Ner Tamid for the Jewish Home of Rochester, NY

April 2024/Nisan 5784
Alabaster, copper, silk, stainless steel
Photos of installed Ner Tamid by Stephanie Foti
Photo of Joshua Edelstein with hammer by Gail Jones Sundell

The sheer number of "coincidences" that had to happen for this project to come to fruition is enough to restore anyone's faith.

I was approached by the Jewish Home of Rochester, NY to create a ner tamid for the synagogue space within their senior living facility, which up to that point had a simple dome light from the hardware store serving the purpose. They'd been talking to another artist who hadn't panned out, and when they asked me for a proposal it was down to me and one other new artist. I was immediately excited to work with them, both as an opportunity to bring some light into the world (no pun intended) during a time of rising global antisemitism, but also because my own parents are also in an elder care facility. It seemed like an artistic way to deal with the two greatest anxieties in my life, as well as a nudge in the ribs from the Divine.

I happened to have a slighty tapered block of alabaster in my studio that was flat on one end and broken on the other, and I decided to use that to guide the design. I proposed to leave the broken end unfinished, but to round out and polish the sides of the stone to create the shade for the lamp. The interplay between the rough bottom and the carefully smoothed sides would represent the challenges of aging set against the peace of mind gained from the Jewish Home's care, and also contrast the vagaries of the fading mind against the reassurance of rituals that have guided our people for thousands of years. The alabaster shade would meet a ring of copper at the ceiling, which would have a verse from the Tanakh pierced through it, illuminating the verse with the light from the alabaster.

Joyfully, they accepted my proposal and chose Psalms 36:10, כי עמך מקור חיים באורך נראה אור (Ki im'cha mekor hayim b'orecha nireh or), "with You is the fountain of life; by Your light do we see light" as the verse. Miserably, the piece of stone in my studio had a flaw running through it that I couldn't have known about, and which sundered the block on the first day of carving before I had barely blunted its corners. After conferring with the client, we decided that rather than change the design, I would get a new piece of stone. Confidently, I reached out to my old supplier Colorado Alabaster, only to discover that the business was shuttered as the owner had retired. I cast about for a domestic supplier—I didn't have time to get stone from Italy! That's when I came across a sculptor of note who happened to also be my old supplier's sister, Gail Jones Sundell. 

Tentatively, I reached out—where was she getting stone now that her brother had retired? She wrote back fairly quickly, and mentioned that she had some of his already-quarried stone that hadn't been sold before the business closed—but although she sold pieces here and there to local Colorado/Wyoming artists, she wasn't in the habit of selling to strangers from out-of-state. However...

At the time I contacted her, Gail Jones Sundell was on vacation on O‘ahu with her family. Toward the end of the stay, she and her family came by my studio where we met, discussed art, and she even recognized offcuts of her brother's stone from the last piece I'd made with it. She agreed to supply me with a new block to carve. Even more coincidentally, I was going to be in Denver for my cousin's wedding later that same week. After the last of the wedding festivities were over, one week to the day after she'd been in my studio, I drove up to Fort Collins to meet Gail and we took turns choosing and shaping a rough block in 29ºF weather. 

That everything worked out the way it did was nothing short of a miracle. May the residents of the Jewish Home find comfort from the light of the Divine, and may some of that shine on them from this ner tamid.