Shabbat Shekalim-P'kudei

Exodus 38:21-40:38; Exodus 30:11-16

D'var Torah By: Rabbi Jonathan E. Blake for Reform Judaism Magazine

What Is the Purpose of the Synagogue?

The Hebrew term for synagogue is beit k'neset. It means "house of assembly" and thus approximates the Greek word 'synagoge' which also means "assembly." For centuries, the synagogue functioned primarily as the ancient world's idea of a "JCC," a place for Jews to assemble. These institutions dotted the Jewish landscape even while the Second Temple-shrine of our ancient worship-stood. The synagogue of antiquity might have struck us as surprisingly "secular" in orientation. Originally, people may not have come to the synagogue primarily to pray or study. They conducted local business in the synagogue, promoting the general welfare of the Jewish community. Accelerated by the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE, synagogues evolved to absorb many of the ritual and religious observances of an emergent Rabbinic Judaism. Over time the beit k'neset also became a beit t'filah, a "house of worship," and often a beit midrash, a "house of study," too.

The archetype of the synagogue, the Tabernacle that constitutes the focal point of the wandering wilderness community, completes construction in Parashat P'kudei. "In the first month of the second year, on the first of the month, the Tabernacle was set up" (Exodus 40:17). The text credits Moses with erecting the completed structure and arranging all of its fixtures, beginning with its planks and posts, and concluding with the screen covering the outermost gate. "When Moses had finished the work, the cloud covered the Tent of Meeting, and the Presence of the Eternal filled the Tabernacle" (Exodus 40:33-34). The Tabernacle, spiritual antecedent of the synagogue, is complete. The text signals God's satisfaction with the work when God's Presence enters the structure. Over the Tabernacle a cloud rested by day, and fire would appear in it by night, as a constant, visible reminder of God's nearness and as a guiding presence for the Israelites' journeys (Exodus 40:36-38).

That human beings have successfully brought God into their midst through the construction of a sacred sanctuary marks a dramatic shift in ancient Near Eastern mythology. The Mesopotamian Epic of Creation is typical in its depiction of the gods creating their own dwelling place on earth, here to be named Babylon:

The Anunnaki [Babylonian deities] began shoveling. For a whole year they made bricks for it.When the second year arrived,. . . they had built a high ziggurat for the Apsu [other deities]. (Tablet VI, from Myths from Mesopotamia, trans. Stephanie Dalley [New York: Oxford University Press, 1989], p. 262)

The Torah, in contrast, imagines human beings teaming up to fashion earthly materials (precious woods, metals, fabrics) into a place where God's Presence will abide. The inversion is poetic and brings God's work of creation full circle. In the first chapter of Genesis, God creates a home for human beings to inhabit. In the last chapter of Exodus, human beings, Israelites charged with a holy purpose, create a home for God to inhabit.

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