Become a Raising the Bar Guide

Welcome. You found your way to the Raising the Bar Trained Guide application page.

Raising the Bar is Lab/Shul’s signature B Mitzvah coming-of-age program for teens and families. Our guides work 1:1 with students utilizing an experiential curriculum that includes Storahtelling^TM and cutting edge individualized learning tools.

As part of our BECOMING Program journeys, each Raising the Bar journey offers a unique everybody-friendly experience, weaving storytelling skills with contemporary tools of meaning making, personal reflection and social change, combining in-person and online learning.

Through the adaptation of our Storahtelling Maven Method^TM we invite each guide and learner to become a Maven – the oldest Jewish term for those who are our storytellers, mapping individual identity onto our collective mythology or meaning. Through this rite of passage process we empower people to become the storytellers of their lives.

The BECOMING Learning Lab, led by Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie, Ben Freeman, Naomi Less, Shira Kine and additional guest faculty, will equip Guides to successfully navigate a rite of passage journey with a young person through innovative study content and engagement. Participants will learn our Storahtelling Maven Method^TM, becoming experts at adapting ancient Jewish ancestral texts and traditions into relevant contemporary conversations through modern stagecraft and creative storytelling.

To learn more about the Raising the Bar curriculum, click here.

With guidance and supervision, trained Guides will be responsible for planning, organizing and implementing their one-on-one educational training with Lab/Shul students through their first year as a Guides at Lab/Shul.

This opportunity is for you if you:

• Are described as innovative, enthusiastic, organized and responsible, inclusive and compassionate.
• Are passionate about working one-on-one with pre-teens and teens.
• Have existing experience with and/or passion for working with teens and adults who have varying degrees of Jewish knowledge, education, affiliation, and learning styles.
• Want to invest in deepening your toolkit around Lab/Shul’s God-optional, artist-driven, everybody-friendly approach to spiritual life.
• Will commit to a year-long journey to become a certified BECOMING Guide and have guaranteed salary by taking on a minimum of two students.
• Will commit to participating in 4-6 paid virtual training sessions throughout the year.
• Will meet regularly for coaching with a BECOMING mentor.

Interested? Please review the eligibility requirements and application instructions below.

Eligibility*

Candidates must have significant experience in the following areas:

• Facilitation and educator background in holding meaningful conversations and/or activities with 11-14 year olds (Please let us know if you want to be considered for adult b-mitzvah training as well)
• You are creative or a creator. You know how to work in the realm of “story” through professional or serious avocational experience via an artistic modality (theater performance, visual/graphic art, music, dance, digital technology, writing, storytelling, etc.)
• Demonstrable experience inspiring people with Jewish wisdom, knowledge, and humor.
• Judaic literacy and Hebrew skills (Preference for Judaic study in a Jewish learning environment for at least a year. Trope/cantillation training is a plus, but not required.).

* Often, people don’t apply for opportunities simply because they don’t check every single eligibility box included in a job description. We encourage folks from historically underrepresented or marginalized identities to apply even if you don’t check every box in eligibility.

To Apply

1. Please submit a resume, picture/headshot and a description of relevant experience for the aforementioned eligibility requirements. Please be specific about the level of proficiency you have in Judaic content knowledge (bible, Hebrew, holidays, background experience or schooling). A formal cover letter is not necessary – your resume will tell one set of information. Help us understand your life experience in the spaces in between the black ink.
2. Please send a video of a small section of a lesson/session plan for a 12 year old on the subject of your choosing (approx 3 min). This can be a creative lesson you’ve used before or something new. Please imagine this teen has little Judaic literacy, from a family with one parent who is Jewish and one is not. Your job is to introduce the new topic. (Note: You’ll want to entice them from the get go, have it connect to personal meaning and also speak to the tradition.)
   
   (If sending a video is uncomfortable for you, you are welcome to schedule a time to share this over zoom with Naomi Less, the Raising the Bar Education Director. Please note that in your email and we will set up a time for you.)

We will respond within a week with either an invitation to interview or to let you know you won’t be moving on to an interview.

“BECOMING” is a new model for growing up with intention, inviting seekers of all ages and life stages to join others in small guided groups, to reflect on identity , explore legacy, and become the storytellers of their lives. Through curated tracks, Becoming journeys help make meaning of life’s milestones in creative ways, celebrating personal growth, communal belonging, and investing in lifelong commitments to what matters most.

BECOMING is a program of Lab/Shul.