whole life, I think my idea was that I would take the approach I did in incubating other brands and incubating I'm a voter, build sort of this incredible team, and we would pilot projects that we felt address very specific needs. And if and when they succeed, and we have proof of concept, we would work on getting them sort of acquired by one of the larger organizations. So we the first two we incubated were our Campus United and the OCU Chronicle, which were all focused on uh campus anti-Semitism. We traveled to all the schools, I met with all of the student leaders. Um, I you know, they were the real founders of this, and we just built like a stellar team of world-class creatives that were working with them and us. And that ultimately got acquired by Stan with us. And then one mitzvah day really came out of this idea. I had been talking with my friend Shandon Watts, who created Moms to Man Action, which is our the largest grassroots organization in American history. And she kept saying, you know, let's build, you need to build infrastructure, you need to build grassroots organizing. And I kept thinking about like what the right way to do that would be. And um, I went, I was in DC actually, and my friend who's a congressman looked at me and he said, Mandana, it's listen, I can be as pro-Israel as you want me to be. But every time I say something, you know, in support of Israel, I get, you know, my team is filled, fielding a thousand phone calls of people calling us, all sorts of crazy things. And to be honest, you guys rarely say thank you. And you rarely show up in like t-shirts, you know, with our names on it, standing by us when we stand by you. And I was like, first of all, that's terrible. We should be better at this. But also, what a beautiful organizing principle to create a grassroots organization, right? Like, how beautiful to take one of the most important virtues of Judaism, which is gratitude and all these things that have mattered so much to me, um, and build an organizing principle around it. And so I knew I wanted people on a text platform because it would be so much easier to convert them in other ways and to do in other actions. And honestly, one of the questions I get asked the most is like, I don't know what to do. I don't know how to help. Like, how can I make a difference? Like, I hate how hard this feels. And so I was like, okay, we can give everyone one thing to do every day. And so one mitzvah day obviously was the the idea was when people stand with us, you know, we we stand with them. We say thank you, we show our gratitude, we show up for them. And so it needs to feel like a win, right? Like with when they show up and they stick they defend us, it needs to be processes a win. And as someone who's worked, you know, on presidential campaigns, like people pay attention to how many phone calls they get when they do something and they actually augment behavior based on what those numbers look like. That they have they they don't have many other metrics to sort of define success. And so if Trader Joe's is getting, you know, all this heat for selling Israeli fada and people are boycotting it, well, then they should get 5,000 emails that say, We're so happy, here's a picture of me with my Israeli fada. Like if members of uh, you know, bipartisan committees do something to support anti-Semitism, it should feel like a whip. They should be flooded with thank yous. Same thing with celebrities if they're wearing a hostage pin, like when Paramount does something. And so um, we know we had we just focused on creating something fun and joyful and cool and very easy. You click on, you know, you get a text every morning, you click a button, populates a thank you for you. And I think we've sent, I want to say, almost six and a half emails already. I mean, messages of gratitude since we launched last year. So it's been wildly successful. And I think um it has meant a lot to a lot of people. Like we hear people respond all the time, like, oh my God, thank you. This is so meaningful, like I'm always gonna be with you. And last year, Jewish Federation of North America ultimately acquired one mitzvah day. So now it sits under their umbrella and they're amazing. And we have such an amazing board of people that every single week work with um together to come up with these mitzvas and approve them.

SPEAKER_03 18:43

Do you have a favorite uh of all the mitzvas that you put out there as one particularly close to you and really speaks to who you are?

SPEAKER_00 18:52

That's a really good question. And I don't know the answer to that one.

SPEAKER_03 19:00

Let me share, and then you can think while while I'm sharing. But when I'm thinking, not from the work that you did in your nonprofit, but when I think about mitzvot in the Torah, one of the ones that always comes to mind that blows me away that it's part of our tradition, is it says if you are so poor that you're forced to pawn your jacket, you know, you have to you have to sell your your coat to buy a meal for your kid or whatever it is. It says that the person who takes it in pawn has to return it to you at night, which doesn't seem to make sense. Like that's not how it works in in pawn shops. Like it's theirs, then they can sell it. But if you can raise the funds, you can buy it back. But the idea is that you'd be so cold at night in the desert that you know you'd you'd freeze, you'd be shivering. So they say, okay, you take the person's jacket in pawn, you give them the money, and then at night they come back and say, you know, I need my jacket back tonight, but I'll bring it back tomorrow morning. And you give it back each night, which I just adore because it really doesn't seem to make sense. It's co it's counter to the way economics would suggest it should actually work. But it says, you know, there's what justice demands, and that is that people shouldn't be shivering in the middle of the night.

