MEET

Rafa Kern

I learn Torah (broadly understood) because I find it a beautiful mirror that shows me parts of myself and my world I cannot see otherwise and helps me move towards more meaning in my life. If that sounds of interest, come learn with me!

I'm an Ashkenazi cisgender gently queer Jew from Brazil who currently lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota, much to my surprise. My name is pronounced HAH-fah, with a soft h like in human.

I grew up in a culturally-Jewish family that wasn't very interested in the various Jewish textual traditions. In high school, I was a devout atheist and had no interest in religion at all, except as fodder for my artistic (mostly theatrical) explorations. In college, I became less arrogant, decided I couldn't know about G?d, and realized it would be more generative to ask not whether G?d exists or doesn't, but how to live. That was my inroad into Jewish learning and remains the question that drives my engagement with Jewish text and tradition.

I have collected some fancy degrees: a BA from Yale (Theater Studies), and MA from Columbia (Instructional Technology and Media), and, very soon, a PhD from Stanford (Education and Jewish Studies). I've studied Torah at the Conservative Yeshiva and Pardes, as well as with a number of excellent teachers and learning partners who were not affiliated with institutions at the time. When not writing my dissertation or learning Torah, I can be found riding my bike (yes, even in winter), studying Aikido, or making art--theater, film, and fiction.