November 3, 2017 | 14 Cheshvan 5778
Sanctuary, Within
by Barbara Stock

Sanctuary. A place of refuge, peace and calm. In the same way Havdalah separates the holy from the mundane, a sanctuary provides a safe space for my soul to rest and refuel from the frenzy of daily life.

My parents, grandmother, aunts and uncle prayed in the sanctuary of the Beth Shalom Synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Only adults prayed in the sanctuary. Adolescents led weekly services in the chapel. Faculty conducted Sunday School programs in the auditorium. On High Holidays, children and adolescents prayed in the local movie theater rented by the temple for the occasion. The sanctuary was reserved for prayer. No one stood in the aisles talking. Each member had an assigned seat so no one needed to wave across the room to signal saved seats.

The foyer was for kibbitzing —and there was plenty of that-- especially when the Pirates played in the World Series and men held new-fangled transistor radios to their ears. Inside the sanctuary, grownups whispered, sang and opened their hearts to prayer.

These customs elevated and magnified the holiness of the space. Standing in the doorway, I could feel the sacred.

When we speak of sanctuary cities, I think of the doorway of the Beth Shalom sanctuary, offering peace, safety, and refuge.

As an adult, I’ve prayed in chapels and auditoriums, in Orthodox, Conservative, Reconstructionist and Reform temples. Times have changed, perhaps not at Beth Shalom, but in other parts of the country. Now folks enter the temple prayer room, scanning for friends, talking as they find seats. Young children grow up comfortably standing on the bimah for Kiddush , choir or shofar blowing. Perhaps religion is more approachable. For me, the tumult makes it harder to see the space as a sanctuary, to reach inside myself to my soul.

Instead, I find my sense of peace and safety in nature, walking by the lake or by the pond at Lovelace Park. The spacious areas open my heart. The awesome changes of sky, light, seasons, leaves, the whisper and roar of waves and breeze, the families of birds, ducks and geese remind me of the mystery of forces beyond my control or even my influence. I am sometimes struck dumb as I was as a child, tip-toeing ever so quietly into the sanctuary. Then — and now on my best days — as I walk home I carry my sanctuary with me as the Israelites carried the mishkan through the desert, with the sense of appreciation for something larger than myself, beyond naming, within me.


If you’d like to share your thoughts with the congregation on what sanctuary means to you - a time in which you felt like a sanctuary dwelled within you, or how we can extend sanctuary to those who need it, feel free to reach out to Ellen Blum Barish and David Barish . 
Barbara Stock and her family have been members of Beth Emet since 1977. She is thrilled that her son Adam and his family are now very involved members. Besides enjoying her grandchildren and writing, Barbara is a clinical psychologist in private practice in Evanston.
In Exodus 25:8, God says to Moses, “Create for me a sanctuary, and I will dwell among them.” These words set the building of the Tabernacle into motion. But the verse’s ending has an interesting grammatical anomaly. Instead of telling the Israelites to create a sanctuary so God can dwell within it, the wording suggests that the dwelling may be amon g the people, or within them, suggesting that God can live within us rather than exclusively in a physical sanctuary. This year at Beth Emet we’ll explore the multiples meanings of sanctuary—as physical space to gather as a community for prayer, as spiritual space where we feel safe and whole, and as an attitude that is welcoming and accepting of everyone.

This weekly e-mail project, curated by David and Ellen Barish, allows congregants to express themselves in any of a variety of media: speechmaking, poetry, essay, story, photography, film, paint, sculpture, printmaking, textile, sound or music. If you'd like to contribute, please email Ellen and/or David .

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Beth Emet The Free Synagogue
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 Evanston, IL 60202
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