SPEAKER_00 20:22

That's amazing. That's really beautiful.

SPEAKER_03 20:25

The other thing I read about, and you just referenced it is Hakarat Hatov, the value of acknowledging the good things in our lives and saying thank you. And and I found that to be so needed these last couple of years, you know, when things are dark in the world, uh, whether it's, you know, even going back a little bit further, you know, to pandemic times, but particularly for the Jewish community, the last few years, there's been so much darkness. And then to take those moments and say, you know what? I'm still grateful for these things in my life. It's such an important thing to do. How do you keep track of it all? It seems like uh you like today, did you start a new nonprofit or some new business enterprise that we should know about?

SPEAKER_01 21:07

No, no, no. Uh I think the coolest moment in my life was uh when President Biden appointed me to the Holocaust Memorial Council Board of Trustees. It's a very long name, but it's a five-year appointment. And it's it's been really amazing to work with this board. It's been amazing to sort of focus on some of the issues I care about a lot, uh, which can still include misinformation, uh, particularly around Holocaust now. And um yeah, I so I'm doing a lot of that. I still sit on those boards. Um, I I mean prior to that, I always worked, uh I was a lawyer and an agent, and I've worked in sort of the more corporate business side of things. So I'm sort of going back to that now. Um, and continuing to do this. I we'll see sort of where I'm voter lands on the um what's it called, the election this year. But yeah.

SPEAKER_03 21:54

Oh, that little thing. The election issue. When I was in Silicon Valley, there Were folks in the congregation that would describe themselves, who would describe themselves as serial entrepreneurs. You know, they were just always creating something new. And so you're definitely in that category. And I think about how exciting that is. You know, there's this concept in Judaism that every day is newly created. It's like creation continues. And so the world that we are experiencing today, it's like a brand new world. And what's so beautiful about that is it's this blank slate, you know, what am I going to create today? And the other thing I love from the tradition is this idea that uh we're nivra but salem, we're we're created in God's image. And so one of the questions that the rabbis ask is, you know, so it says that human beings are created in God's image. What does that mean? Like we don't look like God, right? God is um beyond the kind of physical things that we would think about in terms of what it means to be created in God's image. And one of my favorite teachings says that no, what that means is we're created to be creators. That is the essential part of who we are. There's the godliness that is inside of us is about our own creativity. So that's what's that's the God in you, that's the God in me, is our ability to innovate, think new thoughts, imagine. Well, what if this and this came together? And it can happen in so many different realms. I mean, you think about you were talking about cuisine, and you know, there's in each of those recipes, obviously, is like there's stories upon stories upon stories that have been forgotten about how it ever got to that place. How do you do that with saffron and you put that in? And then there's so there's that story around that. And then there's the moment you you think about, well, you know, if we could just find a way to be more supportive of those politicians who are standing up for us, it could really make a difference. And so I'm gonna come up with an initiative, but that didn't exist. And then all of a sudden it did exist. And then you just talked about, you know, the United States Holocaust. And before we started recording, I mentioned that I had just been there uh a few months ago on a visit and how powerful it was. I'd been there once before, but but to, you know, to go again and see it. So at some point it didn't exist. And then someone said, you know, we really need to memorialize this catastrophic event in a powerful way. And then we need to keep finding new ways of telling that story. So all of that really is about that creativity and and how we channel it. Another new project for you is is your Substack, All of It. And I've been getting it in my inbox and I get notifications. Well, whenever someone I know, especially someone in our congregation, is doing something, I'm like, hey, I gotta, you know, check this out. It's a lot of uh when you do that regularly, you you end up with a lot of great material coming at you. But tell me about all of it and how you how you came to that and what you're trying to accomplish there.

