Synagogues were a Mistake

Vayakhel, 5784

Synagogues were a mistake. No, this isn’t clickbait. I’m not waiting for a big gotcha moment. Synagogues were a mistake. Truly. Just think about how synagogues started, how far we have come. It all started in the desert. This week, we read about the building of the Tabernacle, from the willing donations of the Israelites. That Tabernacle moved around, stayed with us, until eventually we built Solomon’s Temple, and then Herod’s. A building so beautiful, that according to the Talmud, “whoever has not seen Herod’s Temple has not seen a beautiful building.” And what was happening in the Tabernacle, in the Temples? Priests offered sacrifices to God, and led prayers. For a thousand years, we had the Ark of Covenant, which the two tablets that Moshe brought down from Sinai, along with some Manna and Aharon’s staff. We had, at the heart of our Temple, the symbol of our connection to God, to the Divine! And what do we have now? Our small little synagogues with our Arks containing Torahs in memory of what we once had. Sure, we might read in the Talmud, in response to that statement about the beauty of Herod’s Temple, that whoever has not seen the great synagogue of Alexandria has never seen כְבוֹדָן שֶׁל יִשְׂרָאֵל, the glory of Israel. But where is the comparison? Truly? Between a synagogue and the Temple?

What is the purpose of a synagogue? Ostensibly, to pray. Let’s look back at the ancient synagogues. One of the first things that the Talmud tells us about the great synagogue of Alexandria was how people in it prayed—that the synagogue was so large that the Chazzan would wave a handkerchief when he wanted people to respond Amen. At the top of an inscription at an ancient synagogue found in Aphrodisias is a recognition of the members of the dekania, a group of 10 (though more than 10 names are mentioned) that were vital to the synagogue. It’s not hard to guess what the synagogue meant by dekania. And yet we also know that synagogues were for more than prayer too. They were meeting houses, places for study and gathering. Ironically, we have from the Christian Bible many stories of synagogues as places where people read the Torah, where people gathered, Jewish and non-Jewish, and where people prayed. The members of the dekania in Aphrodisias also helped manage the soup kitchen. And in the great synagogue of Alexandria, says the Talmud, the men sat grouped by their professions, so when a poor person entered the congregation, he could go right to the craftsmen of the craft he knew and get a job. In this way the synagogue served multiple purposes.

You’ve heard me give some version of this before, about the multiple purposes and uses of the synagogue. But consider the inverse. The ancient synagogue was not only about practicing Judaism because the synagogue was not the only place where Judaism was practiced. The synagogue did not need to solely be about Judaism because it did not hold a monopoly on Judaism. The people who attended synagogues thought about Judaism for a good portion of their day to day lives. They celebrated Jewish festivals, ate Jewish foods, and so forth. Synagogue was an opportunity to come together to pray, but it was not the only place they could pray. In fact, many rabbis in the Talmud mention praying in their study halls or praying by themselves on the road. The synagogue did not even have a monopoly on prayer. It was a place designed to make prayer easier.

But the modern synagogue, especially those of liberal, non-Orthodox movements, has made itself into more of a monopoly than ever. I have been reading a book published in 2018, The New American Judaism, and found it to be enlightening. Jack Werthheimer, the book’s author, investigates how American Jews practice Judaism, and into the declining rates of synagogue of attendance. He diagnoses two twin, dovetailing problems: firstly, that non-Orthodox American Jews have outsourced most of their Jewish practice to the synagogue. The synagogue is where they go to be Jewish. This does not only mean the synagogue is where people go to pray, but also to perform rituals that used to be the purview of the home: think Friday night dinners, community Seders, Menorah lightings, and so forth. That by itself may not be a problem for synagogues, but it is compounded by a second problem: non-Orthodox American Jews increasingly state they are not familiar with what might be called Jewish literacy: how to pray, how to read Hebrew, how to light a Menorah, run a Seder, and so forth. Because it only happens at synagogue, we Jews do not spend as much time on it. And because we do not spend as much time on it, we are not as familiar with it. And then, because we are not as familiar with it, we do not like going to synagogue where things are strange, where the Cantor is chanting in a language I can’t understand, prayers I don’t know the meaning of. And even in Reform synagogues that do services mostly in English, this pattern still holds. There still is a degree of Jewish literacy required to follow services, even in English. We as humans don’t like to feel embarrassed or not proficient. And so we stay home, where we could do Jewish! Except we have outsourced our Judaism to the synagogue. And we no longer know how. So we don’t. And so on.

And so you see, synagogues, modern synagogues, as a vehicle to absorb the totality of Jewish life and experience, were a mistake. A mistake because we cannot try to isolate Judaism to a single building or place. It creates a self-defeating loop that leads to its own downfall. But building Jewish lives, practicing Judaism outside of the synagogue, makes us both more comfortable in the synagogue and gives us reason to return. 

I said we read about the building of the Tabernacle in this week’s parsha, and we do. But the first commandment Moshe gives doesn’t have anything to do with the Tabernacle. Six days you shall work, he says, but the seventh day shall be a Sabbath to the Lord. Our rabbis ask, why do we begin the section about building the Tabernacle with this extraneous commandment? Traditionally, we derive what we are not allowed to do on Shabbat based on what was done to build the Tabernacle, because of this close linkage. But the commandment continues לֹא־תְבַעֲרוּ אֵשׁ בְּכֹל מֹשְׁבֹתֵיכֶם בְּיוֹם הַשַּׁבָּת “You shall not light a fire in your settlements on Shabbat.” In your settlements-that is, not the Tabernacle. Shabbat is just as much for the sake of what happens outside of the Tabernacle. Judaism is also what happens outside of the Tabernacle. The Tabernacle was not our sole source of religious life. It complimented and increased our religious life.

So I have an usual challenge for you today. Normally, I would challenge you to get more involved in synagogue life, and I still do. But to do that, get more involved outside of synagogue life. For a couple of weeks, I posted on Facebook and Instagram Rabbi’s challenges, small things to do outside of the synagogue to connect you with Judaism. I am going to be relaunching that program this coming week, each week giving you a different Mitzvah to focus on for the week. But you don’t just need to wait for me to give you ideas. Do some Jewish study. Read some Jewish literature. Tell your kids Jewish stories. Practice a Jewish ritual at home. And don’t worry about getting it all right, or accomplishing everything. If you don’t do a full Shabbat meal and so just light candles, or don’t remember all the blessings for the Menorah. The more you do Jewish outside of the synagogue, the more equipped you will be at Judaism outside the home, and the more meaningful your time here at the synagogue will be. And the synagogue we end up creating through that, like the great synagogue of Alexandria, will deserve to be called the כְבוֹדָן שֶׁל יִשְׂרָאֵל, the glory of Israel.