TEMPLE DEDICATION QUESTIONS

QUESTION:

Should there be separate dedication exercises for the various donations of parts of the building? Should a donor be permitted on a memorial plaque in the Temple to have a picture of his late father? (Asked by Rabbi Elliot M. Strom, Newton, Pennsylvania.)

ANSWER:

There is very little firm and definite law in the tradition as to the dedication of a new synagogue. Most of what is available on the matter has been recorded in Contemporary Reform Responsa, pp. 9 ff. However there is enough in the tradition to give a more or less general answer to the questions asked here.

One or many dedication services. There is only one principle upon which to decide this question and that is the concept frequently invoked of tirhat hatzibur, “burdening the congregation.” The phrase is used when too many additional elements are inserted in the service. It is not deemed wise to weary the worshipers. Some of the authorities who express concern for “over” burdening the congregation in the reading, for example, of lengthy memorial lists, are recorded in Modem Reform Responsa, p. 27. Following this general concern, it would be wrong to have, let us say, ten or fifteen separate dedication services. The people would weary of them and the experience would have a negative effect on the devotions of the congregation. Perhaps an acceptable compromise can be adopted as follows: that all the donations to the main sanctuary should be united into one impressive dedication, with all donors properly honored. Then, a second dedication service should be held for the donors to the Chapel, School, Library, etc., and, again, all these donors honored. Thus all donors will be honored, as they should be, without tirhat hatzibur, burdening the congregation.

A memorial plaque with a photograph of the parent honored. As with the general practice of dedication, there is no direct law governing the plaques in the synagogue, except the general one applying to all additions and decorations in the synagogue, namely, that they should not be where they will distract the attention of the worshipers. Of course if these plaques are not where the worshipers would be looking at them during prayer, this objection would not apply to them.

However, certain attitudes of tradition can govern these plaques when we consider that many of them are memorial plaques in honor of deceased parents, etc. Thus they may be judged in the light of what has been decided with regard to the memorials in the cemetery, the tombstones, etc. As to these memorials in the cemetery, many congregations had a committee to see to it that there was a general equality and none should be overwhelmingly more impressive than others, since in that regard, the scholars say that “we are equal partners,” i.e., that there should be democracy.

Therefore, on this basis alone, no one plaque should be more outstandingly noticeable than the others. But more specifically in this case, it may be stated that the custom of having such photographs on tombstones, a custom frequently followed in certain Orthodox cemeteries, has been deprecated by the scholars, although not forbidden outright. For example, the great Hungarian authority Maharam Shick (Responsa Yoreh Deah 170) expressly forbids such photographs (cf. the last paragraph of the responsum). See the long footnote in Greenwald’s Kol 13o, p. 380, note 1.

For these reasons, this suggestion of a photograph on the memorial tablet should be discouraged. Besides, others may want the same privilege.

To sum up: The dedications should not overburden the congregation. They should be organized into two impressive dedications. As for the picture on one memorial plaque, it should be discouraged for the reasons mentioned above.