SPEAKER_01 24:54

Because okay, I was saying the most honest answer is I I have not, I've never had a linear sort of third career, right? I've had many, many pivots that don't make a lot of sense to people. They all make sense to me. And I feel like I try really hard to hold the center on a lot of issues, and I really believe in nuance, and I really refuse to sort of belong to binary thinking or polarized extremes in any way. And so, in some way, I always think it's funny because everything I say pisses off a bunch of people because like everyone on both sides is like constantly mad. And I always joke, like, I'm just like never the right kind of Persian or the right kind of Jew or the right kind of mom or friend, whatever. You know, it's in this idea of, you know, and as someone who helps people build brands, you know, I'm always telling people like it's so important to have your niche and find it and sort of own it and lean into it really, really hard. And and I sort of had this moment where I was like, I don't want to do that. I don't want to be any one of these things. I actually think like all of these parts of me um are really important. And yes, I'm an advocate and I love politics and I really love fashion and I've worked in it for so long and I love brands and I love to travel and I love food. And I I was like, I'm not, I don't want to pick a lane. I'm like, this is who I am, this is all of it, take it, leave it. I actually don't care. And it's been kind of therapeutic, I think, also just because it doesn't also invite the you know, the immediate toxicity that social platforms do. So when you when I create something and I put it out one of those platforms, it's just like I don't read anything, I don't even check my DMs anymore, but the rage that you know or I can see on my name space. And so this feels like just a like a letter, and it and there's something that's been really nice about it. So I don't know, it's I mean, it's grown a lot and it's been really fun to build, but um, it's cool. We also, I mean, when when I um built our campus united, we created um a newsletter there also, um, which was really cool. We kept hearing from students that um they were being told that they can't talk about Zionist values on campuses, that they wanted to publish stories of their experiences or talk about Israel, what was happening in the Middle East, and a lot of the schools were telling them they weren't allowed to, and they were either being pushed out of their publications in school newspapers or they were being fully silenced. And I just had, you know, I had another one of those moments of like, okay, this is dumb because we've built so many media properties, um, and we don't need to ask for their permission anymore. So let's just launch a student newspaper. Like, why it and it would be digital, it would be cooler. And then I hired um two of my friends who are amazing editors at huge, huge Mac like fashion and editorial magazines, and they you know, they sat with all of these amazing students and um Yasmeen really led the charge, who I know you know. And yeah, we created the OCU Chronicle and we launched with I think 70 students published their stories, and we were like, okay, cool. And now you guys can publish whenever you want, whatever you want. Like this is, I don't know. I think there's so many times where people try to push us out of systems and structures. And when we respond and build something on our own, it always ends up being better. And so sometimes I I don't know, I almost find that we create the solutions that we need out of necessity.

SPEAKER_03 28:21

Yeah, it was a recent talk that Brett Stevens gave at the 92nd Street Y the State of World Jewelry, which um you might have seen. And he talked about when there's not a seat at the table, then build a table.

unknown 28:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 28:36

And um was thinking of that as you were describing the student newspaper. And it's been the case in so many different venues for Jews. When there wasn't a place for Jewish doctors to practice medicine, they said, we will create Cedars of Lebanon Hospital in Los Angeles, and we'll create Mount Sinai, and then eventually they merged and Cedars Sinai came into being. And when country clubs wouldn't allow Jews in, again here in LA, places like the Riviera Club and Los Angeles Country Club, they said, okay, we'll make Hillcrest and El Cab, and those will be the places where Jews come. And there are whole industries, including um, don't tell the anti-Semites, but including Hollywood, where you know, Jews said, okay, we will, we will create those things. So I think there's a lot of value in that. And instead of striving, striving, striving to get a seat at the table, you know, build the table. Um, you said something about pivoting, which I wrote down. I loved you. Said I've made all these mini pivots. They don't make sense to others, but they all make sense to me. What when you think about how all those pivots make sense to you, is there a through line that you would describe?

