Upon completing the Temple, King Solomon asked in his prayer, “But will God really dwell on earth? Even the heavens to their uttermost regions cannot contain You, how much less this house that I have built!” (JPS translation)
Indeed, we can still ask today, what kind of physical space can contain a Mystery?
Two thousand years after the Temple fell, we still feel the need to create spaces in which we celebrate and pray. Like the rest of humanity, we continue to dedicate space that we can call “sacred.” Although some, like Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, would argue that Judaism is a religion of time, others, revering a particular place, see it as a religion of space – hence the intense wars over control of the Kotel, the Western Wall, for example. Still other scholars would make Judaism a religion of action: what we do sanctifies a place, not what we build.
This year in Vancouver, Congregation Beth Israel celebrated Rosh Hashanah in a new sanctuary. In this age of agonizing over the future of Conservative Judaism, I can tell you that, in Vancouver, it is alive and flourishing.
Beth Israel was founded in 1932 as a Conservative congregation, the first in Vancouver (several Orthodox congregations already existed). It held services in the old Jewish community centre until after World War II, when donors raised funds and purchased the site on Oak Street, the “Jewish” street where many institutions stand. In 1948, a finished building was dedicated in memory of those synagogues destroyed by the Nazis.
That original synagogue began to show its years, and now a new building houses our sanctuary, school and offices. The old building has been repurposed into a lovely and spacious social hall.
Over the new doors is our original synagogue motto: “My house shall be called a house of prayer for all people.” On Rosh Hashanah, those doors opened for the first service.
When we entered our sanctuary on the first day, we caught our breath. Not because we were blinded by gold and silver trimming, but because we were welcomed with light and air, with burnished wood and Jerusalem stone surrounding the Ark. Gracious seating in a curved seating arrangement allows us as a congregation to feel a part of the prayer space.
The cloth covering the scrolls in the Ark depicts a landscape of hills and valleys, the sun shining on one side, the dove of peace hovering on the other. Over the Ark, the motto “Evdo et HaShem b’simchah” – serve the Lord with joy. That’s a goal we strive to reach.
Our Torah scrolls are mantled with covers depicting each of the seven fruits of Israel and silver threads are woven in.
To the side of the main sanctuary is a “pray and play” space for families and children, where the service can be heard. Through bevels, the parents can look directly at the bimah.
The bimah itself is low and approached by both steps and a ramp, so that it is totally accessible to all.
Soon there will be two stained glass windows at the front of the building: on a blue background, created to look like flowing water, are inscribed the 10 words, the Eser Hadibrot, and on each are the fringes of the tallit.
These High Holidays were celebrated in a beautiful space, simple and elegant. Is that important? Vital to a sense of the holy? Couldn’t we find the same awe by sitting on a mountaintop? (We have plenty to choose from out here.) Or walking the seawall? Why spend millions to build?
I can’t speak for anyone else, but I personally needed to have people around, singing. There is something in our human heart that desires a community of prayer and craves a space dedicated to that community. Whether time, space or deed, the search for how to approach a Mystery continues.