Finally, a Lego chasidic Death Star shul
The wonder of Legos is that you’re able to build anything you can imagine with them.
While sitting around their Baltimore Shabbos table, Tobey Finkelstein and her family decided that they wanted to build a Lego construction that reflected their own interests — that is, observant Judaism and Star Wars. Rubber tires became shtreimels. A miniature robot construction site became the youth service. And beards became … well, beards.
Their mission: to build Beis Death Star Kochav Chaim, the first intergalactic synagogue.
Don’t worry — Ms. Finkelstein and her kids aren’t building a real Death Star. But their successful Kickstarter campaign just raised more than $1,500 to support buying parts, printing, shipping, and (Finkelstein child) labor to produce their “Brickovickers” headquarters, a chasidic shul complete with men’s and women’s sections, a rabbi’s seat, and the one thing that no synagogue in any galaxy can be without — a youth service.
A synagogue with the name “Death Star” in the title might not be the most, well, welcoming place ever. But adding “kochav chaim” — which means “star of life” —takes its dark inspiration and gives it, well, a new hope.
Lego bricks can be seen as an awesome metaphor for Jewish philosophy —the pieces are rigid but they can be arranged in any way you choose — and the Finkelsteins have made their Brickovickers project into their own Lego masterpiece.
TheJewniverse.com
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