McHenry Graffiti + Reflections on Shabbat 200

Shavua tov, everyone. Well, frankly, I was disappointed by the attendance at 'Shabbat 200.' We barely had 140 students there, if that (out of the 3,000 or so Jewish students at UCSC). All I can say is, the students who did attend enjoyed themselves very much. Shlomie Chein from the Chabad Student Center and Shalom Bochner from Hillel led a very engaging evening. There was plenty of spirituality, chicken, kugel, and tofu to go around, and there was even some left over. Next year, we're going for 'Shabbat 2,000,' at least.

In other news, I recently had to walk past McHenry library. I used to spend lazy evenings there the past few years, sauntering up in the late afternoon, napping in the basement or quietly pretending to study, and stumbling out towards 11 or 11:30pm as the late-night cleaners were beginning to vacuum the floors. So if you didn't know, they cut down quite a number of trees outside McHenry and they're expanding the library. **UPDATE** I just discovered that there is a 'McHenry Library Addition and Renovation Blog,' laugh at it here. And the renovation site itself is located here. Apparently in protest (or perhaps just an exercise in civil disobedience), certain people have designed very nice stencils and spray-painted the boards by the construction area of McHenry. The following is a summary:























So, I know there are quite a number of you passing through this blog daily. I don't know if you attend UCSC or not, but I want to inform you that you have the right to comment freely on JewniProj's posts. You don't have to be a member or anything; in fact, you don't even have to be a student of UCSC to leave a comment on any of these posts. So please express your opinion (and I know that every one of you has at least two opinions) on anything that is posted. In this case, what do you think about the McHenry expansion, and people's reaction through graffiti? To offer a bit of insight myself (however shortsighted it may be), I want to present the Jewish concept of 'baal tashchis' (that everything physical that exists is sacred). I found a good quote on some random Google search as follows: "The only right we have to consume food is because G-d who created the entire universe gave us that permission. But only with one fundamental condition: That we use the energy we gain from the food for constructive, higher purposes, to transform this world into a home for G-d." So, maybe expanding McHenry is expanding knowledge of the universe, and simultaneously expanding respect for humanity and the Earth. Or maybe not.