SPEAKER_01 29:43

I think I'm really good at telling stories. I understand consumer behavior and behavioral science. And I'm good at sort of taking ordinary things and making them sort of more extraordinary. And so all of those sort of become the ways that I build brands. And so whether I've done that in the consumer sector, or whether I've done that for a politician, or whether I've done that around an impact idea or concept, I mean, if you look at I'm a voter, it's not it is very clear that the skills that I sort of brought over were very wrong, right? Like we launched during Fashion Week in New York City and we had over 200 collaborations with huge brands. And so that was sort of my lens. I was there's a lot of things I don't know how to do. Um, but I can bring sort of what I know how to do into these spaces and sort of be able to have a lot of impact. And so whether, yes, I'm doing those, I guess being a lawyer probably made no sense, but I didn't really have a choice because I'm an immigrant and I didn't want to be a doctor and I don't think I knew other jobs exist. But everything since then was sort of me reflecting on what I was really interested in and sort of applying my skills to those genres. Um yeah, I don't know. I think I'm always just like chasing, I'm always I'm so curious and I always want to learn. And so sort of pivoting through industries that I'm curious or interested in about and applying what I know how to do.

SPEAKER_03 31:10

As you were describing those pivots and sort of the through line, I was thinking of something I once learned from Dr. Lee Schulman, a blessed memory, who became a dear friend. I got to study Talbot with him for many years. He was ran the school of education at Stanford. And he said this when I was um when I received my master's in Jewish education. He came and addressed the graduating class. And he talked about the focus was education, and he talked about that adage that you know you learn by doing. And he said, you don't really learn by doing, you learn by reflecting on what you've done. The doing itself isn't the real learning. It's later when you think about it, you're like, okay, and I could have done this differently and I could have done that differently. And here's a way I could have refined that, or here's a way I could have had maybe a slightly different um response. And then you try it again and you iterate and all those different kinds of things. So I'm thinking about those pivots, you know, and it's it's doing something and reflecting and learning, and then saying, oh, now I'm gonna take what everything I learned in fashion, I'm gonna now apply to this thing. And then the world keeps changing. So when you go back 10 years ago in your career, it was a different world. And there were things you weren't, I was like, hmm, I'm not gonna put all of my energy into answering those who are delegitimizing Israel all the time because it wasn't happening in the way it's happening now. It wasn't completely absent, of course, but it's not like the shouting that we're hearing right now. And it's like, ooh, there's an urgency, so I have to respond. So I was thinking of that when you talked about all those pivots.

SPEAKER_01 32:44

I think part of my trauma response is always been doing. So, like movement. I have I'm I'm really terrible at being still and really don't know how to stop. So, yes, I think doing is how I process pain and justing and not thinking, you know, not sort of being upset, but using channeling all of that into some form of action and response. Like even now, I'm working on building something new and I can almost look back on everything that I did and realize like, oh, this is the tool that the universe, God, whatever it is that you believe in, gave me from this experience to put in my tool chest for this moment. Like, and I can see it, like I there were so many things in my life that sort of even felt random to me. And now I'm like, oh my God, I know exactly why I was supposed to do that. I know exactly why that like journey happened for me, and I know exactly what I got from it, and I know like how to use it now. And I really believe that. And I really believe that there's always a plan and these things happen for reason. And I say this to people all the time who are like, why am I qualified to, you know, be an advocate or show up as an activist on something? And I'm like, you don't even know how many things you've learned in your life from just being present through different experiences. Like, if you've planned a bot mitzvah for your kid, like you can figure out a whole lot of other things. Like, there's so many things you've learned that are or you don't even know are organizing, and that you're already doing these things. You're just doing them in different venues, and you have to just apply everything that you've learned from those moments of your life to this one. That's cool.

