Architect Phil Atkin presents the Waxman Chabad Center at Cleveland Kinus

After Kabad, I I became involved in a small shake sh all the members besides myself and another were 40 years older than me and they were so kind. It was what an amazing amazing return. In any case, they had a small very narrow shel. And um uh because of that uh the Beimma was out far and uh the everyone was people were sitting on that side and that side facing the Beimma and it it was there was no place to really stand and and u and and and talk. And one of the things I wanted to do was make sure that this sh was open, that it was always that everyone could could interact, everyone could see. So we started out with a um the concept of u four corners like this. We'd have a north which is over there, west, east, a west, south and east. And you'd have clearer understanding where east in your lion is. Um when we one of the principles was mador, I didn't want to do trendy things. I didn't want to come up with some little crazy thing. What I wanted to do was honor all of the people who had built wonderful shoes in the past. So, um, I did a lot of research, excuse me. And this arm is from the uh is a replica a very very close replica uh from a shul in Florence, Italy during the height of the the Jewish Renaissance in in Italy the great great leaders and uh it fit. I was looking for things that would fit this concept and it fit perfectly in this space. And then um one of the uh other There were certain influences during the the time of the building. One of them was Rabbi Levki and Rabbi Levki made sure that Kabad was involved was the the the intimate parts of Kabad would be part of the sh. So one of the things that was very important to him was dancing on Friday night. Dancing at various times. And so when we got a beam on, it had to be a beam on it that first we're talking about something that can move, but it's just very difficult with all the uh the electric and all the things involved in. In any case, so I found this a shel in south of uh England that had this rounded beam. So that's what we have and we were able to to do that. the the whole building was built again in the classic sense. And if you notice u these columns which could have been just drywall go go go go go go go go go go go go go go go go go go go go go all go go go go go go go go go go go go go go go go go go go go go up so far and the the beams are uh exposed and the idea is that um it's it's part of the hashem is one and we're part of the bria and one of the most um one of the places I've seen mo most holiness not the most but where perks of holiness all the time is when I spend time alone in the woods. So what I did is tried to make this into a forest you could say and you can see the walls are green and like there was vegetation of tree or leaves and these come up like the the u trunks of trees and other beams going across and then you look through the windows it's like looking through the trees looking if you're in the woods and looking through the trees and you can see outside and on good days you can see through there you can see other trees the tree on this side the point is to um feel as if you're truly in the bria that Hashem is one and we're part of that and but we can um that we have to seek him and of course we have these windows going up so that it's it's all kosher we don't have we're we're turning all as far as windows are concerned we're not looking at the the events of the Today we're looking up at the up at Shimai. So that our eyes are fixed on Shimai. Now um you can see like the the ceiling which is is blue. So that would be like the sky and um uh the walls are green and and so on. So we tried to have that little bit. The other thing is when you're in this sh you might have noticed in your congregation there might be a few people who aren't staring at their sitter that they happen to know everything by heart. So if you start if you know everything by heart I I was thinking as you're in this sh you can look through the windows and get a sense of and maybe to lift up your prayer maybe lift your what you're uh what you what you're dating over. Um so Rabbi Alleski helped on that point. Um, Hashem helped one day somebody came up to me and said, "Oh, there's some carpenter here visiting. He's looking for some work." I said, "Oh, yeah. Give give me his number." Well, he gave me the number and a week later, I ran into the same person. He said, "Did you call him? Did you call him?" "Oh, I you know I I was busy." You know, I have people come up to me all the time during a construction project. Oh, can you hire this guy? He's blah blah blah. So, I said, "Look, um, I'm going to be here tomorrow. Tell him to come after 11 in the morning and see if he's interested." So, the guy walked in. He's about 50 years old. And, uh, he looks at the place and we didn't have any wood in it. We had a drywall at that point. And he looks at the place and he says, he tells he's from Israel. Says, "I have to do this. I have to do this." I said, "Do you have a shop?" He says, "Give me two days." So two days later, he comes back. You found a shop? Yeah. And I knew where he where he found it. Where there's some other was extra space. And he borrowed equipment. He got a helper and he constructed this. He I come in and I find the iron up to here. He built it in levels and then erected it levels here. And all of this woodwork here, all of the woodwork in this room, including the he was just here to visit his son. It took him not a huge amount of time. did the whole thing and everything when I was building this everything seemed to happen like that. I came to the sh the night kipper after I finished a there's uh some um I'm going to talk about uh different uh uh the hilos that you say about seven days of the week and I figured I'm going to come over here. I want to see how it feels to be in here. Oh, there were no there was no no drywall, no wood, no nothing. It was just the bare concrete. And uh so I went to doctor and I was just struck with awe. It was like I had a communication. Hashem was telling me we're doing okay. This is going to be a good place. So um those are some of the things that happened. Uh His father was a great help. Fellow name Waxman was a great help. People were were willing to allow me to uh follow my directions and uh make subtle changes as things go on as things appear to me. And it turned out to be Hey,