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Beth Jacob was founded by people quite familiar with synagogue buildings and practices that were designed to impress. Ours would be a congregation dedicated to unpretentious modesty.
A telling example of this commitment occurred amid planning for our building. The congregation was offered an exceptionally generous contribution in return for placing the name of a family member on the new building’s cornerstone. Despite a serious shortfall of funds, placing a name on the cornerstone could not be reconciled with the congregation’s commitment to egalitarian modesty, and so the contribution was turned down. The family then offered half of the original amount in return for placing plaques with family members’ names adjacent to windows in the sanctuary, and this gift was also declined. The family subsequently made a comparable gift to a neighboring congregation
Rather than honoring ourselves, our cornerstone came to signify the commitment we took upon ourselves to be a congregation that is:
dedicated to Torah, worship, and lovingkindness
מוקדשת לתורה, עבודה וגמילות חסדים
- the inscription engraved on the cornerstone. In the preceding weeks we’ve shared stories about dedication to these values. Underlying each of these stories, as our cornerstone indicates, is a message not of impressiveness, but of modest devotion to learning together, worshipping together, and caring for one another.
And honored names? You can find them on the congregation’s ketubah, as you enter the building. The day the building was dedicated, all members were encouraged to sign on; all in their own hand, all the same modest size.
Earl Schwartz
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