What Is This Place?

Dan Schifrin, the CJM's Director of Public Programs and Writer in Residence, on Dinner

When visitors enter the CJM’s Steven and Maribelle Leavitt “Yud” gallery for the first time, there is often a breathtaking moment. “What is this place?” they ask, “and what is supposed to happen here?”

This is the same question the Jews asked themselves as they received the Torah at Mt. Sinai, celebrated this week with the holiday of Shavuot. And it’s the same question that artists Gil Gershoni and Ken Goldberg asked themselves when they first ascended to the Yud to consider their commission, which became the current exhibition: Are We There Yet? Five Thousand Years of Answering Questions with Questions.

Although Are We There Yet? is not a “religious” installation, Goldberg has described the Yud gallery’s spare, soaring, slightly disorienting vibe as akin to the feel of the desert on the way to the Promised Land, brimming with possibilities and questions.

Where do you go to feel filled with possibility?

Photo of the Yud gallery by Mark Darley. Cactus image from Flickr user ForestforTrees.