Rabbi Nico Socolovsky came to Temple Beth Tikvah in 2015. Nico grew up in Buenos Aires and made Aliyah (immigrated to Israel) in 2002. Over the years he has worked in many different social frameworks, with teenagers, immigrants, ex-prisoners, underprivileged families, and others.
In 2010 Nico initiated the Shchuniya, home for Jewish renaissance in Haifa. He also worked for RHR – Rabbis for Human Rights, directing the Center Economical for Rights in Hadera, Israel.
Nico graduated from Haifa University with his BA in Education and Jewish Thought and an MA in Jewish Thought – concentrating on Religions’ Sciences – at the Haifa University. Following his studies in the Israeli Rabbinical program of the HUC, both in Israel and in New York, in 2013 Nico was ordained as Rabbi in Jerusalem.
Nico came to California after spending two years in Singapore, where he offered rabbinical accompaniment and services within Singapore and in its surroundings, as well as works on his own scholastic and musical projects.
Rabbi Nico is deeply committed to the search of deep and relevant Judaism. He often explains that each one of us, out of his own position, seeks a life with meaning, with layers of depth and sacredness. Judaism deals with making meaning available, it provides us with sort of “binoculars” through which we can look at the world and experience these layers.
Regrettably, this opportunity sometimes gets missed through the struggle between here and there. There is a mistaken assumption that in order to experience or to participate one should change his world conceptions, leave his own “here” and adopt somebody else’s.
But you seek from there! Here and there are relative to each other, and it is wrong to assume that we should all be at the same position in order to experience meaning. Understanding the there, seeking and asking from there, is the key to relevant Judaism.
Your “here”, perhaps my “there”, is not wrong, it is yours and from there it is possible to experience, to deepen, to be moved, one should only ask. “But if you seek the Lord your God from there, you will find Him” (Deut. 4:29).
Rabbi Nico lives with his wife Noga, children Amitai, Nitzan and Guilad and their dog Sancho.