The Scarsdale Inquirer – Hometown newspaper of Scarsdale, New York 10583

Rabbi Jonathan Blake

Rabbi Blake appointed leader of Westchester Reform Temple

By ILENE NECHAMKIN

Rabbi Jonathan Blake has been appointed senior rabbi of Westchester Reform Temple, the largest synagogue in the county, as the successor to Rabbi Richard Jacobs, with whom he has worked since 2003.

“I’m just elated,” said Blake, who turned 38 on Sept. 20, the same day a congregationwide vote affirmed the recommendation of the search committee and temple board of trustees earlier this month. “It was a happy birthday,” he said

Jacobs, who will leave the temple Jan. 1 after about 20 years at its spiritual helm to become president of the Union for Reform Judaism, told the Inquirer that he was “thrilled” by Blake’s appointment. “He’s a brilliant teacher, gifted preacher, caring pastor and creative thinker who is greatly loved by our whole community. To put it simply, Rabbi Blake is a gem.”

Blake’s selection followed a thorough and thoughtful national search process that drew 18 applicants for the position, said congregational president Lisa Messinger. “The impressive number of applications speaks to our reputation.” She called the appointment “terrific and exciting for the entire congregation,” 1,200 households.

“We look forward to reintroducing Rabbi Blake, and his vision for the congregation in years to come,” she said. Blake is already familiar with temple members, teaching bar and bat mitzvah candidates, and presiding at weddings and baby-namings, and teaching a variety of classes. His popular adult education and enrichment classes attracted large crowds of all ages. “Although we’re a big congregation, many people say they’re able to find a community within a community, groups of affinity. We work hard at it. Rabbi Blake understands. He knows us.

“Rabbi Blake will continue Rick Jacobs’ legacy of inspired leadership,” Messinger said. “He will take his legacy to the next step.”

A calling

Blake grew up in Allentown, Pa., the son of an anesthesiologist — “My father likes to joke we do the same thing!” — and an accountant, who focused mostly on mothering, he said.

Since childhood, he said, he’s been active in both reform and conservative synagogues. His love of Judaism was fused with his “love of literature, reading and writing.”

Throughout high school, Blake led public services. At Amherst College, he was active in Hillel, and often tutored the children of professors to recite their bar and bat mitzvah portions. The minority of Jews on campus — Amherst was then 10 to 12 percent Jewish, though it’s increased to 17 to 20 percent, he said — “catalyzed my sense of interest and involvement. I mean, it’s not like there were 20 students at the Hillel House raising their hands and volunteering to lead services on Saturday.”

Blake began Amherst as an environmental science major, but he switched gears in the spring of his freshman year, declaring a major in English lit. “That was when I knew I wanted to become a rabbi,” he said.

“I realized I’d hit on something very early on that nurtured me and got me fired up, something that combined public speaking, music and literature, things I loved,” he said.

And when he told his family of his decision, “they were only a little surprised. My father reminded me that I could have a serious life as a Jew without becoming a rabbi.”

Blake was graduated from Amherst summa cum laude in 1995 and enrolled immediately at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Cincinnati. “I was ready, I felt ready,” he said. Though gap years before or after college hadn’t caught on, “in retrospect some seasoning would have been nice. Two and a half weeks after graduation, I was in Jerusalem for my first year.”

But Blake excelled in rabbinical school, earning honors for academic achievement and homiletics. And there were surprises.

Though he’d known he wanted to be a rabbi, he wasn’t sure when he began that he wanted a congregational life. That changed as soon as he began his fieldwork, finding that the sacred literature he loved became more meaningful when he shared it with others.

He also learned that he wasn’t cut out to be a solo rabbi in a small congregation. “That can be lonely work,” Blake said. “I need colleagues and collaborators, who can be a great blessing when it’s time to share ideas and refine a vision.”

Blake said that he needs to be part of a team. “But I never articulated that it had to be a 1,200-family congregation!” Indeed, WRT is singular in size. Asked whether his relatively young age makes the appointment surprising, or even daunting, Blake pointed out that Rabbi Jacobs was even younger when he became spiritual leader at 35, and Jacobs’s predecessor, Rabbi Jack Stern, was about the same age. “This congregation has a tradition of hiring senior rabbis who are in their mid- to late 30s.”

The most rewarding part of the job, he said, is the interaction with the congregation. “I became a rabbi out of a desire to immerse myself in the literature of sacred Jewish tradition but it is the life of sacred Jewish connection that keeps me going,” he said. “Moments with bride and groom beneath the chuppah, on the bimah with bar and bat mitzvah, in hospital rooms, standing by the grave, these intimate encounters are where ordinary life touches the numinous.”

