A story: R Chamma bar Chanina and R. Yoshian were walking by the synagogues of Lod. Said R. R. Cham bar Chanina to R. Yoshiah: "How much money our fathers sunk in here!". He said to him: "How many souls our fathers sunk in here! Were there not people who would toil in Torah (and had no means to do so)?
This passage is repeated in Shekalim, end of Ch. 5. There the Yerushalmi adds:
R. Avun made gates for the "big" study hall. R. Mona came to him and R Avun told him, "see what I made". He responded: "And he (Israel) forgot the One who made him and built palaces (for Baal). Are there not people who would study Torah?"
Form standpoint of halacha, this passages serves as the basis for the law that moneys which were pledged synagogue building can be diverted to sustain Torah study (YO'D 249). However, it also teaches us a valuable perspective.
What it says to us is that people are more important than buildings.
I recall that many years ago I was conversing with a certain Rosh Yeshiva who was building an imposing addition to his yeshiva campus. Within the conversation he noted that nowadays the success of a mosad is judged by its building - the larger and more imposing the structure, the more successful the institution is thought to be. This threw me; fortunately, days later I spoke to another Rosh Yeshiva who bitterly bemoaned the time that fundraising for a new building was cosing him. He thought that I was fortunate in being able to have time, at that time, to teach and write whereas he was forced to spend precious time on building valueless structures. This restored my soul, for the first Rosh Yeshiva was mistaken whereas this Torah leader understood Torah priorities better.
What this Yerushalmi passage teaches us is that no structure is forever, that every decision to devote resources to buildings takes away resources from people and that people are more important that buildings.
When R. Berel Wein was building his shul in Monsey an issue arose regarding selection of wood for building. The options were a less expensive material that would last 45-50 years or a more expensive wood type that would last 90 years. The choice was for the former after R. Wein closed the discussion with the observation that he knows of few Jewish communities in recent history that lasted 90 years.
What the Yerushalmi ultimately teaches us is that in the eternal perspective of Spirit, the imposing, solid, material structures are evanescent and temporarily but the people remain forever.
For Succos, I add the following thought, heard in the name of Maharal ( I don't know where). He points out that we ask on Succos that Hashem will rebuild for us the fallen sukkah of David. Here the Beis Hamikdash is referred to as sukkah and not as bais (house). The reason for that is that a sukkah, even if fallen, is never destroyed. As a temporary structure, it can fall and still remain a sukkah, requiring only too be put up to functions. Not so a house. When a house falls down it ceases to be a house and cannot be rebuilt except as another house.
So also we must remember that the most enduring structure in the world is the temporary one and the best place in which to build a Temple is within the hearts of men...
(The very last passage of Peah is a restatement of the mishna and is probably brought there solely to end on a good note)
Hadran alach Peah...
The Maharal is in Netzach Yisroel Perek 35
Posted by: D P | October 02, 2007 at 01:57 AM