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A word from the Administrator of Kehilat Khochmah v’Yedah:<\/p>\nA word from the Administrator of Kehilat Khochmah v’Yedah:<\/p>\n
As a developing community of non-theistic “traditional” Jews, there will no doubt one day be a need for a separate building, a synagogue, to meet the needs of our community and the needs of the greater communities around us. As one who has imagined what that will one day look like, I find myself gravitating to the ancient ANE to Classical periods of what a synagogue’s purpose would be.<\/p>\n
Since prayer Judaism, in the theistic sense, is out of the question for us, I find inspiration for this future building within the walls of the founding synagogue for the Society for Humanistic Judaism. From what I’m gathering from photos and their videos online, the SHJ synagogue is set-up in a way that hearkens to ancient Classical period use of the \u05d1\u05d9\u05ea \u05db\u05e0\u05e1\u05ea \/ beit knesset (or, “synagogue”). But, by having Shabbat and High Holiday “services” as a part of their centralized communal focus, it is normative modern Judaism, as usual, just without the “God” parts.<\/p>\n
Before I get all encyclopedic on us with what I wish to share here, the very idea of dismantling the \u05d4\u05d9\u05db\u05dc \/ hekh\u00e1l (“palace,” the Aron Kodesh that houses the \u05e1\u05e4\u05e8\u05d9 \u05ea\u05d5\u05e8\u05d4 \/ Sifrei Torah) behind the \u05ea\u05d1\u05d4 \/ tevah (“ark,” the \u05d1\u05d9\u05de\u05d4 \/ bimah “pulpit”) and returning the scrolls back to the library section to be studied along with all the other fine Jewish literatures, as SHJ has done, and bringing the focus of the main hall of the synagogue back to a \u05db\u05e0\u05e1\u05d4 \/ kenesa, a “gathering” place – this, here – brings the SHJ synagogues back to the historical Classical period purpose for a Jewish community center (or, \u03c3\u03c5\u03bd\u03b1\u03b3\u03c9\u03b3\u03ae \/ “synagogue”), with added secular religious “services” included in.<\/p>\n
It has been my experience that most Jews actually do not know that the synagogue existed during Temple times, and that it served primarily as a community “town hall” of a sorts, as a house of study\/education, and as a communal “welfare agency” of a sorts – long before it assumed the role and became known as primarily a beit knesset, a “house of prayer.”<\/p>\n
In fact, after the destruction of the 2nd Temple in 70 CE and through prior to the Middle Ages, acts of \u05ea\u05e4\u05dc\u05d4 \/ tefilla were varied and individualistic actions, with only (that I’m aware of) \u05ea\u05e4\u05d9\u05dc\u05d9\u05df \/ tefillin as a common item between all Jews engaged in the creation of what would become officially, in 850 CE, as the canonized \u05e1\u05d3\u05d5\u05e8 \/ Siddur, or “order (of words),” of Rabbinic Judaism, whom I affectionately refer to as modern-created “prayer Judaism.”<\/p>\n
It is at this point that the \u03c3\u03c5\u03bd\u03b1\u03b3\u03c9\u03b3\u03ae \/ synagogue fully became a \u05d1\u05d9\u05ea \u05ea\u05e4\u05d9\u05dc\u05d4 \/ beit tefilla, aka. a \u05d1\u05d9\u05ea \u05de\u05d3\u05e8\u05e9 \/ beit midrash (a “house of study”), and its former primary purposes before this is reflected in the various names that Jews from various parts of the world have for this building:<\/p>\n
The second temple period Jews called it a \u05d1\u05d9\u05ea \u05db\u05e0\u05e1\u05ea\u200e \/ beit knesset, a “house of assembly,” from which the Greek word “synagogue” arises. The Ashkenazim call it a \u05e9\u05d5\u05dc \/ Shul, a “school,” which is the meaning of this Yiddish word. The Sephardim call it a \u05e7\u05d4\u05dc \/ kahal, a “community,” which is from the Hebrew. Mizrahim call a synagogue a \u05db\u05e0\u05e1\u05d4, an “assembly,” utilizing the Aramaic word for the Hebrew. Even the Reform movement of the Ashkenazim refer to the synagogue in classical terms, borrowing from Talmudic precedence of referring to it as a \u05de\u05e7\u05d3\u05e9 \u05de\u05e2\u05d8 \/ mikdash me’at, a “little Temple (or holy place)” (Megilah 29a, Ezekiel 11:16).<\/p>\n
When it comes to Jewish expression of Judaism, it’s an ever revolving spiral – as we pick and choose what we wish to represent at this stage of our expression upon the land. And, as a secular Orthodox community, we have a lot of picking to do *together* ahead!<\/p>\n
\u05d9\u05d5\u05e1\u05e3 \u05e4\u05e8\u05e7\u05e9\u05d3\u05d9
\nJoseph T Farkasdi<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A word from the Administrator of Kehilat Khochmah v’Yedah: As a developing community of non-theistic “traditional” Jews, there will no doubt one day be a need for a separate building, a synagogue, to meet the needs of our community and the needs of the greater communities around us. As one […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":12,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-248","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"yoast_head":"\n