Shabbat Hosting Lab is a 10-week cohort learning fellowship that invites students to develop confidence and knowledge about Shabbat rituals, to design and execute a Shabbat skill set, and to become emboldened hosts, capable of facilitating a table experience in their own living spaces that is informed and inspired by Jewish wisdom and tradition.
Instead of just casually hanging out we shared a ritual with each other that half of us know and love and the other half were eager to learn about. We were able to share in the
SHL Fellow
prayers and traditions our families and generations before us have performed. I also made challah for the very first time.
The Shabbat Hosting Lab is not simply another version of “Shabbat in a Box;” rather, this fellowship teaches students to both execute the Shabbat rituals and understand rabbinic reasons behind them, how to design and execute a menu with few resources, and how to graciously facilitate a table experience. This learning happens with the warm and skilled guidance of an educational mentor and a community of fellow “peer practitioners” with whom they learn
in a lab style environment. Shabbat Hosting Lab significantly increases the chances that graduates will create Shabbat experiences in their homes post-college, no matter their level of observance or where they move following graduation.
Through participating in Shabbat Hosting Lab students will:
- Become skillful experience curators: able to host a Shabbat meal that is far more than a dinner and blessings, but rather, experiences that are intentionally curated to deepen relationships, craft meaning, and set a rhythm to our lives.
- Build creative confidence: understanding the purpose behind Shabbat rituals, making these ritual their own and adding meaning to their contemporary lives.
- Join a community of practice: forming rich relationships with their peers and an educator/mentor through the cohort experience.