In the Jewish tradition, thirty is a decisive age. According to the statement of Jewish sages in Pirkei Avot (Ethics of Our Fathers), thirty is the age of “the peak of strength,” the point where a person’s perception of life and ideas give way to fundamental certainties. For Chabad of Plano, its 30th anniversary celebrates the strength contributed by many people in its foundation and growth. Rabbi Menachem and his wife, Rivkie Block, continue to harness the strength of the 180 families that call Chabad of Plano home, hence the theme, “Moving forward with strength.”
Rabbi Block moved from Brooklyn, New York, with his wife Rivkie, after being asked to by The Lubavitcher Rebbe in 1991. The young couple came to Plano with their 18-month-old son and 1-month-old daughter when there was nothing but farmland and heaps of dirt. The Rebbe had asked the couple to become Shluchim (emissaries). The mission was to develop and serve Jewish communities in every corner of the world with love and joy. Rabbi Block and his wife decided that Plano would be their corner.
Shortly after they arrived at the location where Dallas’s northern expansion would start, Rabbi Block was told by a hardware store worker he was “crazy” for moving to Plano because there was nothing there to support a Jewish community. Rather than share the discouraging news with his wife, Rabbi Block started planting seeds.
“The uniqueness of the Chabad movement,” explains Rabbi Block. “A congregation has people, an executive director, a board, who looks for a spiritual leader to hire. Chabad’s model is the opposite. Chabad’s model is the rabbi and the Rebbe, and his wife. They just show up. Nobody brings them; nobody hires them. Nobody gives them a salary. You just strike out, and you start meeting people and creating programming. I like the freshness and the outreach element to it. I like the welcoming environment. There’s always a smile, the nonjudgmental, wide embrace, everybody that wants to come, and they started supporting you.”
Rabbi Block and his wife’s first supporters were a politician and her husband, Howard Shapiro. Shapiro met with Rabbi Block at his request, and they established the first Torah class in Plano, which was held at Shapiro’s office and then later at his home.
“Thirty years ago, a young rabbi and his wife arrived in Plano with a vision and a mission,” Shapiro recalls. “One of his first encounters was with me, a young lawyer at the time, who grew up in rural Texas not knowing many Jewish people — certainly not one who wore a black hat and talked of establishing a Chabad center here in Plano. It was a match only the Rebbe could have envisioned.”
The Shapiros were crucial to the foundation of the Chabad Center as they helped Rabbi Block and his wife establish themselves and their essential missions within the community: holiday celebrations, Hebrew school, summer day camp, and adult education.
“I’m sitting now in the Lang Chabad Center on Park Boulevard and Coit, but donors of Plano built this. They believed in us and donated enough money to build the building,” says Rabbi Block. “We now have a full host of services. We have synagogue and prayer. We have camps, a preschool, and holiday programming, including big events that are not just limited to the Jewish community.”
Rabbi Block explains that some guest speakers they host have messages that transcend faith and gender and are communal messages of morality and ethics. They are messages of obtaining joy and happiness that Jews and non-Jews can relate to.
Happiness for Rabbi Block has been his children choosing to follow in his footsteps. Four out of Rabbi Block’s eight children currently fund their divisions within Chabad. His daughter, Mushkie, and her husband, Rabbi Mendy Kesselman, operate The Chabad of Frisco. His eldest son, Eli, and his wife Sara serve young professionals moving to Plano and those trying to reconnect with Chabad.
Another son, Sholom Block, and his wife run Camp gan Israel of Plano and lead holiday celebrations and activities in Allen and McKinney. Rockwall is the latest site for a Chabad center headed up by Rabbi and Chana Kalmenson.
“That’s been a source of great pride that our children have chosen to continue the same line of work …we have another location in Plano that services a unique demographic called ‘Y. J. P,’ which stands for Young Jewish Professionals and is run by my son and serves 25 to 35-year-old singles. They’re young, single, and they don’t want to come around my place because my place has lots of kids. They want to have their vibe. They don’t want to be around the old guys. They want to be with the hip and the cool people. And so yeah, he’s very successful”, beams Rabbi Block.
With the growth and success stemming from Chabad of Plano, you would think Rabbi Block would sit back, say “job well done,” and let his children take it from here, but he has more in mind. Along with plans to innovate, establish several initiatives, and complete expansion projects, Rabbi Block says the ultimate goal is to expand the footprint of Chabad.
“There are so many Jews that do not know and never had the opportunity to learn a lot about who they are,” says Rabbi Block. “They did not get a Jewish education while in public school, and they know very little about Judaism and their own faith.”
Rabbi Block emphasizes the plethora of information online regarding Jewish teachings but says there is no substitute for the teacher or parent who can hand down the traditions and connect personally.
“Everybody has a different spirit in them,” says Rabbi Block. “No one has the same spirit. Different things move everybody, and everybody has different questions. Everybody has different life circumstances that drive them to find answers or direction for themselves. But the real success of a leader is to be able to lead everybody individually, according to their spirit.”
