A lifelong Reconstructionist, Asher Chaim Sofman sees his oncoming rabbinical career as an opportunity to foster belonging through the whole-hearted sharing of beliefs, wisdom and practice across multiple civilizations. He was one of the pioneer campers at Camp Havaya — then Camp JRF — in 2002 and hopes to re-experience the transformative welcome of summer camp in the communities he serves. Before enrolling at RRC, he studied creative writing and world literature at Brown University, earning a B.A. with honors in Literary Arts. In a reversal of traditional Jewish American migration patterns, he left his sunny South Floridian birthplace (unceded Seminole territory) to put down roots in his ancestral homeland, New Jersey (unceded land of the Lenni-Lenape).
Rabbi Levi’s Abraham passes the test because he remains sufficiently calm and clear-thinking to avert a misinterpretation that would have ended Isaac’s life.
By telling and re-telling difficult, even ethically repugnant, stories in the Torah, we may move from silence to healing and from narrowness to expanse.
When it comes to combating systemic racism, everyone has something to learn.
That’s one reason why faculty members at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College are engaging in a year-long process — one rooted in the Jewish practice of Mussar — to confront anti-Black racism in themselves and the college environment.
The Houthis preach a particular, religiously informed hatred of Jews, a specific kind of antisemitism that has its foundation in an extremist strand of modern Islamic teaching.
