Rabbi David Gerber ascends the bimah at Gates of Prayer

By DEAN M. SHAPIRO, Special to the Crescent City Jewish News

When the members of Congregation Gates of Prayer returned to their synagogue last weekend, following a two-month summer hiatus, they were seeing a new face on the bimah for the first time in 34 years. Newly-appointed Senior Rabbi David Gerber was officiating over his first service at the Reform temple in Metairie.

Rabbi David Gerber of Congregation Gates of Prayer. (Photo by Dean M. Shapiro)

Taking the reins from now-Emeritus Rabbi Robert Loewy, Gerber has spent the past two months getting acclimated to his new home in the New Orleans area, as well as with his staff and key members of the congregation. But he has been doing more than just that. Gerber has also been out in the local Jewish community, officiating over Friday afternoon services across the street at the Metairie JCC Summer Camp and he presided over services at Henry S. Jacobs Camp several weeks ago.

The new Senior Rabbi had glowing words of praise for his predecessor in an exclusive interview with the CCJN, as the torch was being passed. “Rabbi Loewy has been very helpful whenever I’ve had a question about a tradition or a custom or something else that has come up. He’s been very open about sharing that information with me,” he explained.

Coming to Gates of Prayer from a 1,000-plus member synagogue in the Philadelphia suburbs, where he served as assistant and associate rabbi for six years, Gerber is impressed by what he has seen so far with his new assignment.

“This is a congregation that has a great history,” he began. “We’re coming up on our 170th anniversary, which is really incredible. When you come to a place like this, the first thing you have to do is get to know the history, the people and the culture, and understand the fabric of what makes this community what it is. So that’s my first priority; to know this place as well as I possibly can.

“The board has been great and everybody I’ve met has been great,” Gerber continued. “As they meet their new rabbi they tell me their history with Gates of Prayer, what’s connected them and what they’d like to see. I’m taking in a lot of information at this point.”

Does he plan any major changes for his tenure? The rabbi responds, “This congregation, for the last 34 years, has looked up at the bimah and they’ve seen Rabbi Loewy. Looking up and seeing me is a big enough change that you don’t want to do too much more right away. You don’t want to do anything jarring.”

Rabbi David Gerber in his study at Congregation Gates of Prayer. (Photo by Dean M. Shapiro)

However, he added, “There are a couple of little things that I’m bringing in now that aren’t changes: they’re more like additions.” Starting this month he is introducing something that he terms “take-out Judaism.” Resembling a take-out menu from a restaurant, the rabbi explained that it is a list of classes that can be taught in congregation members’ homes on a number of different topics.

These classes, he said, can be taught by either himself or other synagogue personnel, including cantorial soloist Victoria “Tory” May, Temple educator Phil Gaethe or Nursery School director Melanie Blitz, who is also an expert cook. As he explained, “You simply call in and you say, for example, you’d like to have Melanie’s class on Passover cooking on such-and-such date at your house and Melanie will come there and teach the class. That’s something we’ve never done here before.”

Gerber has also been holding what he calls “out-of-office hours,” informal, 90-minute gatherings with congregants at various coffee houses and wine bars, during which he listens to what they have to say in a more relaxed setting than a pastoral office. “It’s been a great way to get to know people,” he said.

A native of the St. Louis area, Gerber grew up to be a Cardinals Major League Baseball fan. Memorabilia of Hall of Famers Stan Musial and his personal idol, Ozzie Smith, grace the walls of his Metairie office. A shortstop himself, he studied and practiced some of Smith’s fielding tips, including throwing a tennis ball in the air while lying on his back and catching it in a darkened room.

His family life, Gerber recalled, was one of observing Passover and the holy days in the home and at shul, but they weren’t every-week attendees. He described his childhood as that of a very typical bar mitzvah student. “I left every day early for baseball practice or karate when I was in Hebrew school,” he remembered. “When I had my bar mitzvah service I think that was the last time I was in a synagogue until I was maybe 19 or 20. So I was a typical Jewish kid who had his bar mitzvah and was done.”

However, he rediscovered his roots and his faith while attending college at Indiana University, where he often found himself among non-Jews who wanted to know more about Judaism.

