As a graduate school student in comparative literature, Rabbi Amy Sapowith pored over texts religiously, including the Mayan Popol Vuh, “Book of the Community.”
“At some point, it occurred to me: Why am I studying all of these other texts as if they’re Bibles — and some of them were — when I have my own from which an entire civilization flows?” Sapowith recalled. “I should really try to understand that more.”
So she applied to rabbinical school, ending her doctoral studies after completing all but her dissertation. “I felt the rabbinate was more dimensional,” Sapowith said, adding that she most valued the intellectual part of academia, which could also be found within the rabbinate.
“I felt that I could be more fulfilled … if I was engaging people on more levels of life [and] in more meaningful moments of life, not restricted to just one time in life,” she said.
Sapowith is now a full-time pulpit rabbi at Beth Chaverim Reform Congregation in Ashburn, Virginia, a role she took on in 2015. On any given day, she serves as a leader, cheerleader, consultant, teacher, spiritual guide, editor, mentor, hostess, accelerator and decelerator.
“I think my role is to try to create sacred partnerships constantly, in whatever form they’re taking, and being part of people’s lives from birth to death,” the Ashburn resident said.
She teaches modern Hebrew to post-b’nai mitzvah students at BCRC, leads Torah study and adult education classes, works to combat antisemitism and fulfills the rabbinic role at the small but strong synagogue. Her congregants’ excitement for learning is one of her favorite things about the BCRC community: “Their enthusiasm sparks my enthusiasm.”
She is proud to have played a part in fostering the BCRC community, which spans all ages.
“There’s pride in seeing Jewish life continue to thrive in our particular garden, and it’s like different flowers coming up, some annual, some new,” the rabbi said, adding that she sees herself as a caregiver of that garden.
Sapowith and the BCRC community are nearing the completion of a multi-year sanctuary renewal project, ready to welcome new members who are interested in worshiping with them and joining the community.
Sapowith hasn’t always been a rabbi — or known that women could pursue the rabbinate.
After her undergraduate studies at Dartmouth College, Sapowith worked as an environmentalist in the nation’s capital and Quito, Ecuador. She served as a rabbinic intern for Gateways Beit Teshuva, a Jewish residential home for those recovering from addiction, during rabbinical school.
Following her 2003 ordination, Sapowith joined the clergy team at a Reform synagogue in Rochester, New York. She has now served the BCRC community for a decade and counting.
Sapowith didn’t grow up affiliated with any particular movement of Judaism. Rather, she was raised in a “very Jewish neighborhood” in the Boston area, attending Sunday school and observing the High Holidays at the nearby Brandeis Hillel.
“So I always associated my Judaism with a college campus,” she said.
Sapowith later gravitated toward the Reform movement, citing its egalitarianism and autonomy. “Those two things are part and parcel of being a modern person, and that felt very in line with my own sense of self and sense of Judaism in a way forward,” she said.
The rabbi is also part of Re-CHARGING Reform Judaism, which she describes as a “movement within a movement to revisit our connection to Israel” and strengthen the community’s ties to Israel and Zionism.
But Sapowith’s work extends beyond any one movement. She has joined interfaith efforts and served as a connector between communities. At Temple Sinai in Rochester, Sapowith led a congregational peoplehood tour to Spain. She worked to connect temple youth with peers in Spain.
“I love practicing my Spanish and developing relationships with other Jewish communities around the world,” Sapowith said.
She’s forging similar connections locally, as “intra-Jewish relations” are a priority of hers.
The BCRC community has now held two Jewish Loudoun Reads events, with the first in December 2024, in hopes of deepening the relationships between BCRC and two other area synagogues through book club gatherings.
“We’re trying to get the Jews from our congregations, and even [those who are] not affiliated, involved in a larger project,” Sapowith explained.
She and the other two northern Virginia rabbis are planning a multicongregational trip to Israel together this December. Sapowith eventually hopes to establish a sister congregation in Israel. Closer to home, she wants to teach another cohort of her adult b’nai mitzvah course.
Her overarching goal? “Continuing this lifelong learning and continue to strengthen community out here in the hinterlands of Virginia.”
