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otherwise affiliate with Conservative congregations. They also bring greater availability of
kosher foods, Judaica stores, and intense Jewish learning experiences.
7. The suburban Jewish community is no
longer dominated by nuclear Jewish families focusing institutional attention exclusively upon
their children. Today an array of household
types abound: never married, divorced, widowed, single and/or single-parent adults, second or third marriages, couples without
children, empty nesters, senior citizens, gay or
lesbian households, intermarrieds, and so forth.
8. As the huge baby-boomer generation sends
its offspring into adulthood, and contemplates retirement, Jewish communal life faces
a range of new challenges for life-long Jewish
engagement. A Judaism focused on children
will no longer suffice.
The future of most of non-Orthodox
American Jews will be determined by the degree to which suburban living remains compatible with sustaining Jewish identity. Herb Gans
identified the onset of that process, a half century ago. In 2007, Jewish communal life must
continue to seed and reseed the infrastructure
that has emerged as the lifeline of the world’s
preeminent Diaspora community.
Temple and Synagogue
Neil Gillman
T
Neil Gillman teaches
Jewish Philosophy at the
Jewish Theological Seminary and is Chair of the
Sh’ma Advisory
Committee.
June 2007
Sivan 5767
To subscribe: 877-568-SHMA
www.shma.com
6
he Bible knows two models of sacred
space. On one model, what may be called
“intrinsic sacred space,” God chooses one
point on earth to reveal God’s presence. That
point becomes axis mundi, the center of the
world, around which the rest of the world is
structured in descending levels of sanctity. The
source for this model is in Genesis 22, the narrative of the binding of Isaac. Abraham is dispatched to “the land of Moriah,” to offer Isaac
as a sacrifice “on one of the heights which I
[God] will point out to you.” Subsequently, in
II Chronicles 3:2, Moriah becomes the spot on
which Solomon builds the Temple.
The heart of the Temple was the Holy of
Holies. Within the Holy of Holies stood the ark
containing the twin tablets of the covenant.
Over the ark was a kaporet or cover, on top of
which were two facing graven cherubim whose
upswept wings met shielding the ark. It was
from the pinpoint between the wings of the
cherubim that God says “I will meet with you
and I will command you concerning the Israelite people.” (Exodus 25:17-22) In the later
tradition, other places where God’s presence
is revealed, for example Jacob’s ladder, are
conflated with Moriah. There can be only one
center of the world.
The second model may be called “extrinsic
sacred space.” Here, any spot on earth can become the center of the world. In the Bible, this
model is illustrated by the Israelite encampment during the desert wanderings. The camp
could be located at any place in the wilderness,
but wherever it stood, the sanctuary was at its
center. At the center of the sanctuary stood the
ark and its cherubim, and God still addressed
the community from between the wings of the
cherubim. God chosethe place to camp — as
signaled by the cloud that moved or rested —
but that place could be anyplace. In time, that
“anyplace” became the synagogue.
The Temple, intrinsic sacred space, could
only be in Jerusalem. But the synagogue could
be wherever a minyan of Jews with their Torah
scroll chose to settle. God sanctifies intrinsic
sacred space; the community sanctifies extrinsic sacred space.
Jeremiah 29 contains the text of a letter
sent by Jeremiah to the community of exiles
in Babylonia. It is an extraordinary document.
In it, God counsels the exiles to “build houses
and live in them, plant fields and eat their
fruit, take wives and beget sons and daughters;
. . . multiply there. And seek the welfare of the
city to which I have exiled you, and pray to the
Lord on its behalf; for in its prosperity you
shall prosper.” Then, “When you call Me and
come and pray to Me, I will give heed to you.
You will search for Me and find Me. I will be at
hand for you and I will restore your fortunes.
And I will gather you from all the nations, and
I will bring you back to the place from which
I have exiled you.”
This letter, seemingly written as a deliberate, point-by-point rejection of the bleak portrait of exile in Deuteronomy 28, affirms the
religious legitimacy of extrinsic sacred space.
