Chabad.org Unveils ‘Chabad.org Labs’

Chabad.org, the world’s oldest and largest Jewish website, has launched Chabad.org Labs, a new platform that offers a look under the hood at the features its team is developing. 

The announcement comes ahead of the International Conference of Chabad Lubavitch Emissaries, which opens today in Brooklyn, N.Y.

Labs opens with a cohort of impressive features, and more are on the way.

A second-generation Chabad.org AI chat is featured that draws on the site’s entire library of some 300,000 pages and texts, including primary Torah sources, essays, and 70,000 hours of video, podcasts and classes in eight languages. The breadth of that material, from inspirational essays and practical guides to Jewish life to esoteric chassidic texts, gives beginners and scholars alike a way to explore Torah and Judaism as a connected whole.

Answers come directly from Chabad.org’s vast library, but the experience is not that one of interacting with a robot. Focused on ensuring readers retain the human experience, the platform points the user back to the original articles, classes and texts so they can study the subject in depth. When a question calls for a personal response, the tool connects users with Chabad.org’s Ask the Rabbi team, which personally answers some 50,000 questions every year and is the longest running such service on the Internet.

Tanya Illuminated presents a visually stunning look at the Chabad.org Tanya, a new edition of the foundational work of Chabad Chassidus written by Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi, founder of Chabad, known as the Alter Rebbe, in a striking new reading format. The classic text is accompanied by the explanations and elucidations of Rabbi Tzvi Freeman, renowned scholar and popular Chabad.org columnist, and Rabbi Levi Dubov, director of Chabad of Bloomfield Hills, Mich.

Every Day with the Rebbe offers an interactive timeline of the life and leadership of the Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of righteous memory. Users can choose any date and open up the Rebbe’s Torah teachings, letters, transcripts of talks, recordings, as well as the private diaries that yeshivah students kept in real time from that day. Together, they give the most detailed and immersive picture yet of the Rebbe’s voluminous Torah teachings and countless encounters with the people who came to see him.

Further tools are already in the works. The Bar and Bat Mitzvah Speech tool is designed to guide young people through their own learning. It will help them research their Torah portion, explore the commentaries and teachings connected to it, and prepare a meaningful, personal talk in their own words. 

An AI Assistant connector, built on what is known as the Model Context Protocol (MCP). Chabad.org MCP opens Chabad.org’s trusted library and tools to the broader world of AI agents and chatbots for countless users around the world. 

Users are also invited to sign up for early exclusive access to Labs projects as they’re launched. Folks can also submit their own AI-powered apps they are creating, to share them with the wider public.

Online Since Before the Web

Each year, 54 million people visit Chabad.org. Its roots go back to the bulletin board systems of the late 1980s, before the birth of the World Wide Web, when Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Kazen began answering questions about Judaism for users of early computer networks. Launched on the web in 1993, Chabad.org was one of the first 500 websites ever created, predating Amazon, Yahoo, eBay and The New York Times online. 

Kazen, who passed away in 1998 at the age of 44, built the site with the blessings of the Rebbe. From the start, its aim has been to carry the timeless message of Judaism to the world at the speed of modern technology.

The rapid growth of artificial intelligence has changed the way people search for information, absorb it and pass it on to others. Barriers of access, knowledge and language that once kept many people from Jewish study are falling away, opening new paths into Torah and Judaism.

“This is what our mission has always been, harnessing the latest advances in technology to make Judaism, Torah and Chassidut even more engaging and accessible,” says Rabbi Meir Simcha Kogan, director of Chabad.org. “Labs allows us to connect more closely with our readers, giving them early access to see, try, and help shape what’s coming next from Chabad.org.”

Chabad.org Labs is live now, ready for you to begin exploring.