The Jerusalem stone has now been completely installed. The work this past week has now shifted to the main stairway on the south side of the building. The above pic shows the main stair risers that were installed last week. The stair pans (into which precast concrete will be placed) will be welded in place over the next few days. After the stairs are installed, the main exterior glass wall will set into place (likely late September or early October).

The pic below shows a view of the first floor interior – the reverse side of the stone wall – facing east toward the chapel. The big opening on the right side is a gift shop display case which faces the main office.

The next picture down shows us the north wall, which is the only exterior wall that is 100% finished with cypress siding. We are waiting for our last delivery of wood, which will allow us to finish the remaining three faces of the building.

The bottom pic shows the metal studs which have been installed on the first and second floors. The electricians are “roughing in” the conduit for outlets and switches and drywall will be added to the walls over the next couple of weeks.

While we were away in Israel these past two weeks, there was some nice progress on the building, though I am told the exterior work went somewhat more slowly because of some recent heavy rains. The pix above and below show the extensive work on the Jerusalem stone wall that runs along the south end of the building. This aspect of the project has been been critical as the workers cannot begin work on the main staircase until it is complete. The third pic down gives a good view of the cypress siding on the north wall, which has now been completed. They have also almost finished setting up the studs for the interior walls on the first and second floors (see bottom pic).

Looks like more rain is coming this week – thankfully we’re almost finished with the exterior work at this point…

A good productive week, helped by the beautiful sunny weather. See below: the first picture shows you the view toward the east window/wall of the bimah. The next two pix show the newly poured concrete on the ground floor. And finally, the component parts of our HVAC system (specifically, the heating/cooling coils) parked on the second floor.

Well, we’ve lucked out in the dry weather department! The concrete for the third floor was poured yesterday and the second floor was poured today. The picture on top shows the cement mixers sending the concrete through high powered hoses to the third floor. The next picture shows the workers laying out and smoothing the cement. The ground floor will take a little bit more time as more underground work needs to be done before the concrete is poured on.

Today I was given my first grand tour of the interior of the site by JRC President Alan Saposnik and construction supervisor Marc Bonnivier (that’s Marc on the left and me on right, below, standing against the west wall of the third floor sanctuary.)

Alan and I both agreed that the third floor sanctuary is already a sacred space. It felt like we were perched on a mountaintop, with a sublime quality of natural light suffused throughout. It was so powerful to contemplate the countless sacred memories that will soon be created in this makom kadosh – this holy place.