| Although
synagogues existed well before the destruction of the 2nd Temple
in 70 CE, communal worship in the time while the Temple still stood
centered around the korbanot ("sacrificial offerings")
brought by the kohanim ("priests") in the Holy Temple.
The all-day Yom Kippur service, in fact, was an event in which the
congregation both observed the movements of the kohen gadol ("the
high priest") as he offered the day's sacrifices and prayed
for his success.
During the Babylonian captivity (586–537 BCE) the Men of the Great
Assembly began the process of formalizing and standardizing Jewish
services and prayers that did not depend on the functioning of the
Temple in Jerusalem. Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai, one of the leaders
at the end of the Second Temple era, promulgated the idea of creating
individual houses of worship in whatever locale Jews found themselves.
This contributed to the continuity of the Jewish people by maintaining
a unique identity and a portable way of worship despite the destruction
of the Temple, according to many historians.
Synagogues in the sense of purpose-built spaces for worship, or
rooms originally constructed for some other purpose but reserved
for formal, communal prayer, however, existed long before the destruction
of the Second Temple.[2] The earliest archaeological evidence for
the existence of very early synagogues comes from Egypt, where stone
synagogue dedication inscriptions dating from the third century
BCE prove that synagogues existed by that date. [3]
A synagogue dating from between 75 and 50 BCE has been uncovered
at a Hasmonean-era winter palace near Jericho. [4]
[5]
More than a dozen Second Temple era synagogues have been identified
by archaeologists.[2]
Any Jew or group of Jews can build a synagogue. Synagogues have
been constructed by ancient Jewish kings, by wealthy patrons, as
part of a wide range of human institutions including secular educational
institutions, governments, and hotels, by the entire community of
Jews living in a particular place, or by sub-groups of Jews arrayed
according to occupation, ethnicity (i.e. the Sephardic, Polish or
Persian Jews of a town), style of religious observance (i.e., a
Reform or an Orthodox synagogue), or by the followers of a particular
rabbi. |
|
Denver Shuls
Aharon's Jewish Books and Judaica
600 South Holly Street Suite 103
Denver, Colorado 80246
303-322-7345
800-830-8660
Map to Aharon's Jewish Books and Judaica
Store Hours
Monday through Thursday 9 AM to 8 PM
Friday 9 AM to 1 PM
Sunday 9 AM to 4 PM |