SPEAKER_03 34:13

That's the reflection piece, you know. And it's it is so powerful. I think one of the challenges, especially if you're the kind of person who's always moving and doing and creating and going to the next thing, is how do you find those moments for reflection? You obviously do it, but you're probably doing it while you're doing something else and uh, you know, rushing to the next thing. And then it kind of clicks. And I've found that it is really hard to carve that time out and say, okay, I really want to try to unpack this experience and think about what it is that I'm feeling, what it is I'm going through. One of the things that I'm grateful for experientially in my life is right at the beginning of COVID, I already applied to be a fellow in a clergy program that trained clergy and Jewish clergy in meditation and mindful practices through the Institute for Jewish Spirituality. And I had applied for this in like 2019. And our first retreat was in January of 2020. We were just starting to hear a little bit of rumbling about this virus and, you know, but none of us had any idea what was going to unfold. So we went to this in-person retreat, and then we started meeting regularly online afterwards. And then March of 2020, you know, everything shuts down. And all of a sudden, in the middle of all of the uncertainty and fear and really trauma that we were all going through, being separated from people we care about and, you know, school and all the different things that people were going through. I had this opportunity to sit and try to meditate and do mindful practices every day, which were new to me.

SPEAKER_02 35:50

That's cool.

SPEAKER_03 35:51

Yeah, it was really cool. And it was, and it was such a gift, actually, you know, because I talked to some friends who had done the program in previous cohorts. And they said, Oh, what a bummer that it happened during COVID and you missed out on some of these other experiences. And I was like, actually, I didn't think of it that way. I thought, what a gift that in the middle of this moment, I can sit on my couch and I would get up early in the morning. And it was part of my practice, was I'd sit in five or 10 minutes of just quiet. And it was really wonderful. And I don't do it as regularly as I once did, but I still do. And it really is amazing. One of my favorite quotes, I think I found it on your website or in an article you wrote meaning is something we make, not something we find. And our uh motto at the temple, I guess it's kind of our mission statement is we make meaning and change the world. And I remember when we were coming up with that, someone said something about what is it, you know, what is this make meaning? And it kind of came back to this quote from Dr. Lee Schulman that I just shared that, you know, so much of life, again, is not just about experiencing something, but it's about how do you unpack that experience and try to make sense of it and make meaning of it. Hopefully, you can do it in a way that can propel you forward to the next thing in a way that will be positive and bring more joy into the world, bring more kindness into the world, bring more goodness into the world. That's that would be my hope for people as they're trying to make meaning of it all. But say something about you right now. You know, what are you doing that is giving you a deep sense of meaning and helping you to make meaning as opposed to just find it?

SPEAKER_01 37:30

I think one of like the greatest blessings in my life is that I've always made space to do that. So it it's there's never a sort of like a period that I reflect on or since I was a very young child where making impact wasn't a big part of my life. So it's just been like half of me or all of me at all times. It really depends. And a lot of the times, sort of how I show up in the world on the is is a reflection back on the issues that are really impacting me or that impacting people I love, or just feel like some profound injustice that I just can't process. I don't know. I think I'm it's it's really it's funny. I I don't know, I would feel very incomplete if I wasn't if I didn't have that piece of me all the time. And it's sort of like the the part that I get to share with my kids, you know, they travel with me, they come to all the things, like they're the sort of advocacy side of my life is so intertwined with my kids and my husband and sort of how we have fun. And so yeah, it's really like a part of it's weird. It's not like a thing I do or like a hobby or like a designated time period.

SPEAKER_03 38:42

Sort of an essential self, you know, and when that's when when your essential self connects to things that you can do in the world that can make the world a better place, but also can be a way that you support yourself and make a living and all these other things. Boy, talk about Hakara Hatov. Think about all the people who long for that, where something that, and I I feel that way in my own life. I feel so lucky that so much of what I do that gives me joy uh professionally, and that I really feel lucky doing, including conversations like this and working with bar up mitzvah students and being there for people when they've suffered a loss or when they want a prayer of healing, or thinking of a program like how do we respond to this? I enjoy that. And then it gets to be something that I feel like if I do it well, it can make a difference in the world. And they pay me for it. On top of all that, I actually, it's part of what I get to do to you know make a living. So I want to thank you so much for your time. Just one last question. And it's very premature to do this because, God willing, you'll be granted uh many, many, many, many more chapters and many, many, many more years. But at this moment in your life, as you reflect back on experiences of the immigrant experience that you and your family have had, the different career pivots that you've taken along the way that all added up to something that actually has a coherent whole. I'm wondering, what would you say it all adds up to for you, right? And I guess this is, you know, related to some of the questions about meeting and things like that. But when you when you try to pull it all together, like all of it, you know, what what does it all add up to?

