People We Know & Stories We Don’t: Shoshana Leah Greenberg

area for likely sites, even placing letters into the mailboxes of area residents, asking if they were interested in selling their homes. Fortunately, a homeowner at 11 Mile and Bell roads, across the street from Congregation Shaarey Zedek, was interested in selling.

Once the sale was complete, the next hurdle was rezoning for the property since it is on a residential street. Although the rezoning process took a year, “The city of Southfield is excited at the investment in the community,” Levi says.

DiClemente Siegel Design, an architectural firm in Southfield, began working on the project with halachic input from Rabbi Zeev Rothschild, a specialist in mikvah design. Sadly, Rabbi Rothschild died of COVID. Levi says that the mikvah committee was fortunate to connect with Rabbi Yitzchok Trieger of New Jersey, who has worked on mikvahs for 30 years, including the mikvah in Oak Park, to assist with the building design. Levi visited two mikvaot that Trieger worked on in New Jersey.

Levi explains that guidelines for mikvah construction and operation are contained within the Gemara — part of the Talmud. These specifications include the source and collection method of the water used in the mikvah, the location of cisterns, the size and placement of pipes, water heating method and the height of steps to the actual pool of water. DiClemente Siegel is working with Trieger to ensure that all design elements follow rabbinic rules for mikvahs.

The mikvah will be 1,400 square feet in size and the building will be accessible for those with disabilities. According to the Lahser Road Mikvah website, the mikvah will have a spa-like atmosphere and be “spiritually and physically rejuvenating for all sects of the Jewish community.”

DOVID NISSAN ROETTER CONTRIBUTING WRITER

The mikvah’s fundraising goal is $1 million. Shoshana Leah Greenberg, originally from Brooklyn, N.Y., moved to Michigan

FUNDRAISING EFFORTS

Fundraising is well underway with $450,000 raised from the YIS community alone — more than $303,000 in collected donations and the remainder in pledges over five years. The original fundraising goal is $1 million for construction and ongoing operations, as individual mikvah usage fees will not cover all costs. Final construction specifications will be completed soon so that contractors’ bids can be obtained. Due to COVID-related increases in building material costs, project costs may be higher than the initial estimate.

Levi said that initial fundraising was focused on the Orthodox community with a plan to expand to the larger Jewish community once the property was purchased and demolition complete. For more information, visit www. lahsermikvah.org. to be near family. Greenberg works with people with “special gifts,” as she calls them, as she believes people with special needs bring spiritual gifts into the world. She works to help people understand them.

As a direct support professional, she is a private teacher and a friend to the individuals she works with.

Greenberg listens to her clients’ needs and figures out how to get through to them. For example, a client needed to learn to wash netilat yadayim — a ritual handwashing before eating bread — and she used a song by Jewish group Uncle Moishy and the Mitzvah Men to teach it in a fun way.

Her other main goal is to integrate her clients into the community with activities like shopping — something she feels is lacking.

Greenberg didn’t plan to work with people with special gifts. While working as a cashier, a friend told her she thought she would be good at the job. With little knowledge of the field, she hesitated. A coworker helped ease her into the field by reminding her that people with special needs are just people with feelings who want to talk and be heard. They, like all of us, are normal and different at the same time.

At the first home she worked, some women were higher functioning and some needed more attention and care. The job included trips, doing dishes and chatting, arts and crafts, laundry, yoga and even drumming. Before this, Greenberg planned to study music therapy; however, she fell in love with the day program and switched courses at college.

Greenberg said what she loves the most is that “they are living with their heart. They are always shining; they are always in their light; they are always feeling their neshamah, they are always focused on Hashem.”

Shoshana Leah Greenberg

SEEING BEYOND

Greenberg is also an intuitive healer and counselor. “I feel beyond what is seen on the outside in people, in circumstances. I see behind the curtain,” she said. When someone comes to her with a problem, she opens her clients’ eyes to who they are as a soul. Her goal is to “help people feel good and better about this world and themselves, thus transforming their lives,” she said. Greenberg is in the process of moving back to New York where she will continue working in the field.

Her dream is to create a home for frum men and women with special gifts.