Its theological basis is a statement about God.
God’s power is not bounded by geography; it
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extends throughout the world. God can be
worshiped from any place on earth. God can
even reach beyond the boundaries of the Holy
Land and redeem the community from exile.
One of the traditional names for God is
HaMakom, literally “The Place.” But according
to the rabbinic understanding of that name,
God is “the place” of the world, not the other
way around. God does not inhabit space.
The exiled community can flourish but it
cannot have a Temple; that is reserved for
Jerusalem. But it can still worship God without
a Temple, without sacrifices, through the
words of prayer. “Instead of bulls, we will pay
[with] the offerings of our lips.” (Hosea 6:3)
This pattern goes a long way toward explaining the ambiguities of our relationship to
Israel, both land and state. For centuries, we
prayed and dreamed of a return to Zion and
the rebuilding of the Temple; we worship facing Jerusalem; we conclude Yom Kippur and
our Passover sedarim with the words, “Next
year in Jerusalem.” Yet we remain here. Ironically, it is precisely our religious structures that
make it possible for us to live an authentic Jewish religious life anywhere on earth. We carry
our religion on our backs. Halakhah enables
us to worship God at every moment of our
lives, wherever we may be.
God’s power is not bounded by geography;
it extends throughout the world.
Emet Ve-Emunah, the Statement of Principles of Conservative Judaism, puts it this way:
“Our religion has been land-centered but
never land-bound.” (p. 38)
Community Size and Identity
Matthew Boxer
A
merican Jews live in two worlds. One is
secular, in which we go to work and
school, pay taxes, run errands, attend to other
mundane tasks. The other world consists of
religious rituals, institutions, special foods,
and languages, and is shared primarily with
fellow Jews. Here, some Jews perform mitzvot,
and daven, and celebrate chagim. In many
ways, our level of participation in the Jewish
world depends largely on the communities
and social contexts in which we live. Whether
we go to work or school or attend services on
the holidays, eat in non-kosher restaurants,
learn about Jewish history and culture, or socialize with other Jews depends on the availability of Jewish social, cultural, and religious
resources, as well as a sizeable Jewish population to support related institutions. Large Jewish communities provide options that are
hard to find in small Jewish communities, and
they are generally crucial for the development of a strong Jewish identity. One’s involvement in Jewish activities and the Jewish
community strongly correlates to the strength
of one’s Jewish identity: the more one participates, the stronger the identity and, therefore, more opportunities to engage in Jewish
life means that individuals are more likely to
develop stronger Jewish identities.
In large Jewish communities, where there
are dozens of synagogues representing differ-
ent denominations and orientations, we make
choices about how to observe Judaism, and we
can develop large Jewish social networks with
little effort. Kosher food is readily available
and varied, as are opportunities to participate
in a variety of Jewish organizational and educational experiences with well-trained, professional instructors. The plethora of options in
all aspects of Jewish life make it possible for
one to be as involved — or not — in the Jewish
community as one desires, and to build as
much Jewish cultural capital as one wants.
By contrast, small Jewish communities
offer far fewer options: perhaps only one synagogue where an individual’s decision not to
attend may preclude the possibility of communal prayer. In small communities, Jews must
make a conscious effort to interact with fellow
Jews, and Jewish education may be limited by
the lack of resources needed to hire trained
professionals and volunteers’ limited knowledge. Further, although small Jewish communities are relatively understudied, research has
consistently indicated that Jews who grow up
in small Jewish communities tend to become
less religiously observant than their parents.
Because of the dearth of Jews in such communities, children may associate exclusively with
non-Jews, and the fewer Jews in the community, the greater parents’ acceptance that their
children will develop relationships of increas-
Matthew Boxer is a doctoral student in sociology
at the University of
Wisconsin-Madison,
working on a dissertation examining the effects
of Jewish community size
on Jewish identity. He
was raised in a very
small Jewish community
in Niagara Falls, NY.
June 2007
Sivan 5767
To subscribe: 877-568-SHMA
www.shma.com
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