This week, in our Shabbat at Home series, Eliana and Ellen consider the Midrashic possibilities of Hamotzi - the blessing over the challah. Topics include how challah holy-tizes all of our time, to tear or to cut, and which gardens grow bread trees. Plus, we listen to our favorite 90s Jewish hip hop classics!  As partners with g?d in the act of creation, how can we create that world of sustenance and goodness and support for all? Join our facebook group to comment. Check out this week’s...

This week, we are elated to bring you our interview with Eliana and Casper ter Kuile. Casper is the author of The Power of Ritual, and the co-founder of Sacred Design Lab, Nearness and the podcast Harry Potter and the Sacred Text. We explore finding the sacred in the secular, where folks find spiritual community these days, and snuggling your dog as prayer.  Check out this week’s show notes and transcript @ lightlab.co/podcast/episode-65-casper-ter-kuile What secular practice can you...

This week, in our Shabbat at Home series, Eliana and Josh explore the hand washing. Topics include taking ownership over rituals, the act of giving and receiving to and of ourselves, and hand washing as a mikvah moment. Plus, we listen to our favorite hand washing nigunim!  Check out this week’s show notes and transcript @ lightlab.co/episode-64-hand-washing Follow us on facebook and instagram @thelight.lab. Support our show! Sponsor an episode or donate here, and please rate, subscribe,...

This week, we are elated to bring your our interview with Eliana and Rabbi Adina Allen. Rabbi Adina is co-founder and creative director of the Jewish Studio Project. We explore expressing the divine spark within us, how to sit with discomfort, and how to teach our 3rd grade selves that art is their birthright.  Check out this week’s show notes and transcript @ lightlab.co/podcast/episode-63-adina-allen  And pre-order Rabbi Allen's new book, The Place of All Possibility, here! Follow us...

Welcome to our spring SPARK! A more free-wheeling, connective conversation between our hosts that we hope sparks something new in you. In this SPARK, Eliana and Ellen explore our journey on the way to enoughness,   binding our wounds, & the furry shapes prophets sometimes inhabit. Plus, we listen to some of our favorite songs for the season! Check out this week’s show notes and transcript @  lightlab.co/podcast/episode-62-spark-pesach  And check out the light lab podcast pesach...

This week, we are honored to bring your our interview with Eliana and Rabbi Ilan Glazer. Rabbi Ilan is the founder of Our Jewish Recovery, author of the award-winning And God Created Recovery: Jewish Wisdom to Help You Break Free From Your Addiction, Heal Your Wounds, and Unleash Your Inner Freedom, and a Shatterproof Ambassador and Family Program Instructor. We explore the medicine of incorporating new and ancient melodies into t’fillah, how Jewish wisdom addresses addiction and recovery,...

This week, we are delighted to bring you our interview with Eliana and Aharon Varady. Aharon  is the founding director and primary shammes of the Open Siddur Project. We explore the alchemy of a minyan, taking responsibility for your prayer, and how to make a container to cross-pollinate our own liturgical wisdom with other people.  Check out this week’s show notes and transcript @ lightlab.co/episode-60-aharon-varady   Follow us on facebook and instagram @thelight.lab. Join our facebook...

This week, we are ecstatic to bring you our interview with Eliana and Batya Levine. Batya (they/them) is a communal song leader, musician, shaliach tzibur (Jewish prayer leader), cultural organizer, and co-founder and the Director of Programs at Let My People Sing! We explore adversarial relationships with t’fillah, modeling pouring-out-your-heart davening, and how to nurture the song leader in you.  Support the creation of Batya's new album here! Check out this week’s show notes and...

This week, in our Shabbat at Home series, Eliana and Ellen explore the Kiddush. Topics include the opening the Shabbat space/time portal, toasting time, and how to exercise our awe and wonder muscles. Plus, we listen to our favorite interpretations of the Kiddush!  Check out this week’s show notes and transcript @ lightlab.co/episode-58-kiddush  Follow us on facebook and instagram @thelight.labSupport our show! Donate here, and please rate, subscribe, and share around. Thank you!

This week, we are proud to bring you our interview with Eliana and Rabbi Josh Cahan. A t’fillah (prayer) educator in NYC, Josh compiled and edited the Yedid Nefesh bencher and is introducing the new Yedid Nefesh Haggadah this Spring. We explore the origin story of a t’fillah nerd, praying at sleepaway camp, and the challenges and opportunities of teaching t’fillah to kids. Is there a t’fillah nerd in your life who has inspired you as a pray-er? Join our ⁠facebook group⁠ to comment and...

This week, in our second episode of our Shabbat at Home series, Eliana, Ellen, & Josh explore the liturgy of Shalom Aleichem. Topics include angels of good and evil at the table, different melodies used for the text, and what this poem sparks in us. Plus, we listen to our favorite versions of Shalom Aleichem!  What is your favorite Friday night Shabbat memory? Join our ⁠facebook group⁠ to connect and comment.  Check out this week’s show notes and transcript @...

This week, in our third episode of our Shabbat at Home series, Eliana and Ellen explore the family blessings. Topics include the origin of this tradition, the Human-G?d-Compassion triumvirate of blessings, why should we want our kids to be like ephraim and Menashe, and how to choose your spouse anew each week. Plus, we listen to our favorite family blessing songs, including Eliana’s! What challenges have been passed down to you that can be viewed as blessings? Join our facebook group to...

