Facilities Management and Restoration as a Spiritual Practice

Originally published in the High Holy Days 5782 issue of the Galim (Sept. 2021)

YOU MAY KNOW the famous story from the Talmud of Babylonia (Ta‘anit 23a) in which a prominent sage, Rabbi Yohanan, relates the following tale:

 

Once Honi the Circle-maker was walking on the road

and saw a man planting a carob tree.

Honi said: “You know a carob tree takes 70 years to bear fruit;

are you so sure that you will live 70 years so as to eat from it?”

“I found this world provided with carob trees,” the man replied,

“and as my forebears planted them for me,

so will I plant for my offspring.”

[By the way, it’s no accident that this story is told about carobs. According to Judah Feliks (Professor of Botany, Bar Ilan University, in the 1970s), the act of planting a carob tree for its fruit involves a fairly long-term investment time frame, for two reasons: (1) females of this species begin to bear fruit at a later age than other fruit trees; and (2) when the male trees get very old, they begin to produce female flowers and fruit!]

This part of the story means a lot to me. It encapsulates my approach to facilities management-and-restoration at Mishkon. It’s a way of expressing my gratitude for the efforts of my forebears who built and sustained Mishkon Tephilo until I came along. I do so by “paying it forward” for the sake of those who will come after me. 

As a result, my attending to the care of our facilities has a profound effect on me: it connects me to those Jews who came before me, as well as to those who will come after me. It links me to something larger than myself—a certain something that has the potential to help people to learn, to pray, to heal, to grow, etc. In that sense, facilities management and restoration is a spiritual practice.