SPEAKER_01 40:21

I had this conversation with someone who I I was working with, and she said, um, there's a lot of people who say a lot of things, and very few people that have something to say. And you know, you've shown up, so many things, held the line, what are all these very nice things. What do you want to say? What's your sort of what's your message? That was like floored me because I thought so hard about I don't know what I want sort of my like singular message. I'm working through that. But what was interesting was she sort of had me do this exercise, and she said, It sounds really morbid, but you are you're dying. You have five minutes. What do you want to tell your kids? And I've never thought about that question before. I don't know if you have. And it wasn't any, you know, like I sit on the forums and fortune panels and I do all these fancy things and I talk about advocacy and leadership and building and scaling companies and marketing, all these things that I talked about. And I was like none of those things, right? It was everything, all the values that are why I am who I am and why I've succeeded and why I feel like loved and whole, or all the values that like go back to sort of my dad and his father, who was a rabbi and they lived in this little village in Sanandaj, where everyone took care of each other, and my grandmother who cooked for 50 people a day, and you know, this sort of like village life of taking care of each other, of sort of of you know, I was called the wisdom of gathering, but like being together, of hosting Shabbat dinners, of building community, of this like open door, always include people, bring them in, you know, just like everything that I wanted to tell my kids was everything that sort of my mom and my grandmother and my grandparents and all of these sort of brilliant ancient minds sort of taught us that I just took for granted that I thought was like as dumb as like eat turmeric. That I was like, okay, you know. Uh but it was just so this this ancient wisdom. I don't, I mean, obviously, all of the the principles of Judaism, like I don't think until really, I know it sounds so weird, but until that moment where I just had to be like, what do I want my kids to know? And it was like, you're never I remember my parents always said, like, you're never allowed to miss Shabbat. I don't care what happens, I don't care if you have a school dance, I don't, you know, and I thought I was like, this is really excessive. But it was true. Like it was the commitment to to be together and to gather. I don't think I understood how sacred it was and how much it shaped like every single part of me. So I think that's the most important thing I learned. And it wasn't through any of my pivots.

SPEAKER_03 43:02

I love that so much. And we're recording this in the second parashah of the book of Leviticus, parashat sav. But two weeks ago, we closed the book of Exodus with parashat vayakel, the kudai. And vaya kel is is the commandment to gather. Um, God says to Moses, gather the Israelites together. But the Hebrew root, kihilah, in modern Hebrew means community. And so vayakel is the is the um active command form, gather. And so I was thinking of that verse when you said that wisdom. And when you think about, you know, I think it's actually really healthy to think about well, what would they say about me? You know, what would be on my tombstone, what would be in my eulogy, what will my grandchildren, you know, God willing, someday, what will my grandchildren or great grandchildren say about me? And think about the wisdom and the beauty. And like she gathered us. You mentioned your grandmother and the way she brought you all together physically and and then fed you and kept you kept you close. So I think that human need to be together and to convene and to be convened is so powerful. Andana, thank you so much for your time. And uh I hope you will go from strength to strength in the work that you do in all of the pivots. It'll be really fun and exciting, not just for me, but I'm sure for so many people who are inspired by your work to see how those pivots keep happening and how altogether it tells a story of gathering and convening and meaning.

SPEAKER_01 44:40

Thank you. And hopefully we'll do the next one in Tarot.

SPEAKER_03 44:45

Well, that's our episode. Thanks for listening to Search for Meaning. If you enjoyed today's conversation, please like, subscribe, and leave a review. It really helps others discover the podcast. And consider sharing Search for Meaning with a friend. They might appreciate the insights and inspiration found here. Special thanks to Josh Sterling, our editor, Amy Shelby, our producer, Raz Husseini, our production coordinator, and Mara Friedman, our social media manager. Our theme song was composed by David Cates and myself and features a vocal by cantor Josh Goldberg. Stay healthy, stay hopeful, and stay tuned.