Upon graduation Shapiro married Deborah Flanigan and the two moved to Hamilton, Ontario, Canada where he earned his M.A. in Religious Studies at McMaster University with a concentration in contemporary Jewish philosophy, especially the work of Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan.
Rami entered the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in 1976, and spent his first year of study in Jerusalem where he studied privately with Rabbi Kaplan who was then 99 years of age.