HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE SYNAGOGUE

Development of the Synagogue from Ancient to Modern Times

Development of the Synagogue from Ancient to Modern Times

Introduction

A syngagogue is a building devoted to the practice of Judaism through prayer, study of the Torah, and practice of the religious obligations set forth by God through Moses to Israel at Mount Sinai; a community of Jews formed for the purpose of practicing Judaism. The syngagogue, along with the associated cemetery, was the first institution Jews created in the United States, beginning in colonial times in New York, Philadelphia, Charleston, Savannah, and Newport, and it remains the principal institution for the practice of Judaism, including religious education, in the United States. Public worship ordinarily takes place in buildings constructed for that purpose, which set aside as the focal point of public worship an ark in which the Torah scrolls of the community are kept. This paper discusses the historical development of the Syngagogue from ancient to modern times in a concise and comprehensive way.

Development of the Syngagogue from Ancient to Modern Times

Chiat (2002) mentions in Reform, Reconstructionist, and Conservative syngagogues, men and women sit together; in Orthodox syngagogues they are seated separately, and a mehisah, or partition, separates them; or the women are seated in balconies. Syngagogue worship may be led, and the Torah may be read, by any qualified person (male in Orthodoxy). But in the United States it is common for syngagogues to employ full-time clergy, called rabbis, who are qualified for service by knowledge of the Torah, and many syngagogues also call on cantors, hazzanim, to recite the service (Chiat, 2002). In addition to large public halls for community occasions, syngagogues always encompass schoolrooms for regular class sessions for all age groups and often provide for smaller prayer spaces for occasions on which the congregation is few in number. In the United States, where large numbers of persons attend services on a few occasions during the year, such as the New Year (Rosh Hashanah) and the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur), a syngagogue will provide for expansion through folding doors and walls to open up the main sanctuary. But syngagogue worship also takes place in private homes, and a congregation may number from ten upward.

The syngagogue, a place of organized communal worship of God and study of the Torah, is well attested from the first century C.E. and certainly antedates that time, though its origins are still unclear. Many think that the syngagogue originated after the destruction of the first Temple in 586, finding in Ezekiel 8:6, 14:1, 209:1 references to such an institution (e.g., "the little sanctuary" of Ezekiel 11:16). For Jews outside the Land of Israel, in any event, the syngagogue was the center of the religious life (Chiat, 2002). Syngagogues small and large were built by Jewish communities wherever Judaism was practiced, and the syngagogue has been the principal institution of that religion for nearly the whole of its existence. Prayer took the place of sacrifice, and the word for Temple service, abodah, "labor," ...