As the years pass, there are some numbers in our consciousness that stand out on their own. Eight accounts, from one to eight

Project Coordinator: Rachel Bachrach

As the years pass, there are some numbers in our consciousness that stand out on their own — maybe it’s the number of children we were blessed with, the number of days we spent waiting for a medical diagnosis, the number of years we held out for a shidduch. As we watch our flames rise and flicker, adding an additional measure of light each night, do any of those numbers hold a special place in your heart?

1 Millimeter

By Mindel Kassorla

It’s All in the Detail

ON

the kitchen shelf just above my sink, among a clutter of prescriptions and pens and pins, sits a bright green mug with a white strip across the bottom. The text in the white strip reads “Green Pantone no. 376C.” That refers to the Pantone number — a universal color code used by printers and graphic artists — of the mug’s bright green hue.

This mug is a decade-old birthday gift from my coworkers at the Jerusalem graphic design studio where I worked for over seven years. Even though the owner, Ben Gasner, has since retired and we’ve all moved on, the mug still reminds me of what I learned working under my boss Ben: Precision, attention, and detail, in all areas.

On my first day in Ben’s office, I was instructed to prepare a project for the final printing. It was a fundraising ad for B’ezri/American Friends of Yad Eliezer, and it was just about done, save for a few minor text corrections. We had received a printed proof of the ad that morning, and Ben stood there looking at it as if through a magnifying glass. He turned the sheet this way and that, peering at the colors and images in the studio light.

I opened the raw file on the computer. Ben stood behind me, looking at the screen as I lowered and raised the tint of a blue bar of color across the page. I moved the slider to the right.

“No, slow down,” he instructed. “Just one percent more of the color, that’s all.”

So ever-so-slowly, with my hand nervously poised on the mouse, I increased the color tint by one measly percent. Then two percent. Then down two percent. Up one percent.

This is a little nutty, I thought. I could see no difference between each move of the slider.

But the sharp eye of this creative genius detected the slightest adjustments.

Later that day, Ben asked me to shift an object on the screen over “one more to the right.” I moved it one centimeter.

“In this office, we work in millimeters,” he said with a smile.

Precision, detail, attention.

Ben’s attention to detail in no way detracted from his attentiveness to every person he encountered. He put up with our idiosyncrasies on a daily basis, and showed in so many ways how much he cared about us as individuals. Ben gave us bonuses before each Yom Tov, days off when we needed, and a parshah derashah break every Thursday, complete with his own chiddushei Torah.

I’ll never forget the winter of 2013, when I was stuck in the maternity ward at Bikur Cholim hospital with my baby in the NICU, and, due to one of the worst snowstorms Israel has ever seen, no visitors aside from my husband. Ben and his wife Dvora — both in their late 60s at the time — trekked through the snow from Shaarei Chesed to Strauss Street.

“Bubby and Zeidy are here for a visit,” they told the staff.

Precision, attention, detail.

But the moment that made the biggest impression on me was the time a huge mistake in a file I sent to print caused Ben a significant financial loss. I anxiously waited for the man who thought in millimeters to exactingly deduct the loss from my salary — but Ben barely even mentioned the fiasco to me. He didn’t want to make me feel any worse than I already did.

Once again, Ben — “Shift it over one millimeter” Ben — showed me the value of precision, that when you pay attention to the nitty-gritty details, sensitivity is best measured in millimeters.

Mindel Kassorla is a seminary mechaneches and graphic designer in Jerusalem.