The Light Lab Podcast
We (Rabbi Josh Warshawsky, Cantor Ellen Dreskin, Eliana Light, and special guests) believe that there is so much insight to be found in Jewish sacred heritage by holding the gems of our liturgy to the light. We see the immense value of personal, heart-opening, empathy-expanding prayer practice. And we love to talk about both!
Episode 61: Turning Sorrows into Songs (with Rabbi Ilan Glazer)
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, and grounding grief in song. Plus, we listen to a few tracks on Rabbi Ilan’s new album, Gam Ki Elech: Turning Our Sorrows Into Songs.
How has Jewish wisdom shown up for you in moments of pain and darkness?
Episode 60: Open-Source Judaism (with Aharon Varady)
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.
What prompts from our ancestors resonate with you in reading a siddur?
Episode 59: Praying with One Kahal (with Batya Levine)
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.
When have you been most vulnerable in sharing your voice?
Episode 57: Nerding out on T’fillah (with Rabbi Josh Cahan)
This week, we are delighted to bring you our interview with Eliana and Rabbi Josh Cahan. A t’filah educator in New York City, 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?
Episode 55: The Origins of Liturgy (with Rabbi Ruth Langer, Ph.D)
This week, we are proud to bring you our interview with Eliana and rabbi, doctor, and professor, Ruth Langer. 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?
Episode 51: Under the Torah and Dreaming (with Rabbi Jill Hammer)
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?
Episode 47: Shock-arit (with Billy Jonas)
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 the very narrow bridge between the left and right brain in prayer, and when we first considered the benediction of a bird’s song and the rustling of leaves as prayer.
Were you also absent at Hebrew School the day they taught the similarities between Judaism and other ancient earth-based matrixes?
Episode 46: Comfort and Courage (with Rabbi Sarit Horwitz)
It was wonderful to be live on zoom with Rabbi Sarit and Beth Sholom! We’d love to do a live episode with your community- contact us at welcome@lightlab.co to learn more.
This week, we are elated to bring you our interview with Rabbi Sarit Horwitz, the rockstar 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?
Episode 44: g?d is Here (with Rabbi Toba Spitzer)
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 you buy her book!)
How can g?d-metaphors influence and enhance our experiences of the Divine?
Episode 41: Joyous Justice (with April N. Baskin)
This week, we are honored to bring you our interview with organizer, coach, and leader April N. Baskin. April is the founder and CEO of Joyous Justice, a “multiracial community-powered social justice and spiritual transformation organization that seeds and leads systemic change and healing.” We explore the intersection of justice work and spirituality, her path to becoming a Kohenet, and the work of “coming home.”
How do you access spiritual sustenance?