We're not in Kansas
(or a P.O. Box) anymore!

Jewish Milestones has found a home!

When the sofa was delivered to 748 Gilman—the new office of Jewish Milestones—the delivery guys, John and Demeter, admired the place and asked if the bedroom was upstairs.

Rachel: “No, this is an office. The desks, computers and files [pointing to the loft] are up there.”
Demeter: “You’re kidding, this room is just for making people comfortable while you work with them?
Rachel: “Exactly.”
John: “Success is yours, sayeth the Lord.”
Rachel: “Amen.”
Demeter: “But where’s the TV?”

With no TV (and no plans to get one) the first official office space for Jewish Milestones, a loft located in an industrial section of North Berkeley, has received many more blessings since the day of the sofa delivery. The blessings have come in human form and book form, appearing as artwork, and donated desk chairs, online donations, supportive emails and phone calls.

And on a warm Sunday afternoon in June, Jewish Milestones hosted more than 100 people at an informal open house that included live music by Ya Elah and Friends, food and drink, much laughter, and of course, a ritual. The ritual involved sharing words of Torah, expressions of gratitude and the hanging of a mezuzah.

Significant transitions are usually accompanied by a period of feeling neither here nor there. That state of liminality—of feeling on the threshold of change—is an ideal place to introduce ritual and is in fact, the basis of all rites of passage. So what could be a more fitting ritual for Jewish Milestones than the dedication of this space to helping people find meaning in ritual, using a ceremony that is literally a rite of threshold (the meaning of the word “mezuzah”)? The mezuzah affixed to the door symbolizes a very public affirmation of our commitment to the values of our tradition and will ser ve as a touchstone for our staff as we enter and exit our place of work, a concrete reminder of why we do this work and whom we serve. Like the mezuzah, Jewish Milestones has Torah (in its broadest sense) at the core and a commitment to presenting it in beautiful containers. In fact, the mezuzah we put up was made by an Israeli ceramicist, Sarah ben Yosef, whose work we admire.

Beautiful objects with sacred purpose are core components of most Jewish lifecycle rituals. The open house served to showcase some of the ritual objects that have been donated to us and serve to adorn the space. The office is intended to be much more than a comfortable meeting place and a home base for the organization and its staff. We envision Jewish Milestones serving as an educational resource for anyone interested in learning about and creating Jewish ritual. To that end, 748 Gilman now houses our rapidly expanding Ritual Resources Lending Library: a collection of Jewish books, music and ritual objects, primarily focused on lifecycle rituals, most of which can be loaned to our clients for research and ceremonial use. Many of the items were donated by our supporters, who diligently combed their bookshelves, raided their built-ins and dusted off the extras, the unused, and the underappreciated in their own collections. They graciously brought over bar mitzvah books, wedding presents, heirlooms from their in-laws’ side of the family, along with many white silky yarmulkes.

One major gap in our collection reflects a larger challenge faced by many of our constituents: the lack of a Torah scroll available for educational and ceremonial use by those having lifecycle rituals outside a synagogue setting. The open house served as the official launch of the Jewish Milestones Torah Fund.

The Jewish Milestones Torah Fund was established in June 2007 with a challenge grant from our board member Don Friend to kick off our campaign to raise the $12,000 needed to buy and insure a previously owned, "kosher" sefer Torah (Torah scroll). Ever since the Middle Ages, Jewish communities have raised funds for the purchase of a Torah scroll by "selling" letters, words and larger portions of the Torah they hoped to acquire. We are encouraging our supporters to consider taking this opportunity to honor family members and friends by "purchasing" parts of a Torah in celebration of a personal milestone or in memory of a loved one. For more information on how you can participate in this worthy project, click here.

With gratitude to all of the many people who helped us get this far and with the hope that our work will, in the words of the Psalms (90:17), find favor with the Source of All Blessings and succeed.