Parshas Emor
By Rabbi Dovid Zauderer
One of the more significant changes that has occurred as a result of the dreadful COVID-19 virus – and which has no doubt had a huge impact on the daily religious life of many Jews around the world - is the indefinite closing of all synagogues and houses of worship. Whoever thought we would come to this?!
Many Jewish people who up until now were active members of their synagogues - and for whom the synagogue was the center of their religious life and their point of connection with the greater Jewish community – are being forced to shift the focus of their Jewish life to their homes or elsewhere (until things get back to normal, G-d willing).
At the same time there are many other Jews for whom the synagogue is not – and has never been - the center of Judaism. For them Judaism is a lifestyle to be lived 24/7, not just something we do three times a year, every weekend, or even three times a day. As such, Judaism must be centered around the home, where we spend most of our time, and not around the synagogue.
It all boils down to this: Where is the center of Judaism – the synagogue or the home?
It’s an interesting debate – with important ramifications for the continuity of the Jewish people.
I hereby present to you (in brief) the two opposing views in this important debate for your reading (and thinking) pleasure:
In 2002, (Conservative) Jewish Theological Seminary Chancellor emeritus Ismar Schorsch was granted a Doctor of Humane Letters by the (Reform) Hebrew Union College–Jewish Institute of Religion in New York at their commencement. Below are some excerpts from his remarks:
“… Many of the graduates commencing this evening are headed for positions of religious leadership in the Reform synagogue. I wish to persuade you that the synagogue, generically speaking, is the bedrock institution of the total Jewish community. It alone is the aquifer for the social capital that nourishes and drives the vaunted organizational structure that marks American Jewry. The communal ethos, the spirit of voluntarism, the skills of self-governance and the social networks indispensable to the conduct of organized life in the public sector are all developed within the private sector of the denominational synagogue… the synagogue provides the lion's share of the funding, membership, participation and leadership of the organized Jewish community…. From this perspective, the most worrisome statistic in the population survey of 1990 is the low rate of synagogue affiliation of just 41 percent, a figure, I fear, that will be still lower for the population survey of 2000 which is about to appear.… If, then, the synagogue is the central institution in the American Jewish community, it is in the interest of the total community to increase its membership. No post is more important than to be the president or rabbi or educational director of a synagogue. To be sure, individual synagogues must be revitalized, better staffed and more welcoming and new synagogues need to be founded where few or none exist to serve a burgeoning population.â€
Dayan Dr. I. Grunfeld, in his introduction to (Orthodox) Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch’s classic work Horeb: A Philosophy of Jewish Laws and Observances, shares with us his view of the history of this important debate over the center point of Judaism. He writes that in an attempt to assimilate Judaism to the dominant faith, the German-Jewish Reformers of the 19th century introduced the idea into modern Jewish thought that worship of G-d in the synagogue is the central point in Jewish life, whereas in reality, the law of the Torah should permeate and rule the whole of life. Against this fundamental error of ‘localizing’ G-d in the House of Worship instead of allowing Him to become a central force in our life, Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch wrote some of his most trenchant essays, in one of which he had the courage to exclaim:
“If I had the power, I would provisionally close all synagogues for a hundred years. Do not tremble at the thought of it, Jewish heart. What would happen? Jews and Jewesses without synagogues, desiring to remain such, would be forced to concentrate on a Jewish life and a Jewish home. The Jewish officials connected with the synagogue would have to look to the only opportunity now open to them to teach young and old how to live a Jewish life and how to build a Jewish home. All synagogues closed by Jewish hands would constitute the strongest protest against the abandonment of the Torah in home and life.â€
What do you think?
http://www.torchweb.org/torah_detail.php?id=614