Alef/Bet 5785

Curious to know what ancestral Jewish wisdom has to say to this tough moment?

NOTE: This course is now complete. See below to access recordings.

Alef/Bet is an online series of interactive study sessions led by Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie that ran from January through June 2025. Together the sessions explored the big ideas, core concepts, tough questions, essential values and best practices of Jewish life, from an inclusive, evolving and justice-driven perspective, reimagined for right now.

This course provided opportunities for adult learners of diverse backgrounds to explore the essential elements and evolution of Jewish wisdom through timeless teachings and a critical contemporary approach.

Produced by Lab/Shul, Reboot Studios, and AYIN Press.

Didn’t get a chance to join the course? All class recordings, resources, and reading lists are available FREE OF CHARGE to all new and active financially contributing Lab/Shul Partners (7 session unit, or the full 22 session course + bonus sessions).

To access the 5785 Alef/Bet Classroom Google Drive, please fill out this brief form.

Not a Partner but want to learn more about Alef/Bet or continue your Judaic learning? Register here! Once you have registered, please fill out the form above to access the Google Drive.

More on ALEF/BET:

ALEF/BET brings critical thinking and fresh perspective focusing on 3,000 years of Jewish history and literature in the context of current societal and political realities.

This interactive online introductory course is intended for curious adults who seek a personal and deeper connection to Jewish life – with background or with no prior knowledge or Hebrew required.

Jewish, Jew-ish or Jew-curious – all are welcome.

Grounded in Lab/Shul’s God-Optional, Everybody-Friendly, Artist-Driven approach, this popular online learning course taught by Rabbi Amichai has engaged hundreds of seekers over the years, looking for deeper connection to personally relevant Jewish life and learning through an inclusive and contemporary lens.

ALEF/BET includes three units, with seven learning sessions in each unit, plus an overview introductory session and bonus sessions that will follow the course.

Curriculum

Free Info Session (December 10th, 2024)

Have you heard about our new and improved online learning course with Rabbi Amichai and need to know more?

Alef/Bet – a six month program – will invite you to explore big ideas, tough questions, core concepts, family secrets and best practices of Jewish life for the 21st Century. Join us on December 10th to get your questions answered before you register for the Alef/Bet online course.

Hosted by Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie

Watch the recording here >

Unit 1: Life Wisdom (January 7 – February 25, 2025)

A guided tour of the basic building blocks of the Jewish library in pursuit of what Torah is about and how it matters to our modern lives

This session is an overview of the AlefBet Course, framing the goals, themes and intentions, reviewing the three units, and exploring why and how this course matters so much more in 2025.

Join Rabbi Amichai to hear a little of his personal story, share your own story and explore how the original Jewish question and the big Jewish story Jewish story is all about our personal and public lives.

The first unit is about Jewish Life Wisdom and the basic building blocks of the Judaic library. The first session takes us back to the beginning, where the Jewish journey begins with one brave step on a timeless trip that keeps on going on, going in, and letting go.

We will encounter Abraham, the father of nations, and explore an amulet that sheds light on his enigmatic mother and our pre-patriarchal roots.

What IS Torah? A sacred object, a collection of divine teachings, an idea, and an ever-evolving dialogue of dialectics. In this second session we open the Bible, learn about the way Torah was constructed as a dual system that is both written and spoken, ancient and alive. We’ll focus on one historical moment to encounter the surprising origins of Torah and the case for its constant renewal and radical revelations.

Laws and legends, Halacha and Aggadah, hand in hand, form the building blocks of the Jewish body of beliefs and behaviors. Through a critical reading of a famous Talmudic tale about an oven and an epic dispute, we’ll explore the dynamic developments of the ever-evolving Jewish legal system and what happens when law prevails over love.

At this fourth session we are invited, with caution, to follow in the footsteps of four famous sages, open the doors of perception, and enter the orchard and reveal reality. The orchard is the Jewish space of spiritual and mystical meaning-making, and is at the heart of Kabbalah – the Jewish spiritual tradition. To enter the Pardes, Hebrew for “orchard,” is a poetic term that describes the process of deep learning, engaging mind, heart, body and soul. . Pardes is also an acronym, describing a four-step methodology with which to make sense and meaning of life. This session will be a peek into the Jewish mystical tradition.

Fight, flight, faith or freedom? We will cross the Sea of Reeds again as we explore the Exodus saga through the prism of Midrash – Judaism’s literary method of metaphoric thinking that spins sacred narratives to offer new meanings. It all begins with a matriarch’s complicated pregnancy and continues with the modern Art of Grokking. We’ll explore ancient Jewish myth-making, Sci-Fi, and the origins of non-duality.

Either/or binaries meet Both/And fluidity as we explore the central message in the Jewish tradition – how to constantly refine the art of love, and how to keep loving self, other, all – beyond the familiar. Memorized in our hearts, repeated in our liturgy and inscribed on our doorways, this biblical passage has guided us for generations, and is the focus of this session as we trace its evolution through the ages and decipher the secret: the Hebrew letter Vav which is a hook, linking us to each other with the capacity for compassion and the courage to love.

Who is She Who Dwells Within? Does she prefer Saturdays? Even in the midst of Monotheism there are layers and legends of the divine that include the Hebraic Goddess. In this session we’ll explore her story in the context of Jewish theology, developed over centuries and continues to reflect our changing social values and reality. How do our mythical assumptions of the divine continue to mirror and mold who we are in the 21st Century? What is this divine essence present as we show up for each other’s essence, exiles and intimacy?

