House of Prayer

ROSH HASHANAH EDITION 5778 SECTION A PAGE 2 do you call the place you pray? According to JewishVirtualLibrary.org, we don’t all call our synagogues the same thing. In Hebrew, the term is Beit Knesset, literally, House of Assembly. Similarly, Conservative Jews usually use the word synagogue, which is a Greek translation of Beit Knesset and means “place of assembly,” related to the word “synod.” Orthodox Jews typically use the Yiddish word shul, which is derived from a German word for “school,” and emphasizes the synagogue’s role as a place of study. Reform Jews use the word temple, because they consider every one of their meeting places to be equivalent to, or a replacement for, the Temple that once stood in Jerusalem. (Thanks to Mt. Sinai […]