SOUL FOOD: Building places of worship?

MICHÈLE MARR

On this third day of the nine-day Jewish festival of Sukkot, which is also called the Season of Our Rejoicing, the soon-to-be sanctuary of Congregation Adat Israel is still Tyvek and framing and bare concrete floors.

So following the recent High Holy Days of Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, worshipers are observing this feast as they have for eight years — in the synagogue’s multipurpose social hall.

Come late December, though, the West Orange County Chabad community plans to light the first candle of Hanukkah — or the Festival of Lights — in the long-awaited sanctuary, which is being added to its building on Warner Avenue. The timing will be fitting.

Hanukkah commemorates the rededication of the Second Temple in Jerusalem in 165 B.C.E. The word means “dedication.”

According to Jewish law at the time, no other structure in a city was to be higher than a synagogue. The Holy Temple, high on a mount, could be seen from all over Jerusalem.

It was the heart of the city, the most important building there. Aron David Berkowitz, the rabbi for Congregation Adat Israel and the director of Chabad of West Orange County, relates an anecdote that could shed light on these days of financial crisis.

“Somebody once joked with me and said that from every culture you could tell what’s the main focus of that culture [by the height of its buildings]. In the United States the biggest buildings are the financial buildings,” he said and chuckled.

It’s commonplace in our pluralist society for buildings — even homes — to exceed the height of places of worship. But that does not make synagogues any less important to the Jewish communities that build them.

Detailed instructions for building the temple in Jerusalem are preserved in Scripture. Today many aspects of a synagogue are patterned after the temple of old.

“Many of the items we have in the sanctuary are clearly related to the items in the Holy Temple,” Berkowitz said. “The Ark and the curtain and the water [for] washing the hands, all these things are clearly taken from the way it was.”

The holiest thing in the temple was the Holy of Holies, which contained the tablets inscribed with the 10 Commandments, both those Moses first broke and the ones that replaced them, and the scroll of the Torah. The Ark in the synagogue contains only a Torah scroll since the tablets bearing the commandments have long been lost.

As in the temple, a curtain separates the Holy of Holies from the other chamber of the sanctuary. In that room, as in the temple, is a menorah — a candelabra — near where the cantor, who leads the congregation in prayer, stands.

The Torah is read from a table called the bimah, which corresponds to the temple altar. The bimah is usually elevated and in Orthodox synagogues, or shuls, it is close to the center of the sanctuary.

“That has two purposes,” Berkowitz said. “One, the [temple] altar was also in the center of the sanctuary. Plus … the Torah is read there.

“In Orthodox shuls you don’t have microphones [yet] you want everyone to hear the Torah reading.” There are no microphones in the sanctuary because Orthodox Jews don’t use electricity on the Sabbath or on holy days.

At the entrance to the sanctuary is a basin for the customary washing of hands. Inside, when the Ark is opened for the Torah to be read, everyone stands. They face East toward Jerusalem.

Berkowitz illustrates the spiritual proximity of the synagogue to Jerusalem with an analogy. “If you walk into the Russian Embassy, even though you’re in the United States, you’re technically in Russia.

“Similarly, when you have a synagogue, which is dedicated to serving God…within it [is] the holiness of the Holy Land, of Jerusalem and the Holy Temple.

“I tell people…it’s great to visit Israel but it’s expensive. It’s a long trip.

“When you come to synagogue and you’re praying to God even though you’re standing in Huntington Beach…really, you’re in Israel.”

Chabad of West Orange County is entering its 25th year. It has owned the property on Warner Avenue near Bolsa Chica Street for 14 years.

The sanctuary was in its plans from the get-go. “For financial reasons, we were not able to build [then],” says Berkowitz. “We thought, in a year or two when we get settled in….”

Like the temple in Jerusalem, a synagogue is meant to be beautiful. Though, says the rabbi, “We’re not into the edifice complex of having a big building so that everyone says, ‘Wow!’”

Making the synagogue beautiful is a spiritual matter, a way for the people to express their devotion [to G-d]. If what goes on in it becomes secondary, Berkowitz said, “That’s a no-no.

“If there is beauty and there is money and there is gold,” he said, “first and foremost, it should be used to serve G-d. In a nutshell, our mission is to make a dwelling place for God in this world.”

Part of that may be to create or accomplish something that outlives us.

“When we build a synagogue it gives people an opportunity to dedicate something in the name of a loved one, which then becomes to that person’s credit,” Berkowitz said. “So that after 120 years [their] influence is still being felt.”

To that end, Manizheh Yomtoubian made a sizable contribution in memory of her husband Neria, whose name means “candle of G-d.” The sanctuary will be dedicated in their names.

An architectural rendering on the synagogue’s website, chabadhb.com, gives an idea of how the new sanctuary will look. Clicking on “Building Updates” takes viewers to a letter by Rabbi Berkowitz.

At its end are links that lead to a view of the sanctuary’s floor plan and also a brochure. There is a list of dedication opportunities that range from pews to stained glass windows to Torah scrolls and ?more.

The new sanctuary, a lobby and a patio will add nearly 1,500 square feet to the current building. The seating capacity for services will almost double.

Its completion will be a memorable and enduring accomplishment as the community marks a quarter of a century in its mission of sharing the joy of Judaism here.