Rabbi Analia Bortz said she’s had four moments of “out-of-body experiences in holiness” in her life. One occurred on Feb. 13 when she met Pope Francis at the Vatican for the first time.
The former Atlantan was in Rome for the official launch of the Center for Ethics at the Vatican and the University Abarvanel- Seminario Rabinico LatinoAmericano, of which she is a co-director.
Now living in Jerusalem with her husband, Rabbi Mario Karpuj, Bortz told Rough Draft that she spoke with the Pope in Spanish during their 10-minute conversation. Both of them were born in Buenos Aires.
“He is incredibly nice and humble,” Bortz said. Through the touch of his hand, “he was able to transmit a moment of peace. There was a very special chemistry and electricity. I had tears in my eyes. He looked at me and he was able to transfer his neshama [Hebrew for soul] in his eyes. It’s hard to describe. I truly felt the presence of G-d. We are from the same national background but two different religions.”
When she told him that she was from Argentina but now lived in Jerusalem, he responded, in Spanish, “my two lovers.”
Bortz, the founding rabbi emeritus of Congregation Or Hadash in Sandy Springs, said the other three moments of holiness she experienced were in the Bamboo Forest in Kyoto, Japan, where she “connected with G-d,” when she crossed the Alps on foot and in Laos where she fed breakfast to monks on a Shabbat morning.
She quickly noted that those four moments were in addition to giving birth to her two daughters and the day her grandchild was born.
The Seminario Rabinico LatinoAmericano and Isaac Abarbanel University sponsored the mission in Rome entitled “Human Meanings and Challenges” to “discuss contemporary dilemmas and engage deeply with possible solutions and actions.” It was organized by the Pontifical Academy for Life to focus on human ethics for universal peace.
The summit, held Feb 12-15, brought speakers from around the world, included the Papal audience and the signing of the “Buenos Aires Declaration for Latin America”, favoring life and human care, opposing all forms of cruelty, hatred, international terrorism and war.
In his address, Pope Francis said the question being addressed by the general assembly was “one of utmost importance, namely, how we are to understand what is distinctive about the human being. It is a question that is ancient and yet always new, one that the remarkable resources made available by new technologies is posing to us in ever more complex ways.”
At an official presentation of the Center for Ethics on Thursday, Feb. 15, co-directors Bortz and Dr. Carlos Regazzoni, who lives in Argentina, were presented to the mission attendees.
Bortz, whose first Ph.D. degree is in bioethics, is working on another Ph.D. in feminism and theology.
“I love studying,” she said.
As part of her new position, she will be teaching at a university in Argentina in March. “Then I will come there once a year for a seminar,” she explained, adding that her focus now is on “pure academia.”
Initially trained as a medical doctor, Bortz became the first female rabbi in Latin America. When Bortz and Karpuj came to Atlanta, they served Congregation Ahavath Achim for three years before founding Congregation Or Hadash in 2003.
Bortz helped create to a bioethics committee at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta. She was a founding board member of the Jewish Fertility Foundation of Atlanta and active in JScreen, an Atlanta genetic screening program that offers at-home testing for genetic defects that occur with greater incidence in the Ashkenazi Jewish population.
Bortz and Karpuj moved to Israel in 2020.