Looking back, it might seem as if my career followed a straight line, from loving Hebrew school (really), giving the 7th grade graduation speech in Hebrew, to becoming the interim “rabbi” in my senior year at Harpur College. But being accepted at Yale in Economics broke that line. That is, until my (uncompleted) PhD thesis brought me to El Salvador, face-to-face with real poverty, and the realization that Jewish values compelled me to care about the needy and the vulnerable and to try to build a Jewish community that would reflect those values in the context of worship, learning, and social action.
I found that community in, of all places, Temple Shalom, in Succasunna, New Jersey, where 244 families were open to such a vision and joined me enthusiastically for twenty-seven years, making it a reality, whether it was ROQ (Pure) Shabbat creative services with our singing congregation, learning opportunities where all interpretations were encouraged, or worldwide Fain award-winning social action. There was the Temple Shalom question: How can we help you? and the Temple Shalom way of doing things: People come before rules. We doubled in size, drawing from twenty-seven communities, for our whole congregation was one enormous caring community that walked the Jewish walk.
We adopted the Vietnamese Lieu family and six Soviet families, giving them everything they needed. We created the International Committee to Rescue the Mendeleev Family and what became the URJ Adult Mitzvah Corps, building homes in post-Hurricane Sandy New Jersey with Israeli partners and in Maine with teenagers. Groups of us went to Zvenigorodka, Ukraine, bringing a Torah and a 180-piece ark to the newly renamed “Temple Shalom.”
The Million Quarter Project, which provided that many meals for hungry Ethiopian children waiting to come to Israel, led to my becoming the president of the National Coalition on Ethiopian Jewry.
None of this would have been possible without the hundreds of people who contributed time and money, lifting my spirits when I was down. We took this holy journey together. I was also blessed with so many mentors along the way who saw something special in me and helped to bring it out: Cantor Arthur Yolkoff, z”l; Chuck Kroloff; Professors Eugene Borowitz, z“l; Larry Hoffman; Michael Chernick; and Norm Cohen. I can only hope that I can do nearly as well by my own mentees, rabbinic and lay alike, here, in Israel, and East Africa, and the seven clergy who grew up at Temple Shalom.
I was blessed with many sabbatical “pieces,” which enabled me to volunteer in Bakersfield, California, with Cesar Chavez, z”l, at the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism with the indefatigable David Saperstein, and for months at a time in Israel with Sandy and our sons, Jeremy and Aaron (six grandchildren were yet to come).
When I retired in 2006 as Emeritus, I received two wonderful blessings. One came from Elyse Frishman and the Barnert Temple in Franklin Lakes, New Jersey, where I was welcomed into a second thriving community, spending sixteen years as Sabbatical and Social Action Rabbi and then Talmud and Torah teacher.
The other came from a congregant who suggested that we create what became the Jewish Helping Hands Foundation, so I could continue my worldwide social action projects. Over twenty years, with no fundraisers and no overhead, we have raised some 2.5 million dollars to help nearly 100,000 new Rwandan mothers receive the eggs and milk they need to heal, to support dozens of genocide widows, and to create youth centers of dance, computers, and English in Rwanda and Uganda. There is also the newly dedicated Mishkan in Rishon LeZion, a sanctuary for people experiencing homelessness and some twenty other projects in Israel.
As my book, The Mitzvah on Your Forehead, recounts, I have found my calling and tried to fulfill it to the best of my ability. My life continues to be one of blessings given and even more received in return. Nearly every homeless person to whom I give a dollar in Manhattan says, “God bless you.” I respond, “May God bless you, too, for giving me the opportunity to help.”
At 81, I’m still going forward full steam, ever grateful for the life I’ve been so fortunate to lead.
CCAR member Rabbi Joel Soffin is celebrating 50 years as a Reform rabbi. We look forward to celebrating him and all of the CCAR’s 50-year rabbis at CCAR Convention 2026.
