The UAlbany Shabbos House Class of 2003 class gift was a gorgeous velvet Bima cover. It’s still in use. It is a beautiful golden yellow velvet Bima cover embroidered with an inscription that reads: “Shabbos House – Our Home Away From Home – From the Class of 2003”.
Atop the Bima cover is a sewn-on crown that used to be filled with decorative faux colored gemstones. Used to – because each year, with the dynamic and energetic banging that accompanies Simchat Torah’s hours of Hakafot lively singing and dancing, we usually lose or loosen a gemstone or two. All these years later in 2026 we realize there are only a few gemstones left, and most of those are literally hanging by a thread.
What’s to be learned from the missing gemstones? There’s a Chassidic story just for this!
Reb Pinchas of Koretz was a prominent senior disciple of the Maggid of Mezritch. He once found a paper of Chassidic teaching lying in the gutter. He was so upset! He was of the opinion that esoteric Chassidic teachings should be safeguarded and protected, and was aghast that the R’ Shneur Zalman, the Alter Rebbe, was publicizing and distributing pure and lofty Chassidic treasures in ways that they ended up floating about in the gutter! So he confronted the Alter Rebbe about this.
The Alter Rebbe responded with a parable: A crown prince was deathly ill. Doctors and experts were called in from all corners of the kingdom, but to no avail. Finally one expert came with a proposed cure. He said the needed remedy was only to be found in a rare gemstone that’s on the king’s crown. It would have to be ground up to a powder, mixed with liquid and fed to the ailing prince. Other courtiers were aghast: Is it fitting to destroy a key gemstone on the royal crown on the mere chance that it might save the prince? But the king insisted! What use was the royal crown if the prince would not live to inherit it! So without hesitation he ordered it ground up at once!
The missing gemstones on our Bima cover are a badge of honor. They are a testament to the investment and dedication of students, to dance and sing, to give it their all, to be energized and uplifted and enlivened by the Torah, to keep Jewish life going… from generation to generation at UAlbany.