For many years I have given to families in need. I am not going to list names, and I am not going to discuss amounts. That kind of help is not meant to be a public performance. I mention it only because a life is larger than the buildings one has bought or sold, and this has been part of mine for a long time.
I have also been, for many years, a supporter of a Chabad house. What I have always respected there is the quiet consistency: a door that remains open, and people who return to the same work, again and again, without waiting for applause.
I have been close to the Rabbi of the Western Wall, and through him I have helped many families. I have also been close to Rabbi Yitzchak David Grossman. I will not put words in their mouths, and I will not turn their devotion into my advertisement. They have given their lives to people who need a home, a meal, a blessing, or simply someone who will not look away. Being close to them has been one of the privileges of my life.
That closeness is also personal, and I want to speak about it with the respect it deserves. Both rabbis married my wife and me. Both were present at the brit milah of our sons Raphael and Michael. Rabbi Grossman was sandak for our middle son. These are not stories I tell in order to impress anyone. They are the moments that stay with a family. They remind me of the life we wanted to build: rooted, responsible, and connected to people whose work is about others, not about themselves.
If there is a thread through all of this, it is not philanthropy as a display. It is the opposite. The families I have tried to help, the Chabad house I have supported, and the rabbis who have stood with my family have all taught me the same thing. The most important work is often the work that no one applauds.
I have spent much of my professional life thinking about buildings and about the long term. The longer I live, the more I believe that the same idea applies here. You stay. You help when you can. You do not wait for a camera. And you try to leave people a little less alone than you found them.
That, to me, is also a way of building bridges. Not with a speech, and not with a headline, but with the quiet decision, repeated over many years, to be present for other people.