Spirituality-

After 41 years,
NASA physicist
changed his
life for a
Jewish dream.

LESLIE ZACK
Student Intern

A

_

i age 41, Rabbi Ronald

Kopelman took a leap of faith
by giving up his National
_
Aeronautics and Space
Administration career to live out a life-
long dream.
"I thought about what the Jewish
community had given to me. If I didn't
give something back now, I never would.
It was a dream I felt I had to do,"
Kopelrnan said.
Rabbi Ronald Kopelman
So, in 1992, NASA physicist
Kopelman left his job and began the rab-
binical program at the Jewish Theological
Seminary in New York. Though the pro-
gram normally lasts five years, Kopelman
completed his studies in seven because of
two years of preparatory classes.
As a youngster in Farmington,
Kopelman found great interest in learning
and practicing the Jewish religion from his
_
youth activities. As members of
Congregation Beth Abraham Hillel Moses
(now Beth Ahm), he and his family
attended Shabbat and holiday services reg-
. ularly. Kopelman also was a member of
the synagogue boys choir and T'fillan
Club, a group of pre- and post-bar mitz-
vah boys who prayed and played baseball every Sunday.
After graduating from Henry Ford High School in Detroit, Kopelman received a
double degree in math and physics from the University of Michigan. He then worked
for a year with the U.S. Air Force in Ohio, and continued on to the University of
Maryland, where he received a doctorate degree in physics.
Kopelman returned to Maryland to work at the naval research labs. He then moved
to central New York, and worked for General Electric in Utica, N.Y. His final job, as a
NASA physicist, took him to Cleveland while his family remained in Utica. There in
his lonely Cleveland apartment, Kopelman began reading and thinking in great depth
about Judaism. It brought him to his decision to apply to rabbinical school.
Although Kopelman did not enjoy the time away from home while he was at JTS,
he did like riding the train to and from Albany to be with his family on weekends. He
met exciting people, including folksinger Shlomo Carlbach, who performed concerts
for the passengers. Kopelman left Sunday nights for school, and returned home Friday
mornings in time for Shabbat.
After studying for seven years, he recently completed his first year as rabbi at Nevey
Shalom Congregation in Bowie, Md.
Rabbi Kopelman says he would not have been able to accomplish his dreams with-
out his wife Barbara and five children. "The more I realized this is what I wanted to
do, the more my family was extremely supportive." ❑

On becoming
a rabbi,
Ronald Kopelman
said: "It was a
dream I felt
I had to do."

7/21
2000

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