Mark Sameth led Shabbat services at the newly formed Pleasantville Community Synagogue for the first time in 1997. Visiting us from his home congregation, B’nai Jeshurun, Mark brought with him a joyous musical style influenced by his years as a rabbinic intern and service leader at that celebrated Upper West Side synagogue. “We were transformed this past Shabbat, and we will never be the same,” we wrote in a note of thanks to his mentors, Rabbis Roly Matalon and Marcelo Bronstein. “His warmth, compassion, and insight overwhelmed us.” Mark was soon asked to split his responsibilities between the two congregations; and upon his ordination in the spring of 1998 was invited to assume the spiritual leadership of Pleasantville Community Synagogue, becoming the first rabbi in Pleasantville in the 300-year history of the village.

Rabbi Mark set about responding to a need for inter-generational learning by creating our acclaimed “Family Education Shabbat” program. A popular teacher of adults, he also works closely with our bar and bat mitzvah students, getting to know each of them individually; and is acknowledged for his ability to guide them in making personal connections to our sacred texts and traditions.

Rabbi Mark’s interests include Jewish mysticism, interfaith and Jewish multi-cultural issues, and healing. He did chaplaincy work at New York Hospital, and is a dedicated and compassionate pastoral counselor. He has partnered with the spiritual care coordinator of Westchester Jewish Community Services, Rabbi Pamela Wax, to bring a series of healing services to the northern Westchester community. As one of the rabbinic leaders of the Jewish Multi-Racial Program of Westchester Jewish Community Services (WJCS), Rabbi Mark has helped to organize and lead community events celebrating the diversity of the Jewish community.

An inspiring darshan (public speaker), Mark was hailed as “one of the greatest preachers of our generation” by Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion, which awarded him the Stephen S. Wise prize in homiletics, and invited him to lecture in the art of sermon-writing while still a student at the college. In a profile featuring our synagogue community, The New York Times hailed the “lusty singing and dancing” of Rabbi Mark’s joyous musical services.

Rabbi Mark’s essays have appeared in Olitzky and Judson’s The Rituals and Practices of a Jewish Life(Jewish Lights, 2002), and Jewish Ritual: a Brief Introduction for Christians (Jewish Lights, 2005). He is featured as well in E.M. Broner’s A Jewish Woman’s Handbook of Rituals (Council Oaks Books, 1999), and in what has been called the “bible” of synagogue transformation: Sidney Schwarz’s seminal book Finding a Spiritual Home: How a New Generation of Jews Can Transform the American Synagogue
(Jossey-Bass, 2000).

Rabbi Mark's Essay on the Tetragrammaton