Treasures in the Synagogue Basement

Every September, before the High Holidays, our synagogue holds a rummage sale in the basement. This year, I was in charge of the book table.

People donated everything. We had dusty encyclopedias, cookbooks from the 1960s with stains on every page, a first edition of a Leon Uris novel and a children's book about a talking bagel that I personally bought for my nephew.

The best part was the people. An elderly man spent an hour at my table, reading aloud to me from a book of Yiddish jokes, laughing until he wheezed. A teenage girl found a poetry book with a love note tucked inside from 1974 and read it to her friends. A young couple bought a set of candlesticks for their first apartment and told me it would be their first Shabbat in their new home.

We raised two thousand dollars for the youth group. I bought nine books. I regret nothing.