Leadership Shift Update // Lab/Shul’s Next Chapter

Dear Lab/Shul,

With the new year upon us — and with so many of us about to gather together for the High Holy Days — we want to take a moment to share an update about an important chapter in Lab/Shul’s life. This season always invites us to reflect on where we have been, who we are becoming, and what we are carrying forward together. In that spirit, we want to bring you into the ongoing leadership shift involving our Founding Spiritual Leader, Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie, and the thoughtful work already underway to prepare Lab/Shul for its next chapter.

We are looking forward to being together in the days ahead, and to entering this new year with openness, trust, curiosity and love.

Lab/Shul’s Next Chapter

As a laboratory for spiritual innovation, Lab/Shul has always been rooted in experimentation, evolution, and the courage to ask what each moment calls us to become.

Now, we are entering an important new chapter in the life of our organization as our Founding Senior Spiritual Leader Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie continues his gradual transition away from day-to-day leadership.

This transition did not begin yesterday.

Since Rabbi Amichai first began exploring a gradual shift following his 2022 sabbatical, Lab/Shul’s staff and Board have been intentionally preparing for this moment. We have strengthened our leadership team, convened a Reimagination Task Force, worked with experts in founder transitions, and ultimately built this evolution directly into Lab/Shul’s new four-year strategic plan, which will be launched and shared publicly following the High Holy Days.

This is not simply a leadership transition. It is part of Lab/Shul’s continued maturation and our commitment to building an organization whose mission, creativity and impact can endure beyond any one person.

We Are Not Looking for Another Amichai

One thing has become clear: Lab/Shul is not seeking a one-to-one replacement for Rabbi Amichai, nor are we conducting a traditional rabbinic search at the moment.

Amichai’s particular constellation of gifts is unique. Rather than searching for someone to replicate that role, we are asking a different question:

What skills, perspectives, spiritual leadership and areas of expertise will Lab/Shul need for its next chapter?

Our work now is to design the leadership ecosystem that can best serve our mission, our community and the possibilities ahead, building on the talented leaders who have stepped up and joined Lab/Shul over the past four years, while identifying the additional roles and expertise we will need to bring in for the next chapter.

Rabbi Amichai will remain an active part of Lab/Shul through 2026 and 2027 in a reduced capacity, serving as a teacher and spiritual leader both online and in person while helping us shape and fine-tune this next phase of leadership. In his remaining time, Amichai is also serving as the inaugural Living Torah Fellow of the Lippman Kanfer Foundation for Living Torah, extending his teaching and creative work to broader audiences through writing, new learning experiences, and strategic collaborations.

From Genius to “Scenius”

Rabbi Amichai has recently described the future of Lab/Shul through the idea of “scenius rather than genius,” borrowing a term coined by artist and musician Brian Eno. Eno developed the concept as an alternative to the myth of the lone genius: the idea that meaningful creative breakthroughs emerge instead from a fertile ecosystem of people, ideas, relationships and shared experimentation.

It is a particularly resonant idea for Lab/Shul. Transformative work may be sparked by the vision of an extraordinary individual, but its lasting power lives within a community of talented, creative and committed people who build, challenge and inspire one another.

That spirit has always been central to Lab/Shul.

We are a laboratory precisely because our work is collaborative: artists, clergy, educators, staff, lay leaders, volunteers and community members continually experiment together with new ways of creating meaningful Jewish life.

Our next chapter is about investing even more deeply in that scenius.

The Work Already Underway

Our Reimagination Task Force has already laid significant groundwork for the transition, including:

Developing a multi-year transition timeline
Creating a communications plan
Mapping key organizational and community relationships
Drafting a potential budget and staffing scenarios
Identifying questions and opportunities that will shape Lab/Shul’s future leadership structure

Following the High Holy Days, we will move into the next phase of this work by convening a Transition Task Force.

This group will build on the Reimagination Task Force’s recommendations, evaluate leadership and staffing options, help determine the structure that will best serve Lab/Shul in its next chapter, and potentially guide and participate in future search processes.

Staying in the Conversation

Transitions like this are not something we want to navigate behind closed doors.

Throughout this process, we will continue creating opportunities for our Partners, donors, leaders and wider community to hear what we know, understand what is still emerging, ask questions and share hopes, concerns and ideas.

Additional conversations and gatherings will take place throughout the coming months, and we are committed to keeping our community informed and engaged as the process unfolds.

If you are interested in contributing your wisdom and experience to the Transition Task Force, email [email protected].

Crossing the Threshold Together

Lab/Shul was founded as an experiment in what Jewish spiritual community could become.

Thirteen years later, we are still experimenting.

This leadership shift asks us to practice some of the very things we teach: to meet change with courage, to hold uncertainty with curiosity, and to trust that transformation can open possibilities we cannot yet fully see.

Your partnership and investment in Lab/Shul’s future matter enormously during this chapter. Stay close. Ask questions. Share your thoughts. Help us strengthen trust in the process and continue building a community whose purpose and impact are larger than any one leader.

As we cross this threshold, we do so with confidence, curiosity and love—and with profound gratitude for everyone helping us co-create what comes next.

The next chapter of Lab/Shul is something we will write together.