JOINT BUILDING FOR SYNAGOGUE AN D UNITARIAN CHURCH

QUESTION:

Our Temple Board of Trustees is presently considering the purchase of an existing Unitarian fellowship building with the understanding that the two groups would permanently share the same physical facilities. What would be the attitude of Jewish tradition and Jewish feeling to such an arrangement? (Asked by Rabbi Solomon T. Greenberg, Cincinnati, Ohio)

ANSWER:

THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES of the synagogue are to buy the building, but the Unitarians are to worship in it permanently. Does that mean that the Unitarians still have some ownership in it, or does it mean that they are the permanent guests of the congregation? Will the services of both groups be held in the same auditorium?

If the Unitarians are to worship in the building permanently, then the building continues to be what it was previous to the proposed purchase, a place of regular non-Jewish worship. It is true that the Unitarians are not Trinitarians, but neither are the Muslims. The question therefore would be equivalent to asking whether (if it were at all conceivable) a synagogue may buy a mosque with the understanding that the Mohammedans should permanently have the right of worship there. Furthermore, if both congregations use the same hall for their worship, what will be done with the Ark and the Scrolls of the Law during the Unitarian worship? Will they be removed? Under special military conditions, we did have joint chapels for Catholics, Protestants and Jews, and the sacred articles of each were removed during the services of the other. This was understood by all three groups to be a special wartime arrangement. But would such an arrangement (removing sacred symbols) be acceptable if it occurred in peacetime and every week?

Now as to the central question, that of ownership: It is, of course, due to the modern ecumenical spirit in America that such a question arises at all. There are plenty of discussions in the law in past generations as to whether a synagogue may buy a former church; also in modern times (in Reform and Conservative congregations) whether a synagogue may lend its building to a church for Christian worship in an emergency (cf. Reform Jewish Practice, Vol. 2, pp. 36-44). But that a synagogue should also have permanent non-Jewish worship in its building has been totally unheard of.

If, as is here proposed, the Unitarians have a permanent right to worship in the building, then the Jewish ownership of this house of worship is not exclusive nor complete. But does Jewish tradition make any clear statement that a synagogue must be completely and permanently the property of the community?

With regard to the ownership of a cemetery there is a definite requirement that it be owned permanently (Bitzmisus). But there is no clearly stated requirement that a synagogue must be so owned. Nevertheless, the law clearly implies that the ownership of the synagogue by the community should be permanent and outright.

Thus the law is clear that members of the community must compel each other to establish a synagogue (Shulchan Aruch, Orah Hayyim 150 ff.). This synagogue attains a permanent sanctity. Even if it falls into ruin, there are many ways in which even the ruins are deemed sacred. The building may not be used for any non-sacred purpose. Even if a man establishes a private Minyan in his house, he has no right to exclude any member of the community from worshiping there. In other words, a synagogue is communal and sacred. Menachem Mendel Auerbach (17th century) A teres Zekenim to Orah Hayyim 150, says that espetially in a small community the Jewish residents have a right to compel the building of a synagogue. Of course the law nowhere specifically says that this building must be permanently and exclusively the property of the community; but the very fact that there are severe restrictions as to how and when the building may be sold, if ever, and that an old synagogue may not be destroyed until a new one is complete, all these and similar laws clearly indicate that a synagogue is meant to be permanently a Jewish communal building in which every Jewish member of the community has the right of worship.

The Shulchan Aruch deals only with current and practical laws and although the Christian church is not deemed idolatrous, nevertheless there are definite and current laws of avoiding too close a contact with church buildings. The Shulchan Aruch and the Tur sum up the law that a Jew may not even enter a church or stand within four cubits of its door(cf. especially the citation of Rabad in Tur, Yore Deah 142). Of course we do not feel that way at all today and we enter churches without hesitation for occasional joint services or for the weddings or the funerals of friends. But in the light of the former avoidance of the church building in the Jewish past, it would certainly be a shock to general Jewish consciousness if Jewish synagogue membere were expected every week, or many times a week, to come for Jewish worship to the building where non- Jewish worship is regularly held. The fact that Unitarians are not Trinitarians is as irrelevant as if this were a Mohammedan mosque, which is also Unitarian. It is a place of non-Jewish worship and to make it a Jewish religious requirement to enter it regularly is certainly contrary to Jewish feeling.

Besides, the very fact that it is Unitarian and not Trinitarian should cause us to hesitate even more. There are a number of Jews who leave Judaism and find it easier to become Unitarians than Trinitarians. There are a number of mixed marriages in which the Jewish partner not wishing to have a Protestant pastor or Catholic priest officiate, will purposely choose a Unitarian minister. It is certainly unwise, therefore, and even dangerous on our part, so to blur the distinction between Judaism and Unitarians, as this suggested proposal would do, and thus tend to encourage these unfortunate defections from our faith and our people.

If it were understood that the building was definitely a synagogue and that the Unitarians were our guests who would occasionally be permitted to have services there, it would be acceptable; but if Unitarian services are regularly held in this building, what would happen on Easter when it coincides with Passover, or at Christmas when it happens to coincide with Chanukah? To whom would the auditorium belong? Even if the Easter service which would be largely attended occurred in another room, would that be a desirable situation? Clearly the whole arrangement, which tends to declare publicly that these two forms of worship are not particularly different from each other, would be a definite loss for Judaism.

Let the community do as all Jewish communities have done for two thousand years. Let it build its own synagogue, no matter how humble, which may become our own sanctuary, dedicated to our worship and to our fellowship.