Page 18 - HaShofar 5709 1948
P. 18
A ·MODERN ·BETH HAMIDRASH
By RABBI SHLOMO RAPOPORT
Rabbi Rapoport, V ice President of Hapoel Hamiz-
rachi of Chicago, is Principal of the Chicago Jewi~h
Academy. ·
The Children of Israel, while still wandering in bly," stood in no competitive relation to the Tem-
ple. Indeed, the office of. the Synagogue was aux-
the wilderness, were already commanded to erect iliary or supplementary to that of the Temple. The
Beth Hamikdash was limited to the general func-
a Sanctuary. They were not yet a settled pe6ple, tion of worship, ·whereas the main function of the
synagogue was the study of the Torah and religious
they had not reached the Promised Land; hut they education, worship being secondary. .It was, in
trnth, · a Beth Hamidrash-a "House of Learning."
were enjoined to build a house of God in the desert. The office of teaching was reserved for the syna-
gogue, in the person of the Scribes, in whom was
vested the responsibility of religious instruction.
Even before the lsraelites had come to "the rest After the destruction of the Second Common-
and inheritance," ·the sacred duty of worshipping · wealth, the synagogue naturally took the pface of
God was incumbent upon them. And ·thus did the the Temple, for it became the Bouse of Worship
Mishkan of the .Divine Spirit become the first re- . for all of Israel. Wherever the Jew wandered he
ligious ce1_1ter of Jsrael.
dedicated a: religious center . to the worship of the
The place occupied by the Tabernacle was, in
the reign ·of King Solomon supplanted by the . Almighty. . In each country, Jown, or village,
Temple. The Beth Hamikdash, with its elaborate wherever there was a community of Jews, no mat:
cult of priestly ritual and sacrifice, was the spirit- ter how small in number, a house of worship was
ual center of the entire people. Worship was na· . established. The place of the Tabernacle and the
tionalized and centralized in Jerusalem,. and the TemI>le was thus taken by the lesser sanctuary, the
Temple became the hub of all national and re- synagogue. · In the words of the prophet, "Thus
ligious activity. With the destruction of the First hath said God Eternal; Although I have removed
Temple, the Israelites were exiled to Babylon. It. them . far away among the . nations, and although .
i~ probably in the period of the Babylonian cap·
t1v1ty, when a place for common- worship and re- I have scattered among the countries, yet wiU l ·
ligious instruction became so vitally necessary, that
the Synagogue had its origin. After the return from be to them. as a minor sanctuary in the countries
Galut, when the religious life was renewed and whither they are come" (Ezekiel 12:16) . This re-
reorganized, especially under Ezra and the Soferim, markable passage is interpreted to _mean that in.
congregational worship, consisting of prayer and its dispersion Israel would retain the synagogue
reading from the Torah, developed side by side as a sanctuary in miniature in compensation for
with the revival of the service in the Second Tern· the loss ·of the Temple. And, verily, ·:was ·the syna-
pfe, and synagogues· were as a result established
also in Eretz 'Israel. gogue a sanctuary. It soon became the -central in-
stitution of the Jews and Judaism. The synagogue,
The synagogue, however, or . "House of Assem- as the place of public worship, became the center
of the Jewish community, around which nucleus
all of its life was crystalized.
The synagogue, throughout the generations, had
two significant functions: the function of ·prayer
and that of education. The synagogue did not limit
itself to .the duties of worship, the principal func-
tion of the Second Temple. It performed also the
office of religious instruction, which was the main-
stay of the . synagogue in the time of the Second
Commonwealth. In this manner was the synagogue
not only a Beth Haknesseth, a Hoµse of Prayer,
open to all who yearned to pour out their souls
in devotion to God; it was also a Beth Hamidrash,
a House of Learn_ing-the place where the Jews
would congregate to learn the.Jewish religion and
its teachings-in short, to receive instructions in
Judaism.
So it was in the past. But today it is otherwise,
The synagogue of . the present has sl0wly drifted .
"16 THE sHqFAR
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