NAMING THE SANCTUARY AFTER AN INDIVIDUAL

QUESTION:

The congregation has been searching for major memorial gifts. One suggestion has recently been made to name the sanctuary itself after a departed member. Should this be done? (Asked by Rabbi Murray Blackman, New Orleans, Louisiana.)

ANSWER:

THERE ARE a number of precedents in the Jewish past for naming a synagogue after an individual, so that thereafter it would always be referred to by his name. In Egypt, in the Greek period, there was a synagogue dedicated to King Ptolemy and Queen Berenice. Philo refers to synagogues in Rome named for the Roman emperors. There was an “Augustus Synagogue” and a “Tiberius Synagogue.” Of course, these particular namings of synagogues in Alexandria and Rome were for the necessary political purpose of securing and protecting the Jewish community by honoring the emperor and thus soliciting his protection.

But a less political reason and a more spiritual one is indicated in the occasional naming of synagogues after Biblical personalities. Thus the Talmud (Eruvin 21a) speaks of a synagogue named in honor of Daniel (Kenishtad’ Daniel). In Aleppo there were three synagogues named after Moses. And also in the Near East there were some synagogues named after Ezra. Also, there were synagogues named for Elijah the Prophet. This practice finds some echo in modern Jewry. We have temples called Isaiah, and such. But these were names of the Bible personalities, not names which have been perpetuated because of a donation to the congregation.

Yet there are actually some cases where synagogues were named for donors. But strangely enough, as far as I can discover, this practice was limited to one historic city, namely, to the ancient Jewish community of Prague. In Prague there were at least four synagogues named after donors. One of them was the “Meisel Synagogue,” named after the well-known sixteenth-century leader of the Prague Jewish community, Mordecai Meisel. This name of the synagogue persists to this day after four centuries, although I believe the Communists have converted the Meisel Synagogue into a museum. Also in Prague there was a “Pinkes Synagogue,” named for Phineas Horowitz, built and rebuilt by that rabbi’s descendants; a synagogue named the “Popper Synagogue” after a donor; and in memory of the donor, Salkind Zigeuner, there was a “Zigeuner Synagogue.”

Other than this custom in Prague, I do not know of any other synagogue in any well-known Jewish community named for a donor. This is rather surprising, for Prague was a very great community with famous rabbis, and one might have expected that its example would spread to other Jewish communities. There may be other synagogues so named, but 1 do not know of any. Evidently, then, if the example of Prague does not seem to have been widely followed, there must be some objections, voiced or unvoiced, to the idea.

Possibly the objection is a purely practical one, and what this objection might be can be understood by examples from the secular world. Andrew Carnegie was one of the first great philanthropists in America. The libraries and the cultural institute he established in Pittsburgh all bear his name. But now the money of the Carnegie Foundation seems less available, while the needs of these institutions have become great. They are appealing to the general public for help, but they are experiencing serious difficulty in receiving donations because people feel that if the institution bears Carnegie’s name, let his family support it. Even with smaller gifts, there is sometimes a danger in identifying the gifts with a specific name. In our own congregation, the main temple organ was named after a generous donor of three generations ago. The family no longer is available for donations, and the organ requires rehabilitation at considerable cost. Now the congregation finds it especially difficult to obtain the necessary gifts from donors because the potential donors feel that since the organ is named for this one family, the family should continue to maintain it. This situation is likely to become especially serious with regard to the sanctuary itself. As the years go by, there is an increasing need for funds for upkeep or reconstruction of the sanctuary, and the very fact that the sanctuary is named for one person, while it may indeed be of great help for the present, nevertheless in the long run will become a serious detriment. Of course, a large stained-glass window or even a smaller chapel, neither of which is likely to need constant donations for upkeep, can perhaps be safely named for an individual donor, but not the temple itself, which will always need additional funds for upkeep. All this is, of course, a practical reason. It might be mentioned that in New York the Free Synagogue has been renamed “The Stephen Wise Free Synagogue,” but this was done to honor the founding rabbi of the synagogue and is not likely to evoke later financial repercussions.

But there is also a relevant principle in Jewish traditional law which must be borne in mind, namely, that if the congregation does decide to name the sanctuary after a donor, and if this decision proves later to have been a mistake, then it is against Jewish traditional law to reverse that action and to restore the original name (such as Sinai or Sholom) to the sanctuary. This law is stated in the Talmud in Arachin 6b, in Maimonides, Matnas Aniim 8:6, and in the Shulchan Aruch, Yore Deah 259:3. The law states that when a gift has been made to the congregation, then as long as the name appended to the gift is still remembered, no changes may be made (see also Modern Reform Responsa, pp. 141 ff.).

This, then, is the situation. While some ancient synagogues, for political reasons, were named after Roman emperors, and while particularly in the city of Prague there were indeed four synagogues named for donors, the custom never spread to the rest of Jewry, evidently because of the practical reasons mentioned above and also because of the traditional law that as long as the name is still remembered, the action may not be rescinded.