Hello Friends of Lab/Shul!
We hope this letter finds you refreshed from an inspiring summer and ready for a new season and great year ahead.
Our Lab/Shul team is excited for our sixth season starting off with High Holy Days at the fabulous Grand Prospect Hall in Brooklyn. We look forward to welcoming you and we’re grateful for the chance to gather with old and new friends soon, and often.
Scroll down for some big news for our year ahead, as we explore what it means to gather and to grow in the 21st century. Though what a “congregation” might look like continues to shift, what has not and will not change is the fact that building community together is what nourishes our lives – deeply and meaningfully, personally and publicly.
We invite you to join us as a member of the inner circle by becoming a SeasonPass Co-Creator.
Whether you join us once a year, once a week, or once in a while – in person or online – becoming a SeasonPass Co-Creator is your vote of confidence in our vision and your opportunity to become part of this communal creation, all year round.
Beyond personal pride, everybody likes a perk, and our SeasonPass benefits include reserved seating for the High Holy Days, priority registration and discounts on holiday meals, courses, workshops, and programs, access to our clergy and ritual team for lifecycle events, and invitations to exclusive SeasonPass Co-Creator special events and celebrations.
On multiple levels, we are living in the midst of a major paradigm shift. What it means to build and be a congregation in the 21st Century is radically different than what our grandparents knew, even as so many of our rituals and aspirations stay the same. This is why we are a lab, reimagining inherited communal models and exploring new forms that will help us and many others flourish in the future.
Earlier this month, new analysis from Pew Report on why less people attend congregations confirmed the emerging shifting patterns, nationwide, across faiths: “The percentage of U.S. adults who say they regularly attend religious services has been declining, while the share of Americans who attend only a few times a year, seldom or never has been growing.” The big reason for staying away, it seems, is not lack of belief or a disintegration of tribal affiliations, but rather frustrations with the familiar format of congregational life. This is where Lab/Shul comes in, poised to offer a successful models of lifelong engagement.
This fall, we will begin our first strategic planning process since Lab/Shul’s inception. We will ask big questions: What models of belonging work best in an age of growing political and tribal divides? How do we leverage the best of what digital access has to offer our oldest forms of gathering and meaning-making? By spring, together with you, and with input from the entire Lab/Shul community, we plan to chisel our mission and design the blueprints for Lab/Shul’s next five years. We hope that you will join us to be part of this groundbreaking process through one-on-one interviews and communal conversations.
We are more than eager to hear from you, engage in conversation and further exploration of why this community matters to you and how we can continue making it better. Thank you for being our partner in creating greater connection and purpose for meaningful year ahead.
Shana Tova!
Rabbi Amichai and Sarah Sokolic