Unit 2: Soul Work (March 4 – April 15, 2025)

From mindfulness to moon dancing: get to know the ritual and sacred tools that celebrate the soul of Jewish wisdom and bring more meaning to our lives

One of the oldest meditation methods in the world is hiding in a biblical psalm, linked to the process of weaning and may be the inspiration for one the most famous artistic icons in the world. At this first session of the second unit that is focused on tools of spiritual wellbeing we’ll take a close look at this psalm and practice this powerful method of grounding, as we explore spiritual and artistic expressions of Jewish contemplative traditions.

What’s the first thing you do when waking up? Want to learn the art of prayer – God optional style? In this session we will meet the morning liturgy that helps us start each day with gratitude and reverence, purpose and presence, guided by 3,000 years of Jewish liturgy, poetry, music and folklore.

Mitzvah is a Hebrew concept that means “good deed”, done for personal and public piety and in pursuit of well-being. We’ll examine the evolution and manifestations of what Mitzvah is about, focusing on the most recent suggested addition to the list: the “614th Commandment” – to remember the Holocaust. When do deeds replace ideas and how can each of our actions help make our world more just and loving?

What’s the Gastro-Jewish art of mindful eating before and after every bite? Bring a healthy appetite to this session which explores the Jewish anthology of 100+ daily blessings with particular focus on the food related blessings that nourish our bodies, souls and minds. How can intention inspire a more thoughtful, healthy, delicious and patient lifestyle?

Every human heart and every hole is holy, and Jewish tradition even has prayers for poop. Explore this and other embodied and erotic Jewish traditions that help us celebrate the sacredness of life in each limb and every moment, including the ones we don’t talk about honor as much like the shadows and the sexy stuff.

Get some pillow talk training—through close reading of the Jewish Bedtime Prayer – an anthology of ritual chants and lullabies that have lulled generations into sleep. The Bedtime Shma holds some keys to on the bedtime S’hma, a profound Jewish nighttime ritual that offers a pathway to deeper sleep and serenity. Together, we’ll explore how Jewish tradition has engaged with the mystical realms of dreams and divine mysteries.

The Jewish calendar evolved over centuries from a weather-dependent farmers’ guide to a collective system of sacred sunsets and full moons, fasts, feasts and the reason for each season in between. In this session we will map the evolution of the Jewish calendar and find out why even Jewish trees have birthdays.

Unit 3: Just Love (May 6 – June 10, 2025)

Timeless Jewish teachings that lift up love, fight for justice, celebrate communal care and wrestle with identities, in the co-creation of a kinder world for all

A Biblical tale about a late night battle between Jacob and a stranger birthed the namesake of the Jewish people for millennia, before becoming a modern state. Yisra-El, Israel – means ‘wrestler with the Divine’.

This first session of our final unit will focus on the Jewish priorities of communal bonds for the sake of justice, care and love in the context of the concept – Israel. What are our relationships with the people, the land, the legacy, and the state – all called Israel?

We will explore this Biblical tale, along with classical and contemporary texts that include diverse philosophical, poetic, political and polemical perspectives as we wrestle with our questions and tensions, hurts and hopes, love and longings.

Who’s In, Who Counts? How many make a Minyan? We’ll explore the radically evolving factors of Jewish communal culture, through the focus on a critical law that defines public space and collective context. What are the new normals that define belonging, and how do 21st Century digital dimensions redefine and redesign our bonds, boundaries, and borders both on and offline?

CONGRATULATIONS! Welcome to wherever you are in the circle of life. This first session of our third and final unit about Just Love offers an overview of major milestone moments and the rituals and customs associated with them in Jewish traditions: From birth and coming of age, to weddings and divorce proceedings: This is the How-Do Jewish Life Cycle Celebrations 101.

How do we cope with the death of our loved ones? What helps heal Judaism has developed powerful and intricate paths to help us deal and heal when death and mourning happens.

This session will provide an overview of Judaism’s key perspective and practices that focus on the end of life.

What does the term ‘Kosher’ mean on our plates and in culture? What makes something or someone Kosher or not? Through recipes and rituals we trace the origins and evolution of this core concept, from biblical roots to contemporary climate-conscious adaptations.

How do we translate this age old system to the new eco-kosher needs of our generation?

The Pursuit of justice is essential to the way we live our lives according to Jewish wisdom and a long history of communal care and dedication to being in service and repairing what is broken in the world.

What’s our obligation to repair the world and what are the traumatic origins of this tradition? How do we respond to the repeated moral injuries and intergenerational trauma we inherited and are complicit with? In this final session we will learn from the past how to attend to our present and invest in our future, using our time, resources and vision towards the pursuit of justice, activating kindness and committing to whatever helps to fight for freedom and liberty, dignity and equality for all of us.

Shalom is Hebrew for ‘hello’ and ‘goodbye’. It also means ‘peace’ as in ‘wholeness’ and ‘completion’.

Shalom is central to Jewish thought and core to our understanding of conflict resolution and how to prioritize face to face dialogue that respects diverse opinions even in the most polarizing situations and challenging conditions.

The prophetic and political mandates towards the pursuit of peace in our hearts, homes, communal and global contexts is the final focus on this course, inviting us to come to terms with our personal visions for a world where peace is not a pipedream but a growing daily reality.

FAQ

Got more questions about the Alef/Bet course? Email sylvie@labshul.org

For all other questions about Lab/Shul, please email hello@labshul.org

For information about the Sabbath Queen documentary, please visit here.