August 29th, 2024

It’s a new school year, with new students to begin getting to know and new ways to look at material that I’ve been teaching for years. Just yesterday afternoon, in my sixth grade Tefillah Workshop class, we were discussing how the physical location of a prayer experience might impact our participation in or emotional response to the service. The students surprised me - a number of them said that if they were participating in a service outside of a synagogue, it would feel less special, as the synagogue is the place where we feel God’s presence most acutely, the place where we are able to be most focused and connect with ourselves and with the Divine most easily. 

This surprised me for a couple of reasons. First, middle schoolers are not known for their adherence to traditional norms. They are iconoclasts, often looking for ways to challenge the established tradition and create their own new ways of engaging. I was surprised by what seemed to me, as someone who doesn’t know them that well yet, to be a higher than typical level of reverence.  I’m accustomed to my students looking for meaning outside the framework of a traditional synagogue service, to them feeling uncomfortable with the formality and rigid structure of prayer as it’s often conducted in shul. 

Second, in previous iterations of this course, my students have reflected on special prayer experiences they’ve had in beautiful natural environments at camp, at home with their families,  or on school trips to interesting places. In my past experience, my students have tended to find deeper meaning in these less “regular” prayer spaces than in the synagogue. This viewpoint also squares with my own perspective. While I am *definitely* a shul person, I am much more likely to feel spiritually inspired when surrounded by the beauty of the natural world, or in intimate, casual spaces when friends come together for tefillah. 

And yet, my new students’ affinity for prayer in the synagogue speaks to something important about the power of shul. In our Torah reading this week, Parashat Re’eh, Moshe instructs the people about the way they are to worship when they come to settle in the Land. No longer should they practice as they had been in the desert, with each person finding their own personal path to God, but they should “...look only to the site that the LORD your God will choose…to establish the divine name there. There you are to go, and there you are to bring your burnt offerings and other sacrifices, your tithes and contributions, your votive and freewill offerings…” (Deuteronomy 12:5-6) The book of Devarim is distinguished by its focus on centralized worship; this text, among others in the book, is part of what cements the vital role of the Jerusalem Temple in ancient Judaism. Meaningful prayer and personal connection, in the eyes of our Torah reading, live in the functions of the Temple - because that is where God’s presence also resides.

We do not worship in a Temple; indeed, Judaism has evolved and developed immeasurably since the days when the Temple stood. And our synagogues have emerged as the spaces that center our communities. They too are holy, not because they are the sites where God has chosen to reside, but because they are the places where we have chosen to make God’s presence felt. 

We bring God’s presence into shul when we lift our voices in song and prayer together, when we take a moment of quiet meditation in silent prayer, when we look in awe as the sefer Torah is lifted up and shown to the congregation. We bring God’s presence into shul when we celebrate each other's milestones and successes and when we hold each other through grief and personal challenges. We bring God’s presence into shul when we welcome newcomers and when we feel the joy of seeing old friends. 

The new school year is here and the new Jewish year is not far behind - I hope I’ll see you in shul soon!

Shabbat shalom.

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