Alef Bet

About Alef Bet

Alef Bet explores the big ideas, core concepts, tough questions, essential values, and evolving practices of Jewish life through the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet. Hosted by Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie, Alef Bet reimagines ancestral Jewish wisdom for right now. Drawing on the Torah, Talmud, mysticism, poetry, philosophy, and modern voices, the series offers both timeless teachings and contemporary reinterpretation—no prior knowledge or Hebrew needed. Whether you’re Jewish, Jew-ish, Jew-jacent or Jew-curious—all are welcome. Grounded in the God-optional, everybody-friendly, artist-driven approach of Lab/Shul, Alef Bet is for anyone seeking a deeper, more personal connection to Jewish life.

Publisher

Amichai Lau-Lavie

Category

arts · religion & spirituality · society & culture

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

4 Sept 2026

Latest episode

11 Nov 2026

Latest episodes

9 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   11 Nov 2026

   Zayin: Myth Meets Midrash or the Art of Storytelling

   Stories hold the secret for survival, helping us make sense of crises and chart our paths through life. But what happens when the sacred stories we inherit contain toxic layers that challenge our core values and leave us with more questions than answers? That’s when myth steps in. Join Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie to explore midrash, the Jewish tool of meaning-making through mythical storytelling that keeps Jewish wisdom open to radical new interpretations. Beginning with the first Matriarch of twins who seek solutions from the sacred source, we follow generations of storytellers who give us the gift of imagination to wrestle with ancestral texts and the complexities of life. Myth goes far beyond fact or fiction to illuminate our path. 03:43 Rebecca, the mother of midrash. A question born of crisis becomes an invitation to interpret non-duality. 16:50 Two children, two nations. The struggle in Rebecca’s womb becomes a legend about land and legacy, birthright of conflict and the pathway to peace. 28:50 The Haggadah as midrash. Four groups offer four responses to danger in a midrash about leadership, fear, and the choices we make in a crisis. 38:35 Who gets to tell the story? Feminist and queer midrash bring more voices into the conversation, finding new meaning in inherited texts. Our oldest stories are still being written. In conversation with Rashi, Judith Plaskow, Leslie Marmon Silko, and Abraham Joshua Heschel, Rabbi Amichai asks how we can bring our own questions to inherited texts, and what stories we want to leave as legacies for those who come after us. Alef Bet is a journey through ancestral Jewish wisdom re-imagined for right now. Rabbi Amichai Lau-Levie is the tour guide for your experience. Whether you’re Jewish, Jew-ish, or Jew-curious, this is your starting point. No prior knowledge required—just bring your questions. Explore more with the Episode 7 Study Guide (https://rebooting.com/article/alef-bet-episode-7-study-guide/)!

2. 

   4 Nov 2026

   Vav: All you need is vav or Love

   What if the most important teaching in the body of Jewish wisdom is right there at the heart of the book, literally at the center of the canon? It’s not only the commandment to love, it’s the instruction to expand our love and empathy above and beyond. Because all you need is? Vav. Join Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie to explore the v’ahavta (or “and you shall love”)—the ethical core of our wisdom tradition, critical to human survival, now more than ever. 04:07 When words get in the way. A childhood stutter, a Torah reading, and the struggle to reconcile inherited teachings with the life you want to live. 13:00 And you shall love. The letter vav invites us to love the parts of ourselves and the people in our lives who are not so easy to love. 24:50 Love in practice. Maimonides turns one verse into acts of kindness. 30:50 Family first, but not family only. What does love ask of us beyond the boundaries of our own community? Love is a verb, and it’s on us to keep loving. With wisdom from Krista Tippett, Martin Luther King Jr., Elaine Goodfriend, Shai Held, Albert Einstein, and Aurora Levins Morales, Rabbi Amichai asks how we can widen our circles of compassion even when it’s difficult and keep loving the mystery of life. Alef Bet is a journey through ancestral Jewish wisdom reimagined for right now. Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie is the tour guide for your experience. Whether you’re Jewish, Jew-ish, Jew-adjacent, or Jew-curious, this is your starting point. No prior knowledge required—just bring your questions. Explore more with the Episode 6 Study Guide! (https://rebooting.com/article/alef-bet-epsiode-6-study-guide/)

3. 

