“The world exists on three pillars: Torah – Wisdom, Avodah – Spiritual Practice, and Hesed – Loving Kindness.” – Mishna Avot
Inspired by this traditional Jewish recipe for living lives of value and virtue, Lab/Shul’s three main ingredients are Soul, Wisdom, and Together. No gathering of ours is complete without some amount of each one, mixed and remixed together. But they also serve to broadly define the three main circles of our programs year-round.
Soul: Ritual and Spiritual Practice
Spiritual practice, life/cycle milestones and ritual events, connecting us to self and to each other, within and beyond. For 5783 we have:
Sabbath Queen
Ritual circle of live music, mindfulness and poetic intentions welcoming your Sabbath Queen + happy hour. Click for upcoming dates.
Zen Shabbat
Shared experience harmonizing Jewish and Zen traditions in the celebration of Sabbath spirit. Click for upcoming dates.
ShaBasics
Friday back to the basics Shabbat: warm up with a Happy Half Hour followed by 20 mins of table rituals, interactive intentions, and blessings. Stay on after to shmooze, share, and socialize in small breakouts. Click for upcoming dates.
High Holy Days of Awe
Celebrate the sacred season and activate the new year with renewed focus and intention. Click for more info.
Hanukkah
Join us for 8 nights to learn, cook, laugh, light, release and renew. Click for more info.
Purim
We let loose NYC’s wildest artists, performers, and creative rebels to create a curated night of original acts imagining a world post-patriarchy, inspired by Purim’s ancient sacred scroll. Click for more info.
Passover
Join our community for a reimagined Passover seder, a communal gathering for mourners, sing-alongs for little ones, and Passover Prep for tweens and teens. Click for more info.
Shavuot
Join Lab/Shul for Shavuot celebrations for all ages, and all bedtimes – 2022/5782 featured family-friendly cheese making, a revelatory musical ritual, community-led explorations and an all-nighter arts festival. Click for more info.
Weekly Virtual Mourners Call
Led by members of the Lab/Shul Ritual Team and community leaders of the Kaddish Club, we gather on a free conference call to share our names and reason for reciting kaddish, read a poem and learn a brief sacred teaching together, and then recite the Kaddish together. Click for more info.
Wisdom: LIFELONG LEARNING
Learning programs for all ages, deepening Jewish literacy and exploring life’s big questions. For 5783 we have:
Intro to Judaism for adults, providing a framework for exploration of meaningful Jewishness in the 21st Century. Click for more info.
Join Rabbi Amichai’s 3+ years interactive online quest to question, queer, and re-read between the lines of the entire Hebrew Bible, with daily reflections, weekly videos and monthly learning sessions. Click for daily substack.
Grassroots, home-based, drop-in curriculum through the Jewish seasons for families with children ages 0-8. Click for upcoming dates.
Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie’s series of seven interactive online study sessions exploring essential Judaic objects, their surprising histories and enduring purpose as practical portals for personal growth and communal connection.
Together: COMMUNAL CARE
Community organizing and partnerships, nourishing our neighbor’s needs and rising for justice. Highlights include:
An open meeting for the entire Lab/Shul Partnerhood. Click for upcoming dates.
Co-create our communal meals, virtual happy hours, designing menus and mastering the art of hosting and hospitality. Contact stephen@labshul.org for more info.
Lean on the woven fabric of community with weekly Virtual Kaddish Calls and monthly Kaddish Potluck Dinners. Click for upcoming dates.
READ (Racial Equity and Action Delegation) is a group comprised of Lab/Shul community, Board, and staff members dedicated to working toward racial equity at Lab/Shul. Contact sam@labshul.org for more info.
Raise money and plan activities in support of immigrants and refugees.
Learn new music, share your favorites, and sing together to practice one of our primary tools for healing and building community. Click for upcoming dates.
If you’re looking to dig deeper into our community or are new and looking to connect with like-minded new friends – we’ve got you. Click for more info.