For Jmore’s annual “Love Issue,” we’ve profiled a pair of local Jewish couples — one new to wedded life and the other a seasoned union — who truly exemplify the spirit of giving, mutual respect and ahava.
For Asher Varon, realizing that Sophia Adler was the person he wanted to spend his life with came down to a simple root vegetable frequently employed as a snowman’s nose — a carrot.
On their second date in March of 2018, Asher, 27, a Pikesville native then attending Columbia University, asked Sophia to meet him at New York’s Riverside Park after a heavy snowfall to go sledding. Since Asher only brought a pair of plastic storage bin lids as makeshift sleds, the activity didn’t last long.
“We had nothing else to do after five minutes so I said, ‘What do you want to do now?’” Asher recalls. “She wanted to build a snowman. I said, ‘You can’t build a snowman without a carrot,’ and she immediately pulled out a carrot.
“That’s when I knew she was the one,” he says, grinning. “I saw creativity, out-of-the-box thinking, spontaneity — all the things I was looking for. Someone with personality.”
A Long Island native who lived for years in Manhattan, Sophia, 28, shrugs off the carrot incident. “I knew we were going to build a snowman because you can only sled for so long,” she says. “To me, it was no big deal, just good planning.”
It’s been a long road for Asher and Sophia since that snowy day. The Varons, who got married last August at Jones Beach in New York, survived what both consider a disastrous first date, years of long-distance dating, career and academic transitions, and a pandemic.
Today, the couple are the operators of the Moishe Pod Federal Hill. Part of the international Moishe House organization, the pods are two-person residences in large cities that provide Jewish programming and activities for their respective communities. So far, the Varons’ pod and home — located in an apartment on Key Highway — has hosted a Shabbat dinner and partnered with local Jewish groups for holiday and social gatherings.
“We really wanted to live in Federal Hill and be a starter for the community, so we pitched the idea to Moishe House,” says Asher, a doctoral student at Johns Hopkins University and a 2013 graduate of the Beth Tfiloh Dahan Community School. “We knew there was a burgeoning community here that was untapped, so we got the green light last summer. Baltimore is having a rebirth of its downtown Jewish community, so we’re happy to be a part of it.”
Says Sophia, a Jewish communal professional who is assistant director of 4Front, a Jewish teen empowerment program headquartered at the Owings Mills JCC: “I’d been living in a Moishe House in Boston and really liked it. … We love having Shabbat dinners, and we’re planning to have an ice cream tasting and outdoor events as well.”
Asher and Sophia originally met through the JSwipe dating app. “I liked her photo because she was wearing a beanie hat,” says Asher. “Your typical Upper West Side Jewish girl doesn’t usually wear a beanie. There was just something there.”
When Asher didn’t ask for her phone number at the end of their first date, Sophia assumed there was no romantic connection. She was surprised when she heard from him a few weeks later, to go on their infamous sledding date.
“It took about three months until we got to the ‘titles phase’ — boyfriend, girlfriend,” says Sophia. “We had about a solid year together in New York to solidify our relationship.”
But then, Sophia moved away to serve as program director of Diller Teen Fellows at the JCC Greater Boston. “I had lived in New York all my life and I wanted to try living outside of it,” she says. “So we did the long-distance thing for a while.”
In early March of 2020, Sophia visited Asher in New York at the outset of the pandemic. At the urging of Asher’s family, they quickly decided — in the chaos and uncertainty of the pandemic’s early days — to isolate themselves at the Varons’ Pikesville residence for what all assumed would be a short spell.
It turned out Asher and Sophia were there for more than three months. “It was hard,” remembers Sophia. “You couldn’t go anywhere, we were wiping down groceries. I’d only met his parents a few times, and then suddenly I was living with them and his sister. I got to know the whole mishpachah really well! But I think living together made it all much easier for us in the long run.”
Asher agrees. “I think we came out of the other end [of the pandemic] and said, ’This might work out,’” he says. “We went through the unknown together, and even had fun while doing it.”
But a snag arose when he decided to pursue his doctorate at Hopkins and live for a year with his parents, while Sophia remained in Boston. “We got to know Amtrak really well,” says Asher. “But I loved going to Boston. It was like a vacation for me. … And she was so supportive of my work.”
Throughout their courtship, Asher and Sophia say they knew they’d likely wind up together and frequently discussed marriage. “Asher is just so easy to spend time with,” Sophia says. “In conversations, he always digs deep, and I really like that. He’s not afraid to disagree with me.”
Asher proposed to Sophia on Labor Day of 2021 at one of their favorite places: Breakneck Ridge Mountain trail in New York’s Hudson Valley. Before their arrival, Asher recruited buddies to plant tea lights, rose petals, champagne and a guitarist at the designated proposal spot on the trail, and he sang and proposed to Sophia in a tuxedo in front of a crowd of friends and fellow hikers.
“I was impressed,” says Sophia. “It was very funny because it was windy and rainy. It was hard to hear him, and I was impressed that he got through it all.”
As busy newlyweds running a Jewish program out of their home, Asher and Sophia admit finding quality time is sometimes challenging.
“We’re having fun with [Moishe Pod Federal Hill], but it does take a lot of our time,” says Sophia. “It’s like having a business partner or co-worker you live with, so we try to separate all the pod talk from the rest of our lives as much as possible. But we’re having a lot of fun. We feel this is really a pivotal time for Jewish people living downtown. It’s a very warm and welcoming community.”
Since February is the month when folks tend to think about relationships, romance and love, Jmore offers its annual "Love Issue," profiling four couples who somehow make it all work and embody the Jewish proverb, "Only love gives us the taste of eternity."
Not even a pandemic can slow down the power of love, as shown by the stories in this year's "Love Issue."