This week, we are proud to bring you our interview with Eliana and Rabbi Doctor Professor Ruth Langer. Professor Langer is a liturgy scholar and director of graduate studies at Boston College's Theology Department. We explore how liturgical change gets squashed, how the Talmud set the course for future liturgical halacha, and how prayers emerged throughout history.  What is the value of knowing liturgical history to the pray-er? Join our ⁠facebook group⁠ to share your thoughts.  Check...

Welcome to our second SPARK! A more free-wheeling, connective conversation between our hosts that we hope sparks something new in you. In this SPARK, Eliana, Ellen & Josh explore Hanukkah gematria, rituals that light up our lives, and spiritually exercises for the heart muscle. Plus, we listen to some of our favorite songs for the season!  Are there enough blessings for all of us? Join our facebook group to connect and comment.  Check out this week’s show notes (including links to...

This week, in our first episode of our Shabbat at Home series, Eliana, Ellen, & Josh explore lighting the Shabbat candles. Topics include why we light, different melodies used for the blessing, and what this blessing sparks in us. Plus, we listen to our favorite songs about lighting Shabbat candles!  When does it start to feel like Shabbat for you? Join our facebook group⁠ to connect and discuss.  Check out this week’s show notes and transcript @...

This week, we are privileged to bring you our interview with Eliana and Rabbi Kohenet Jill Hammer, PhD. Hammer is an author, teacher, midrashist, mystic, poet, essayist, and priestess. We explore where to look for g?d, how to call on g?d, and the venn diagram of poetry and liturgy. Plus, we dive into Hammer’s new book, Undertorah! How can dreams impact our liturgical selves? Join our facebook group to connect and comment.  Check out this week’s show notes @...

This week, Eliana, Ellen, & Josh go behind the music with Eliana’s new album: ORAH HI. Topics include how to make an album with friends, making Hebrew songs accessible, and accessing vulnerability through song. Plus, we learn about the magic behind these sweet new tracks!  Is it more important to correctly conjugate g?d language or let the prayer flow uninhibited? Listen to ORAH HI on Spotify or support the artist and buy the album! Read the liner notes and purchase ORAH HI sheet...

Welcome to our first SPARK! A more free-wheeling, connective conversation between our hosts that we hope sparks something new in you. In this SPARK, Eliana, Ellen & Josh explore re-returning, joyful prayer at Yom Kippur, and the courage to bring g?dly acts into the world.  Plus, we listen to some of our favorite songs for the season!  What is the still small voice contained in the shofar blast saying to your heart this year? Join our facebook group to connect and comment.  Check...

This week, Eliana, Ellen, & Josh explore the end of the Amidah journey. Topics include the Amidah as a personal AND communal experience, symbolism in the shape words take in our mouths, and license to create our own prayers. Plus, Josh and Coleen Dieker perform Elohai N'tzor live!  Do written prayers inhibit your extemporaneous prayer experience? Check out this week’s show notes and transcript @ lightlab.co/podcast/episode-48-elohai-nitzor  And check out the Light Lab Podcast...

This week, we are elated to bring you our interview with Billy Jonas. For over thirty years, Billy Jonas - performer, singer-songwriter, composer, multi-instrumentalist, educator, and playful pray-er extraordinaire - has perfected the art of the neo-tribal hootenanny with audiences around the globe. Using voice, guitar, and industrial re-percussion, each of his concerts is a soul-spelunking, heart-healing, joy-filled journey. We explore using curtains as an invitation to prayer, how to engage...

This week, we are elated to bring you our interview with Rabbi Sarit Horwitz. Rabbi Sarit serves as clergy at Beth Shalom Synagogue in Memphis, TN. We explore creating opportunities for deep experiences in our communities, vulnerability in being a leader and pray-er, and that T’fillah is not meant to be a spectator sport.  Did you learn your prayers before you learned how to pray? It was wonderful to be live on zoom with Rabbi Sarit and Beth Sholom! We’d love to do a live episode with...

This week, Eliana, Ellen, & Josh explore the afternoon and evening peace prayer, Shalom Rav, with our very special guest, Cantor Jeff Klepper! Topics include Burt’s bees, the 1960s, and Jeff’s Jewish journey. Plus we get to listen in to the composing of the classic melody for Shalom Rav. What a treat!  Where are you feeling abundance in your life? Check out this week’s show notes @ lightlab.co, including our Shalom Rav spotify playlist! Follow us on facebook and instagram...

This week we’re grateful to bring you Ellen and Eliana’s conversation with Rabbi Toba Spitzer, author of the book “God is Here: Reimagining the Divine.” Rabbi Spitzer takes us on a journey that includes Jewish liberation theology, playing dead (as in the grateful dead), liturgical gymnastics, and the three kinds of metaphors. Rabbi Spitzer’s work has been hugely influential to our thinking around g?d-language and we were geeking out the whole time. We hope you enjoy our interview (and hope...

This week, Eliana & Ellen are joined by very special guest Rabbi Noah Diamondstein to explore Sim Shalom! We talk about “Everything, Everywhere, All at Once,” Paul Simon, the Force, and what “Shalom” is anyway. Plus, Noah shares the story behind his own beautiful melody for Sim Shalom and plays it for us live. What a treat!  How is your “Shalom” today? Check out this week’s show notes @lightlab.co  Follow us on facebook and instagram @thelight.lab, and join our facebook group. Support...