Clergy Blog

Shabbat Shalom,

Sometimes after I drop my daughter off at daycare, I treat myself to a quick breakfast at the Livingston diner. I’m there once every few weeks or so, and if I get the right server, I don’t even have to say my order - they just get it started. I went in this morning for my coffee, two eggs, rye toast, and hashbrowns, and out of the corner of my eye, caught a glimpse of a burning building strewn across the morning news. The text under the video: Synagogue in Rutherford, NJ Destroyed in Fire. 

My mind initially went to the worst possible scenario, how could it not? The TV was muted and there was no other information to be had other than the scrolling text. I grabbed my phone to learn more. At this point in the investigation there has been no indication of foul play, and God willing it stays that way. As an American Jewish community perpetually on edge, the last thing we want to see on the morning news are images of a synagogue in flames. According to reports, Rabbi Yitzchok & Rebbetzin Bina Lerman and their four children escaped just in time prior to the structure’s collapse. 

Unfortunately, this is not the first fire Congregation Beth El, the Chabad in Rutherford, has experienced. In 2012, a 19 year-old was arrested for throwing a molotov cocktail into the synagogue. Again, there is currently not yet any indication that the fire this morning was intentionally set, nor are there any additional security concerns here at B’nai Abraham, though we are always closely monitoring the news and in conversation with security and law enforcement. 

Physical spaces play an incredibly important role in Jewish life. So much so that the Talmud tells us that when a synagogue is built on a piece of land, the sanctity of that land parcel is forever changed, and according to Jewish law, there are from that point on certain restrictions on what can be built there. For example, if a synagogue is sold, the land on which a synagogue was built can be used for a beit midrash, a study hall, but cannot be used to build a bathhouse or a tannery. This of course has no enforcement in secular courts, and I never understood the thrust of it until I travelled to Poland, Belarus, and Lithuania in 2014. We visited many many buildings throughout Eastern Europe that were built as synagogues. Some felt properly repurposed, like a concert hall or a school, and others left me in a state of discomfort: restaurants and gyms, still with physical vestiges of a building that was built as a house of prayer. 

We will say a special prayer this evening for Congregation Beth El, and while their physical space is, for the time being, no more, we know that the community will find ways to connect and maintain the spirit that made the building, and its land, a sacred space. 

Our service schedule this weekend:

Friday

6:30pm: Kabbalat Shabbat Services on the Singer-Krause patio

Saturday

9:00am: Tot Shabbat followed by a kiddush brunch

9:00am: Parasha Study in the Library and on zoom

10:00am: Shabbat Morning Services followed by kiddush lunch

Shabbat Shalom,

Max