Students build community within and beyond RRC’s walls. Our campus pulses with unique energy that radiates to the surrounding region. Students involve themselves in social justice initiatives and actions, Jewish and other community organizations, and then return to campus, share their experiences, and engage each other in conversation and action.
At every turn, you will be encouraged to shape your own education. Among the opportunities within RRC to enrich your student experience are the Reconstructionist Student Association, Community Limmud (learning), prayer and shabbatonim (Shabbat retreats). (More on those in a moment.)
We’re also a short car or train ride from Center City Philadelphia, the fifth-largest city in the United States, with its extraordinary arts scene, fabulous culinary opportunities and the largest urban park system in the country. In recent years, Philadelphians — an increasingly diverse and engaged population — have positioned themselves at the forefront of movements to improve gender equality, end racial and ethnic discrimination, and promote human rights. In other words, it’s not hard to find ways to make a difference.
“Life in the Building”
“The college building (“the mansion”) serves as a holding space for people at RRC to make relationships and culture. I really appreciate how RRC is set aside from the rest of my life in the city. When I go to school in the morning, I can expect to be there for the whole day. That means a whole day of being thoroughly and immersively in a Jewish mindset and a Jewish space. As a student rabbi, I’m often the one responsible for bringing this same yiddishkayt (Jewish living) to others seeking Jewish spaces in their community.
It’s not just about the time I spend learning and participating in school time, but also the softer things about RRC being my home.
The fact that everyone knows my name, that I pray and sing alongside my teachers, that I go out for lunch to connect with other students, chat with anyone sitting in our student lounge, do side-learning (or Torah lishmah) in the beit midrash during my free time or always have someone around to ask for advice about a confusing e-mail from a congregant — these things enrich my student life. “