   28 Oct 2026

   Hei: Enter the Orchard

   Are you a seeker of the mysterious? Imagine a door with secrets behind it. Do you knock? Walk away? Walk right in? Join Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie on a tour of Jewish mystical traditions through four doors, following stories and texts that invite us to reflect on how Kabbalah may be meaningful for our life journeys. Behind these doors is a Talmudic riddle: four seekers enter an orchard, but only one emerges in peace. What happened inside? 07:41 The Book of Zohar: imagine Don Quixote crossed with Alice in Wonderland. 12:48 Four enter the orchard. Four people, four ways of seeking, and four different outcomes. 19:55 Seeking through stories and syllables. Following the ancestral texts in search of the sacred. 30:59 Pardes or the orchard as a way of reading. Four layers of meaning offer a method for understanding texts and our own lives. Drawing on the wisdom of Dante and the Zohar, Rabbis Tirzah Firestone and Art Green, Howard Schwartz, Melila Hellner-Eshed, and the Talmud, Rabbi Amichai explores the possibilities and risks of seeking, and how Jewish mystical traditions invite us to look beyond the surface to explore the soul. Alef Bet is a journey through ancestral Jewish wisdom reimagined for right now. Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie is the tour guide for your experience. Whether you’re Jewish, Jew-ish, Jew-jacent, or Jew-curious, this is your starting point. No prior knowledge required—just bring your questions. Explore more with Episode 5 Study Guide (https://rebooting.com/article/alef-bet-episode-5-study-guide/)!

4. 

   21 Oct 2026

   Dalet: Legal Fictions, Laws, & Legends

   Would you break the law if your life depended on it? What if your options were to keep the law or live your love? When it comes to Jewish law, navigating the tensions between tradition and innovation are like following a roadmap—learn the road, but choose your own adventure, sometimes off the beaten path. The fusion of Jewish laws and legends provides a map to help negotiate and navigate our life journeys. Join Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie to explore how halacha (Jewish law) and aggadah (story and legend) work together, what happens when they collide, and how rules reverse and laws evolve. 03:00 Halacha and aggadah. How law and story work together to shape Jewish life. 15:45 The Oven of Acknai, an argument, and a question of authority. Can a story of miracles settle a disagreement? 26:26 “The Torah is not in heaven.” The responsibility for interpreting it is in human hands. 30:15 But what about the heart? The story’s tragic ending asks us to reckon with the cost of exclusion and wounded feelings. Rabbi Amichai asks how we can carry tradition forward with respect for the past and attention to the people living it now. Alef Bet is a journey through ancestral Jewish wisdom reimagined for right now. Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie is the tour guide for your experience. Whether you’re Jewish, Jew-ish, Jew-jacent, or Jew-curious, this is your starting point. No prior knowledge required—just bring your questions. Explore more with Episode 4 Study Guide! (https://rebooting.com/article/alef-bet-episode-4-study-guide/)

5. 

   14 Oct 2026

   Gimel: Speak Torah, Write Torah

   Nations and peoples are largely the stories they feed themselves. If they tell themselves stories that are lies, they will suffer the future consequences of those lies. If they tell themselves stories that face their own truths, they will free their histories for future flowerings. —Ben Okri, A Way of Being Free (Head of Zeus, 1997) What is Torah? It’s a book. Some would say, The Book. But it’s also a body of wisdom that keeps evolving. How can it be both? Join Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie to reveal the radical root of Jewish wisdom. Here’s a hint: story is at the core of everything. And this story is alive. This episode tells three stories about the Torah: 4:00 Why did a rabbi hide under his teacher’s bed? 7:08 Can you learn the whole of Torah…while standing on one foot? 10:32 Is Torah a sacred text or an ongoing conversation? Both/and? 14:16 We travel back in time to the 5th century BCE, when we witness the Torah read out loud for the very first time. But even more radically - we see how it was translated in the moment so everyone could understand it. 25:20 Translation is interpretation, a kind of code-switching between what the Torah was, what it is, and what it still can be. This never-ending story continues to this day at every synagogue where people come together for sacred storytelling. 35:25 If the Torah is so many things, how can we find a consensus of which is the “right” Torah? Rabbi Amichai teaches us that in every generation, we get to talk back to Torah and continue the conversation, making new meaning from our oldest stories, again and again. Alef Bet is a journey through ancestral Jewish wisdom re-imagined for right now. Rabbi Amichai Lau-Levie is the tour guide for your experience. Whether you’re Jewish, Jew-ish, or Jew-curious, this is your starting point. No prior knowledge required—just bring your questions. Explore more with Episode 3 Study Guide! (https://rebooting.com/article/alef-bet-episode-3-study-guide/)

6. 

