Parashat Vayakhel-P’kudei: What Makes a Sanctuary?

(A Torah discussion led by Maayan Lev on 3/18/2023)

 [NOTE: For our discussion this past Shabbat, I wanted to do something different. I wanted to have a town hall of sorts. I wanted to really ask the congregation how they felt about things. It was important to hear from as many voices as possible, both in the room and online (via the chatbox). In an effort to represent the various voices of the community in this discussion, I will be paraphrasing their answers as best I could, making it clear when new people began to speak. For the sake of privacy, the names of the people giving these responses will remain anonymous. What is notable however, is that many of the responses shared a common tone. Hopefully the discussion below will give us all the ability to place ourselves in each other’s shoes, and see what is important to them and why.]

Our double Torah portion  this week is Vayakel-P’kudei. Both readings talk about the Mishkan, which was essentially our first sanctuary. Although people didn’t congregate to pray in it, it was a portable house for HaShem that could move along with us as we traversed the wilderness.

The Torah tells us that when the Israelites reached the Promised Land, they would be directed to build a more permanent home for G!d. And so, when King Solomon built the Temple, there was no longer a need for the Mishkan. Why would people opt for something portable and temporary when you could instead have what they saw as “the real thing?”

Similarly, for Jews living in America, it was long expected that if you cared about attending shul, you would either move to a neighborhood that had a shul you liked, or be willing to drive longer distances to get to your shul.

But the pandemic radically changed people’s perspectives on the idea of permanent sanctuaries. When people weren’t able to gather in person anymore, they moved online. And while being online had its drawbacks, it also had its advantages. Some people preferred it that way, and many still do.

But that was the height of the pandemic. When we moved online, most people assumed that it was only a temporary measure. When things were safe enough for most people to meet in person again, we would stop meeting online. But in fact, we have never completely abandoned our online operations. We still have Shabbatot on Zoom, and even when we meet in person, our events are almost always live-streamed for those at home.

The phase we have entered now, is what I like to call “the new normal.” And with the new normal, many synagogues have tried to strike a balance. They don’t want to abandon their portable sanctuary, but they also don’t want to neglect their physical sanctuary.

Earlier this year, the rabbi of another synagogue confided to me that their board of directors was unhappy with their recent High Holy Day attendance. The problem wasn’t that nobody attended. Attendance was more or less the same as the year before. The problem was that about half of them attended virtually. Many on the board felt that families didn’t come in person because they weren’t willing to make the effort. And they also felt that because so few people came in person, the in-person experience felt less vibrant and therefore less communal than usual for those in the building.

As a member of the clergy team, I’m always happy to see as many people’s faces in the physical sanctuary as possible. But I also feel that in their desire to pack people into the seats, the board members at this synagogue weren’t considering the other side of the equation. I don’t think they fully appreciated the benefits of the portable/virtual sanctuary.

Let’s consider:

Now that we’re back in our physical sanctuary again,

why do you think some people still choose to attend virtually?

• “I don’t like driving late at night”
• “I don’t live anywhere close to CAH”
• “My health considerations don’t allow me to attend in person”

Maayan: To me, these are the opinions that the board at this other synagogue either failed to consider, or didn’t value enough.

Let’s consider:

Do you feel that services are best experienced online, in person, or both?

 “I like coming in person, but I only feel safe enough to come because our congregation is so small and allows for lots of social distancing. If more people attended our services in person, I probably wouldn’t.”

• “The location of the service doesn’t matter. What matters is that everyone at CAH is so warm and welcoming. There is a real power in the community here. We are small enough that everyone knows each other. It feels like family. That has allowed us to thrive even beyond the borders of our sanctuary.”
• “I am so glad we have continued to make services available online. This way, I can still come. So to me, an online service is much better than no services for me at all.”
• “No matter where the service is, I love that at CAH, my presence truly matters. I may very well be that important tenth person necessary to make a minyan. That gives me extra motivation to attend.”

Maayan: When it comes to divisive issues like these, synagogue culture can make all the difference. I’m so glad Am HaYam makes people feel welcome.

Let’s consider:

 Has Am HaYam’s culture become stronger or weaker in the wake of the pandemic (which forced us to find ways to live without our physical sanctuary?

• “We have become much stronger.”
• “The increased opportunities for online learning made me feel more connected, and I’m so glad those classes haven’t stopped”
• “We didn’t become weaker. We became more varied.”

Maayan: Though these voices represent only some of our CAH members, it’s very notable to me that nobody said our synagogue had become weaker due to the pandemic. COVID weakened so many things (first and foremost, people’s health). It is a testament to both Judaism and Am HaYam that one thing COVID failed to destroy was our sanctuary. After hearing people speak on this issue, I can only come to the conclusion that our sanctuary is not so much a place, but a group of people. In some ways, our current sanctuary is more like the portable Mishkan than the Temple. And in other ways, that comparison is less helpful.

In the Tanakh, each version of the sanctuary had its drawbacks. The Mishkan didn’t allow people to gather together. And as for the Temple, it forced Jews from all over the realm to gather in one spot for festivals, which was inconvenient for them and probably also made for a very crowded and impersonal worship experience.

In 2023, I like to think we learned from the best of these models. We don’t have to have our sanctuary be an either-or scenario like in the Tanakh. Just because we have a “Temple” doesn’t mean we can’t have a “Mishkan.” In 2023, I’m so glad we’ve learned to embrace both.

Shabbat shalom!