A Tour through our Sanctuary
Rabbi Zoë Klein (2/18/04)

Our sanctuary is an untitled work of art. And like an elusive, suggestive verse of Torah, it begs our interpretation. Those of us who sat for hours with the architects sharing our visions for this congregation, while they madly sketched page after page, could write a book on all the discussion, decision, and dreaming that went into the design. But like the artist who chooses to name his work "Untitled," let it reveal its private meaning to you alone. This month we will be dedicating our sanctuary, and as you sit in that sacred space, I pray that meaning will come clear to you from the walls, that you find the angels in the architecture, so that you can make it your own.

I would like to share some images and concepts to help you find your own meaning in this sacred space, and make the sanctuary your own. Sometimes there are certain symbols that speak to us and others that fall flat, so take from these the ones you love, and attach them to your name, or just use them as springboards to invent your own.

Drink in the entire room. Are you sitting in the sweeping lines of a rainbow? Is the color that surrounds you the kiss of the two ends of the rainbow, the mingling of indigo and red, the color of balance? Are you at the fulcrum of the eight sloping branches of the menorah...are you the shamash that gives light? Are the walls wings, or arms outstretched, embracing or pleading? When you are thinking heavy thoughts, and you stare down at the floor, how does the carpet respond to you? Is it dancing and playfully swirling; is it a choppy ocean upon which you float. Do you see Noah's ark on the water, do you see how the ark of the covenant floats forward from the royal walls? When you look at the ark, and its abstract planes, what do you read? Do you see a shofar, or a dove, or the peaks of the pyramids, or Sinai perhaps, and if Sinai, do you see God descending?

Is there a hint of Jacob's ladder climbing above the Torahs? And when you look deeply, what verses come to you on a ribbon of thought? The path of the Righteous is like radiant sunlight (Proverbs 4:18), Even the sparrow has found a home, and the swallow a nest for herself in which to set her young, near to Your altar (Psalms 84:4), A house is built by wisdom, and is established by understanding. By knowledge are its roots filled with all precious and beautiful things (Proverbs 24:3).

When you heart, and your eyes, are lifted, and you gaze into the ruby red of the eternal lamp, such a strange and soft and surprising color, it surely must take you somewhere. Where?

And when you lift your eyes further in sudden inspiration and stare at the ceiling, does it move and turn? Does it mimic the crescent of the bima, and if it does, if it is the upper bima, than do you wonder who prays and preaches from that bima? Can you tune into the choir of angels? And is it the ceiling that mimics the floor, or the floor that mimics the ceiling; are we both but a reflection of something even higher that only the likes of Ezekiel has seen? Our bima is smaller than it once was. It has inhaled itself. What is it making room for? What fills the new space?

These questions are intended to spark your own questions, to help you start to chart your course through your home of worship. When you find your place, you will find a new song in your heart, and a new prayer on your tongue.