Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie is the founder and spiritual leader of Lab/Shul in Manhattan.
Amichai Lau-Lavie
By Amichai Lau-Lavie
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Community Prepent Day 40: My Final Reflections
Thursday 10/13/16 Tishrei 10 5777 Dear me, This journey is complete and the year is off to a good start. Today I’ll put up a temporary roof to sit under and watch the stars in the backyard. When you were 4 you made a drawing of a sukkah and signed it for the first time…
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Community Prepent Day 38+39: Words Matter — a Glimpse of the Divine
Tuesday 10/11/16 Tishrei 8 5777 Dear Words, It’s not just words, folks. Yes, you matter. Each and every word we say and txt and even the one we don’t say and swallow up, sometimes wisely, sometimes not. Words hurt. We hurt with words and we can apologize with words. Our words matter. I apologize to…
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Community Prepent Day 37: In Search of Reconciliation
Monday 10/10/16 Tishrei 8 5777 Dear Reconciliation Commission, I want reconciliation, within my head and my many inner voices, for some of the more complicated relationships among my family and friends. Reconciliation between the growing factions of discord and mistrust in our current conflicts of of values. How soon before my homeland and my new…
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Community Prepent Day 36: An Alternative to More Dead Chickens
Sunday 10/09/16 Tishrei 7 5777 Dear Responsibility, In Borough Park today cages of chickens start lining up the streets as the atonement rituals commence in full force. Kapprot, or the Chicken-Waving Ceremony to Absolve Sins, is still happening in many Ultra Orthodox communities worldwide, desptie growing protests. I grew up watching it but my father,…
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Community Prepent Day 34+35: Unplug and Sing Out Strong
Friday 10/07/16 Tishrei 5 5777 Today, we are publishing a double love letter for your double super Sabbath souls. Wishing you a restful, peaceful, and love-ful Sabbath. Be back on Sunday! Dear Digital Distraction, I finally got time – made time – for Andrew Sullivan’s much talked about essay about digital distraction. I didn’t read…
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Community Prepent Day 33: In Search of Fewer Fake Smiles
Thursday 10/06/16 Tishrei 4 5777 Dear Smile, Research shows that even faking you helps boost morale and it’s tried and true – a smile is one of those contagious gestures that can transform a room or road in an instant to more pleasant. We smile for many reasons but perhaps we don’t do so with…
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Community Prepent Day 32: A Necessary Break from Food
Wednesday 10/05/16 Tishrei 3 5777 Tzom Gedaliah Dear Food, Today is the Tzom Gedaliah, a minor fast day, commemorating a political assassination and providing needed gastro-check in following the new year feasts. With gratitude, we honor you today by keeping distance. I begin today, along with my friend Shira, for the fifth year now, a…
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Community Prepent Day 31: Between Innocence and Guilt
Tuesday 10/04/16 Tishrei 2 5777 Dear Rage, “Every human being should regard oneself as if perfectly balanced between innocence and guilt,” Maimonides wrote in his Laws of Return, giving us this season’s marching orders. “Simultaneously one should regard the world as being in the same case. It follows then that if one performs just one…
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