Only the synagogue can be the center of Judaism.
For a long time it was wrongly taught that “synagogues
replaced the ancient temple.” In fact,
this is not true. From well before the
destruction of the Second Temple by the Romans in 70 C.E, our people had
gathered in our towns and communities to hear the Torah read and to say public
prayers.
One of my favorite artifacts is the Theodotus stone, which
can be found in Jerusalem’s Rockefeller museum.
This stone, carved in Greek and found in excavations in the City of
David, which declares Theodotus to have been a head of a synagogue whose
purpose was to welcome the wayfarer in a gathering place of Torah. Even in Holy Jerusalem, with her hallowed
Temple and Priesthood functioning fully, there was a need for a synagogue to
welcome and gather people to learn from the Torah.
Look as well at the ruins in Gamla, in upper Galilee. A 1st century synagogue there has
a central reading table, and benches seated all around the walls facing
in. Far from Jerusalem and into the
hills, the community needed its center, and even the building was oriented to
draw attention inward to the lessons of the sacred text.
The synagogue was not founded because of a lack of the
Temple. It grows from the center of our
people’s need for meaning and for community.
We find God talking among us and to us in these sacred buildings and
places. The gathering place is an
institution, which is still vitally needed today.
In recent years, many sought to redefine the “center” of Judaism.
At first non-religious institutions such as community centers, and federations
claimed the center by virtue their “non-sectarian” nature. Worse, recent funding trends have corted the
peripheral Jewish community at great cost and with rare success. Formal Jewish institutions can speak for
Jews, but only synagogues can speak for Judaism.
America has always been a religious culture, and there is no
“post-religious” future in view. In an
age where the fastest growing religions in America include both Mormonism and
Islam, our next generation needs to be brought into religious dialogue with
our American neighbors by first having a strong religious identity of their own.
This can not be provided by the community center or the federation, and
is seldom the goal of initiatives to reach the unaffiliated.
The Jewish Federation of Greater Metro West has encouraged
synagogue affiliation, much to its credit.
It knows that synagogue affiliation is a lead indicator of likely future
donors, but it also knows that synagogues provide a soul to Jewish
society. The moral teachings of our
various synagogues are what give us strength and purpose.
The Mormons and the Moslems will be speaking religious
language if we truly wish to get to know them.
Will we be able to do the same?
In every generation, in every culture and historic
circumstance we have faced, it was the synagogue which was the heartbeat of
Jewish living. The doors are open as the
new year begins. Come back to the
center.
L’shanah tovah
tikateivu.
