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Jordan Soffer

Jordan Soffer

Jordan Soffer is an alumnus of AJWS's Rabbinical Students’ Delegation 13 and is an AJWS Kol Tzedek Speaking Fellow. Jordan is a second year rabbinical student at Yeshivat Chovevei Torah, and is pursuing a master’s degree in Jewish Education at Yeshiva University. Jordan grew up in New City, NY; he attended the University of Wisconsin, where he got a degree in Religious Studies and Jewish Education. While in college Jordan studied abroad on Semester at Sea, where he traveled the globe and learned a great deal about his own identity. Since graduating, Jordan spent has time at various yeshivot, including Yeshivat Hadar, Pardes and Maale Gilboa. Jordan can be reached at jsoffer1988@gmail.com.

|  5774

Balak

Last year, I traveled to El Salvador with AJWS’s Rabbinical Students’ Delegation and spent a week assisting local farmers with different agricultural projects. While on a water break, I struck up a conversation with Juan Carlos. We had been working in his field for three days now, yet I had failed to engage him in any semblance of an intimate conversation. Rarely did our interactions go beyond “Buenos dias. Como estas?” before we parted with a shared smile and an implicit understanding that we had fulfilled our obligations of cordiality. This time, however, we spoke more personally. We discussed life and the successes and challenges he experienced as a farmer.

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|  5774

Tetzaveh

Now that the Exodus narrative is over, the gripping accounts of our ancestors that pervaded the first two books of the Torah fade into distant memory and we begin reading the detailed guidelines for the construction and use of the Mishkan, the Tabernacle. While initially many of these details seem extraneous or irrelevant, they contain within them deep wisdom and insight into our lives and moral obligations as Jews.

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