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!

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!

—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: 

1. 4:00 Why did a rabbi hide under his teacher’s bed? 
2. 7:08 Can you learn the whole of Torah…while standing on one foot?
3. 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!
 

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!

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!