One of my favorite poems at times like these is by Lea Goldberg, 

a 20th century Israeli Hebrew poet. She begins:

הַיָּרֹק הַיּוֹם יָרֹק מְאֹד.

וְהָאָפֹר הַיּוֹם אָפֹר מְאֹד

“The Day After” by Lea Goldberg

The green is very green today.

The gray is very gray today

There’s a little black, but no white in the city,

What is stormy is very stormy today

And the past, today, is very past.

And there’s a little future, but there’s no present in the air.

5784 was a year filled with joy. We celebrated b’nei mitzvah, including three in our renovated building. We welcomed new babies. We danced at weddings. We marked anniversaries and birthdays and long-awaited retirements. We sang on rooftops–or at least I did–and laughed at  jokes. We hugged old friends and smiled at new ones.

Jews have a long-standing love affair with anthologies. It started with Tanach, an amazing anthology of narrative, history, poetry, prophecy, and much more. And then it continued across the centuries.

Samantha loved books.  All kinds of books.  Old books, new books, recycled books, used books, books on Judaism and Jews, books on politics, books on social justice, books on feminism, books on politics, books on urban affairs, books on religions, books on philosophy, self-help books, books to help others, books on virtually any topic. 

I say that mostly to be provocative, you know, sort of as a conversation starter. No, but it’s true. Religion, as a discrete, cordoned off area of one’s life is actually a European-Christian concept, borne out of the Religious Wars of the sixteenth and seventeenth-century, in the German Holy Roman Empire, and surrounding kingdoms.

As a part of our building renovation, we decided to build a library adjacent to the main sanctuary. First, we had to design the shelves, which we did with the help of our interior designer Laavu. Then we had to buy the wood, and we decided to use reclaimed oak wood, which we purchased from a local non-profit called Architectural Salvage Warehouse of Detroit. Parenthetically, I’ll note that the wood was actually from Congregation Shaarey Zedek, which donated the wood when they renovated the small chapel a while back.