That interaction “isn’t what drew me into the rabbinate, but what keeps me,” he said.

These days, as the temperatures cool and the leaves begin to change, Blake is working on his High Holy Day sermon, which is, he said, about coveting and envy. He will consult both newspapers and sacred texts. “Obviously, there are plenty of examples in modern life, and the whole book of Genesis is about the harm that jealousy inflicts.”

Relying on Jewish tradition while updating it seems to inspire and energize the rabbi, who dispenses with labels like reform or orthodox, which tend to divide Jews and brew ill feelings.

“We all make choices” about observance, he said, “and that choice comes out of respecting modernity and embracing it — or rejecting it,” an idea posited by Rabbi Jacob Neusner. In that sense, reform and modern orthodox Jews are in the same category, he pointed out, and opposed only by “black hat,” ultra-religious movements that separate completely from the secular world.

Pillars

Blake was at WRT when Rabbi Jacobs helped formulate a congregational “mission statement” identifying five pillars, or pathways, of Jewish tradition and expression. Blake intends to further and strengthen the pillars, to develop a set of ideas shaping the future direction of that aspect of synagogue life.

The pillar of chavurah, or community, means that the synagogue is “an inclusive, embracing congregation,” Blake explained. “We acknowledge Jewish diversity and openly embrace the presence of non-Jewish members.” For the pillar of social action, or tikkun olam, the congregation will continue to participate in an ongoing community service initiative called Westchester Unite.

“The study of Torah infuses everything I do,” Blake said of the pillar of education, or Talmud Torah. He said his commitment to extract Torah learning from any experience is renewed. And to strengthen Clal Yisroel, or the sense of connection to the entire Jewish people, Blake will lead a congregational tour to Israel this winter, and envisions tours to discover and witness Jewish communities worldwide. “That’ll be happy and holy work,” he said.

He spoke at great length about the pillar of avodah, loosely translated as worship, which to him means an exploration of the observance of Shabbat, a day of rest that celebrates both creation and freedom. The language of Shabbat observance has been co-opted by the orthodox, he said; that language may be limited to Shabbat restrictions, which legalisms have little relevance to the reform movement.

But the large membership of the temple means that many, if not most, Shabbat services are devoted to bar and bat mitzvah, “meaning that a spiritually uplifting Shabbat experience for the balance of the members is ignored. We have to find a way a way to balance our simchas [joyful celebrations] with Shabbat,” the rabbi said.

He said finding the balance is a “wonderful opportunity to explore new modalities.”

“More than Israel has kept Shabbat, Shabbat has kept Israel," he said, quoting Ahad Ha’am, the founder of cultural Zionism. “Shabbat has served Judaism very well, a wonderful way to offset and get relief from a go-go-go world. It’s a time to back away from the phone and computer and kids’ athletic schedules, a time to look inward and recalibrate. Who isn’t feeling burned out? Shabbat is a day to recharge our batteries.”

He said he hopes to inspire a lay task force to investigate the ways to keep Shabbat. “Some congregants may choose not to turn on electricity, others will host a meal or attend Torah study. I’m hoping everyone will experience Shabbat, maybe in a different way. The question is, How can we as a community go from Friday night [when the Sabbath begins at sunset] to Saturday night?”

Rabbi Blake also intends to add a sixth pillar, “what I call the sixth point on a Jewish star.” He hopes the temple will become a “hub for Jewish arts and culture in Westchester. I’d like to use our new campus for permanent and temporary installations of art that inspires and educates,” he said.

A musician, “foodie," oenophile (lover of wine), and practitioner of yoga, Rabbi Blake is an experienced vocalist and guitarist. His wife, Kelly McCormick, is an actress.

“The most important thing now is for me to introduce, or reintroduce, myself to congregants,” he said; to better gauge their needs and preferences. “I want to help experience the spiritual moments of their lives. I want to deliver good pastoral care. And I want to facilitate conversations and ways of being in the world that can deepen life’s meaning.”

Rabbi Blake praised Rabbi Jacobs’s “ability to steer so large a congregation, with excellence and respect. And he praised Rabbi Jack Stern’s “gifts of humanity, oratory and caretaking. He was a rabbi’s rabbi,” Blake said.

“And lucky me, to be custodian of such an amazing legacy. It’s a special responsibility, an opportunity to explore new dimensions to leadership.”

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