Shul Under Sky or Ceiling?

Growing up in greater Boston, my family lit Hannukah candles inside on the kitchen table. Only years later did I learn the inferiority of this placement in contrast to the window, or outside by the door. That’s because the Rabbis esteem “publicizing the miracle” of the Maccabees defeating the Syrian-Greek armies. During times of danger, Jews can fulfill their obligation by lighting candles inside, on the kitchen table, with the blinds shut and door locked if necessary. It is a chilling leniency of Jewish Law that speaks to the Diasporic experience of the minority Jew among hostile host cultures.

When I first visited the Old City of Jerusalem during Hannukah, I was astonished to see menorahs aflame in glass cases at the edge of every doorstep.

Judaism in Israel is a public phenomenon. To what degree is a matter of great debate. Should buses operate on Shabbat? Marriage consecrated under civic or Rabbinic authority? So on and so forth.

Yom Kippur is unique. For 25 hours, the nation shuts down.

After the last falafels were stuffed and smoothies slurped, vendors and customers went home on Tuesday afternoon in Tel Aviv. Heckling fruit-vendors sold their last produce and hummus guys made their final deliveries. Cars parked, stores closed. The bustle faded into memory as bars stacked their stools. Birds chirped (you could really hear them), the sun set, and humanity dressed in white emerged on foot and bicycle to reclaim the streets as their own.

The gates of Heaven beckoned. One felt the tension of work ease and trepidation before God arrive. In Dizzengoff square, thousands of us prayed, as lonely souls together, begging for God’s forgiveness, reveling in His compassion, thousands of us, filling the empty street. Instead of bustling cafes and restaurants there was a sea of white. Shul under the sky.

Some chose to pray inside the synagogues, avoiding background noise.

On the grass, parents lay with babies and friends played board games. On the street, toddlers with training wheels learned to hold their balance.

Shul under sky or ceiling?

Does Torah become diluted or strengthened when exposed to the big wide world?

Should we speak Hebrew—the holy tongue—using the same word to describe the cabinet for the Torah, in synagogue, and underwear, at home (aron)? Or better we safeguard the holy tongue for holy use, speaking of mundane matters only in the vernacular? Shul under sky or ceiling?

Should we live in homogenous communities of like-minded observers, or absorb and promote God’s glory in a city diverse in both thought and action? Shul under sky or ceiling?

The Talmud asks a similar question. Should Torah be taught in the marketplace? The exchange concludes without a clear answer, but the unfolding debate is revealing.

Rav Yehuda HaNasi says no. We may learn Torah only in the study hall. “Your rounded thighs are like jewels, the work of the hands of an artist,” he quotes from Song of Songs 7:2. “Just as a thigh is ordinarily hidden and kept covered with clothes, so too, the words of Torah, which are “the work of the hands of an artist,” i.e., God, must remain hidden in the study hall.” Like a precious oil painting sensitive to sunlight.

Rabbi Ḥiyya disagrees. “Wisdom cries aloud in the streets,” he quotes from Proverbs 1:20, and takes his two nephews to learn in the market. Rashi and Ibn Ezra—two of the foremost Biblical exegetes—make divergent interpretations on this verse. What do you mean by “streets?” According to Rashi, “houses of learning”; according to Ibn Ezra, a place with people “coming and going.”

Suffice to say, we disagree. Even today, we see this distinction manifest. Contrast Chabad spread across the globe with insular Haredi communities in Jerusalem or Borough Park. Contrast purveyors of “in-group” Yeshivish language with teachers of Torah in modern English like Rabbi Jonathan Sacks z”l, who rendered Hebrew scripture accessible to the masses.

Shul under sky is risky. Rewarding, too. Why, I once heard someone ask a Haredi rabbi, does your community not further integrate into modern society? He was quiet and looked down. Many of them will leave, he said. Now you can claim a truthful lifestyle should not require coercion. And I am not suggesting that coercion is the ruling principle in some of these communities. There is simply a real fear, justified by history and modernity, that Jews will sever ties with their people upon exposure to seemingly more attractive lifestyles.

A classic distinction between Holy and Profane might be one philosophy undergirding a preference for the “shul under ceiling” worldview. To grossly generalize to the extreme for the sake of clarity: Torah is holy, literature and music (for instance) are not.

In an astonishing shift of paradigm, Rav Kook rejects this view. In Torah UMadda, Rabbi Norman Lamm z”l writes, according to Rav Kook,

There is no absolute metaphysical category called [profane]; there is only the holy and the not-yet-holy. Eventually all that is profane (not-yet-holy) is to be found in and sanctified through the Torah, for which reason, says Rav Kook, it is called de’kullah bah (“containing everything”) and is regarded as the fulfillment of God’s blessing of Abraham ba-kol (“with everything” - Genesis 24:1)…Kook’s centrifugal kodesh [holiness] is so overpowering and outgoing that the profane loses its absolute character even before its encounter with the sacred.

But what of the Havdalah blessing to conclude Shabbat? Blessed are You, God…who distinguishes between Holy and Profane. Does Rav Kook entirely collapse the distinction?

In stunning articulation, Rabbi Lamm z”l continues:

There is a havdalah [separation], in order to allow for the intensification of the sacred in its centripetal motion, and this itself is prelude to its outward, centrifugal movement, where is reaches for the profane and transforms it into sacred — a transmutation that fulfills the purpose of its existence. The fact of kodesh (sanctity) leads to the act of kiddish (sanctification).

In other words, shul under sky or ceiling?

Both Rav Kook and our impending festival offer a compromise.

On Sunday night, we will embark to backyards and patios to eat and maybe even sleep in transitory booths for seven days. We will cover these booths with s’chach—branches like palm leaves or bamboo sticks that grow from the earth. But partially we will cover them, not entirely, leaving enough cracks between the branches for sunlight to grace our faces during the days and our eyes to see the stars at night.

Suggests Rav Kook, sanctify the holy and the holy will come to sanctify the profane.

As we enter Shabbat, I bless us all, that we may grow deep roots before spreading forth, change ourselves and families before communities and countries, cherish each opportunity to sanctify the holy and bask in G-d’s glory always, whether we’re praying under sky, ceiling or bamboo sticks.