“Anytime somebody wanted to know something about Judaism or about Israel they would ask me because I was the only Jew that they knew. I got tired of not knowing the answers,” he explained. “So I started studying on my own and, as a young adult, Judaism and Torah clicked with me. The second I picked up the Tenach and started reading it, I knew this was what I wanted to do.”

Rabbi David Gerber of Congregation Gates of Prayer in Metairie. (Photo by Dean M. Shapiro)

But, as the young student quickly learned, the process of actually becoming a rabbi involved more than just a simple desire to be ordained as one. In a phone call to the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion (HUC-JIR) in Cincinnati, he was informed that he had a lot of catching up to do, making up for the six- or seven-year gap in his Jewish education process.

“Thankfully they didn’t hang up on me,” Rabbi Gerber laughed as he recalled the conversation he had with the seminary at the time. “They told me, ‘If you really want to do this, you need to start taking Hebrew classes. You need to get into as many Jewish studies classes as you can. You need to show a long-term commitment to the Jewish community.’”

After graduating IU with a degree in Media Design and Production, he took a job in finance in St. Louis and taught Hebrew School in the evenings. He took graduate-level classes in Jewish Studies at Washington University of St. Louis and, after five years, he applied to and was accepted at Hebrew Union.

While enrolled at HUC-JIR, he spent his first year at their seminary in Jerusalem where he also worked in a garden and played several sports. He was later sent, as a student rabbi, to the under-served Jewish community of Kokomo, Indiana, where he not only officiated, but also sang as cantor and served in every other congregational function.

It was also while he was a student that he met his future wife, Lauren. They were married in June of 2011 and he was ordained a year later.

Soon after his ordination, Gerber was assigned to the Reform congregation in Maple Glen, Pennsylvania, a Philadelphia suburb. While there, he served as an assistant rabbi for two years and as an associate rabbi for four more years, before receiving the invitation to interview for the position at Gates of Prayer.

“I knew right away that this synagogue was going to be a good fit for me and for them,” the rabbi said. “I had interviewed with a couple of other congregations but after five or six visits I still wasn’t ready to commit to them. But, after one visit here, my wife and I knew this was it. The people were so welcoming. I didn’t feel like I was out to dinner with the committee interviewing me. I felt like we were out to dinner with friends and we loved it.”

Not only does Gerber bring his love of sports to his new congregation (he plays on the synagogue’s softball team and is organizing a football league), he also brings in his love of music which he terms “a Jewish invention and a big part of Judaism.” Starting out as a trumpet player, which qualified him to “blow a mean shofar,” he later took up the guitar, the instrument he now plays for special occasions, three of which hang from the wall behind his desk.

He also brings to the table his experiences as a stockbroker and financial planner which he says, will help the temple organization with its budgeting and fundraising functions. In addition, he hopes to take groups of congregation members and others to Jerusalem, possibly as early as next spring.

Also, as a vehement proponent of Zionism and the continued existence of Israel, Gerber expects to be an advocate for both from his podium on the bimah. In a prepared statement introducing himself to the congregation, he wrote: “I believe it is my responsibility to speak about Judaism from the pulpit. There will certainly be times when current events and politics intersect with Jewish values. When this occurs, I hope you will come to know that everything I bring to the bimah is filtered through our sacred texts and traditions.”

Today the Gerbers are busy settling into their new home in Metairie and looking forward to their upcoming Chanukah Habayit (home blessing) to which the community is invited. Lauren is already involved in programs for the synagogue, including teaching a post b’nai mitzvah classes and helping out with the Early Childhood Center. The couple have two daughters – five-year-old Paige, who will be starting kindergarten in the fall, and two-year-old Tessa, who is enrolled in the CGOP Nursery School.

“They’ve been very excited about this move and it’s really been nice for them,” Gerber reflected. “They’ve met a lot of friends and Paige came with me to Jacobs Camp and loved it; she didn’t want to leave. So, for me and my family, it’s been great here.”

(Editor’s note: Rabbi Gerber will be officially installed as the Senior Rabbi of Congregation Gates of Prayer by Rabbi Emeritus Robert Loewy in November of 2018. Details will be posted on the CCJN as they become available.)