Our apartment tells a story

People sometimes ask us what it’s actually like to be grassroots Jewish community builders. What does a day in the life look like when you’ve decided—very consciously—to turn your home inside out for the sake of the Jewish people?

A few weeks before Hanukkah, on an otherwise ordinary Friday afternoon, Erica took out her phone and filmed a short video. Between 12 and 1pm, our apartment filled up with deliveries: Hanukkah supplies, Shabbat food, ritual odds and ends, boxes upon boxes that together told a very familiar story.

It was not a glamorous story, but it certainly was a lived-in one. Our home has long since stopped pretending to be a “normal” apartment.

Over the years it has held a Torah ark in the living room (during the pandemic, no less), against which our daughter Maayan learned how to sit up as a baby. One entire closet is devoted to Jewish holidays — ritual objects, candles, booklets, banners, twinkly lights, and the delightful clutter you need when you live (and share) the Jewish calendar.

We live on folding furniture, because you never know when you’ll need to clear the space quickly for 30 people to sit on the floor when a rooftop celebration gets rained out.

We sometimes catch ourselves in other people’s homes, noticing the absence of stacks of folding chairs or marveling at delicate china, and thinking: But where would everyone sit? What happens if it breaks when 20 people come for Shabbat dinner?

This little video is a glimpse into the nuttiness—and the devotion—of a home built for community. We truly can’t imagine living another way.

We wanted to share it with you as a window into the everyday love and logistics behind the community we’re building together.