Posted on 12/16/25
Baltimore, MD - Dec. 16, 2025 - Our closing was supposed to be December 3.
That was the plan for weeks. Then the appraisal delayed things, the date shifted, and when the new closing date finally came through, I paused.
First day of Chanukah.
I smiled. Chanukah is chinuch. Chanukah is Chanukas Habayis — taking something physical and committing it to a higher purpose. I didn’t overthink it, but it felt right.
Then, twenty-four hours before we closed, the news from Sydney began unfolding. A Chanukah gathering. Jews celebrating openly. And tragedy. Being Chabad, it felt deeply personal.
I didn’t know what to make of the timing.
But the clock was ticking, and at 2:45 p.m., on the first day of Chanukah — in the presence of local rabbonim and community leaders — we closed.
We signed on a $2.3 million building that will become the permanent home of Miriam’s Library.
At some point that day, something became very clear to me. Torah teaches “me’at or docheh harbei min hachoshech.” A small amount of light pushes away a lot of darkness. Meaning: you don’t win by wrestling darkness. You win by adding light. Put one candle into a dark room, and the darkness doesn’t “fight back.” It just loses its grip.
That line stopped being a slogan for me after I lost my wife, Miriam a”h.
There’s a kind of darkness that comes with loss that doesn’t resolve itself neatly. It can make a person smaller. Quieter. Closed off. And the truth is: you’re left with a choice.
You can let the darkness define you - or you can decide what you’re going to build.
For me, building became the way I lit a candle.
Not metaphorically. Literally.
A real place in Baltimore where children will walk in after school and be surrounded by Yiddishkeit that is proud, warm, and normal. A place with after school programing. Tutors. Bookshelves filled with Jewish books. Programs that make a kid feel like, I’m part of something big and good.
Miriam’s Library carries her name because it carries what she lived for. Miriam believed in chinuch with her whole self. She believed every child shines - sometimes all that’s missing is a place that sees them clearly and expects greatness from them.
And here’s the part that still moves me: this wasn’t built by “me.”
More than 4,000 donors made this possible. People took something that started as my personal pain and helped turn it into a communal light. Light spreads. That’s what it does.
That’s why the Menorah is lit specifically as the day gets darker. It’s specifically at the darkest moments that we’re meant to increase light.
And yes — no matter how many antisemites there may be, our light will always shine. We’ve said it for generations: “בכל דור ודור עומדים עלינו לכלותנו - והקב״ה מצילנו מידם.” There are always forces that want Jews smaller. Our answer is to live bigger - through Torah, through chinuch, through building.
On the first day of Chanukah, we didn’t just close on a building.
We took darkness - and we chose to turn it into a candle that will keep lighting other candles.