   30 Sept 2026

   Bet: The Hero’s Journey Home. Go Forth, Go Within

   Ten generations after Adam and Eve, after Noah and the flood, Abraham shows up and starts to walk away from the past and into the pages of history. Join Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie on a guided tour of the eternal, internal journey following in the footsteps of the first father and the founder of our monotheistic faith. 01.25 The first step on the journey of self-discovery: Abraham. 02.09 Abraham’s calling. To leave behind the familiar and go on a journey to an unknown land. His homeland. Our Homeland. 04.40 Lech lecha. A meditation on hearing the inner call and starting the journey. 10.14 Pages of the Zohar. Centuries of mystics take us from the text to the subtext on the road to Canaan. Know your soul. Leave the desires and habits that keep you tethered to a world limited by your senses. Go and search. 15:30 Abraham and the search for God. What we learn on the road of the traveler through sages, mystics, and poets who write Midrash. Is this place burning down, or is it radiant in light? 22.50 The Mother of Patriarchy. How remembering the grandmother of our people fulfills the sacred storytelling that informs our lives. Rabbi Amichai gathers wisdom from mysterious amulets and rabbinic musings, including the words of Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, rabbi and poet Rachel Barenblat, and Rabbi Claudia Kleinman. Alef Bet is a journey through ancestral Jewish wisdom reimagined for right now. Rabbi Amichai Lau-Levie is the tour guide for your experience. Whether you’re Jewish, Jew-ish, or Jew-curious, this is your starting point. No prior knowledge required—just bring your questions. Explore more with Episode 2 Study Guide (https://rebooting.com/article/alef-bet-episode-2-study-guide/)!

7. 

   30 Sept 2026

   Alef: The Art of Asking

   Did you hear the one about the Jewish guy who answered every question with a question? In this opening episode, we explore the art and power of questioning as the raison d’etre for how and why Jewish wisdom still survives. 03:35 Ayeka? The first divine question from the Garden of Eden: God asks Adam and Eve, and by extension all of us: “Where are you? Why are you hiding?” 09:27 Eicha? In Lamentations, in suffering and facing injustice, we ask God, “How have we ended up here? Where are you, God?” 18:02 Mei'ei'matai? The Talmud asks, “When do we begin?” A reimagining of Jewish life bound by sacred time instead of physical space. 24:37 Evolving and growing. Asking a question is already half of the answer. Drawing on thinkers, poets, and sages including Adrienne Rich, Hannah Arendt, Art Green, and Yehuda Amichai, this episode focuses on the power of constantly reexamining accepted truths and the courage to never stop seeking. Alef Bet is a journey through ancestral Jewish wisdom reimagined for right now. Rabbi Amichai Lau-Levie is the tour guide for your experience. Whether you’re Jewish, Jew-ish, Jew-jacent, or Jew-curious, this is your starting point. No prior knowledge required - just bring your questions. Explore More with Episode 1 Study Guide (https://rebooting.com/article/alef-bet-episode-1-study-guide/)!

8. 

   23 Sept 2026

   Introducing Alef Bet - Ancestral Jewish Wisdom Reimagined for Right Now

   Welcome to Alef Bet, a journey through ancestral Jewish wisdom, reimagined for right now. This is a podcast for anyone and everyone. Whether you’re Jewish, Jew-ish, or Jew-curious, this is your starting point - no prior knowledge required. Just bring your questions and explore what it means to get to know, embrace, or wrestle with Jewish wisdom during these turbulent times. Alef Bet is hosted by Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie, a descendant of thirty-nine generations of rabbis. He has been teaching Jewish texts for most of his adult life, had a career as a drag queen, and founded Lab/Shul, a New York City-based, God-optional, experimental Jewish community. Alef Bet has twenty-two episodes, one for every letter of the Hebrew alphabet, alef to tav. You can start listening at any point since each episode is about one big Jewish concept that matters in our life right now. We’ll dig through layers of our sacred and secular soil, reveal secrets, and ask tough questions about who we are, how we got here, and what will help us grow and evolve. Twenty-first century Judaism builds on 3,000 years of conversations, questions, and challenges. It’s on us to talk back to the toxic and traumatic texts and tools we’ve inherited, reclaim our inner wisdom, and reimagine the repair that we need to heal, help, and hope. However you show up, that’s the perfect way to be here.

9. 

   4 Sept 2026

   Introducing Alef Bet - Trailer

   Welcome to Alef Bet, a journey through ancestral Jewish wisdom, reimagined for right now. This is a podcast for anyone and everyone. Whether you’re Jewish, Jew-ish, or Jew-curious, this is your starting point - no prior knowledge required. Just bring your questions and explore what it means to get to know, embrace, or wrestle with Jewish wisdom during these turbulent times. Alef Bet is hosted by Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie, a descendant of thirty-nine generations of rabbis. He has been teaching Jewish texts for most of his adult life, had a career as a drag queen, and founded Lab/Shul, a New York City-based, God-optional, experimental Jewish community. Alef Bet has twenty-two episodes, one for every letter of the Hebrew alphabet, alef to tav. You can start listening at any point since each episode is about one big Jewish concept that matters in our life right now. We’ll dig through layers of our sacred and secular soil, reveal secrets, and ask tough questions about who we are, how we got here, and what will help us grow and evolve. Twenty-first century Judaism builds on 3,000 years of conversations, questions, and challenges. It’s on us to talk back to the toxic and traumatic texts and tools we’ve inherited, reclaim our inner wisdom, and reimagine the repair that we need to heal, help, and hope. However you show up, that’s the perfect way to be here.

Reach and audience

Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

Apple Podcasts (US)

5.0 / 5

20 ratings

Contact Alef Bet

Guest appearances

Does not typically book guests

Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting guests.

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