The Architecture of the Bimah in American Synagogues: Framing the Ritual

The character of a synagogue building, like that of any other structure, can be understood in multiple ways, both by those who interact with the building and by those who examine and analyze it from an academic perspective. As the architectural historian Lindsay Jones has written in an intriguing study titled The Hermeneutics of Sacred Architecture , a building's meanings are "always situational, provisional, and nondefinitive." Jones argues that the "quality of superabundance" of religious constructions, by which he means the ability of these structures to have different practical and symbolic functions for different people, "not only complicates enormously indigenous apprehensions of [these] buildings," but also "deeply threatens and enlivens the prospects for academic interpretations of sacred architecture."¹ Thus, one of the things that attracts us to attempt to interpret religious structures is that, like other works of art, these architectural creations never reveal their complete meanings. There is always something of a sense of mystery about them, primarily because people interact with them in so many different ways. Borrowing from the terminology of the writer and semiotician Umberto Eco, religious buildings are "open works," in so far as they are "susceptible to accommodating several meanings, each validly posited by a different beholder."²

It follows from these observations that any attempt to understand a synagogue, as any other building, must take into account what goes on within it. Nonetheless, the physical reality of a synagogue structure is a good place to start if we want to discover at least some of the meanings of that building and if we want to reflect upon the nature of what transpires within a Jewish house of worship, and especially upon the performative aspects of what goes on within it. Indeed, in considering the physical appearance of a synagogue, it would be difficult to overemphasize the performative elements of worship and the many features that religious services have in common with traditional theatrical presentations. Both commonly involve ritualized and symbolic behavior, for example, as well as the embodied performance of written texts and the use of costumes and props. This means that the spaces in which both worship services and theatrical plays are enacted help very much to "frame" these events, to send messages about what to expect as they unfold. Rabbi Lawrence Hoffman, in The Art of Public Prayer , has put it this way: "Worship is like drama [and] the principles of successful drama are applicable to public prayer as well." More specifically, he adds, "among the many dramatic principles worth mentioning is the need to take framing seriously, [including] framing by means of props and scenery."³

Similarly, the lighting engineer Abe Feder, offering advice on the interior design of synagogues in the midst of the 1950 s synagogue construction boom in America, recognized the similarities between a synagogue and a theater. On the one hand, he observed that "in the house of worship, as in the theater, it is not the gadgetry, or the scenery, costumes or properties, but the actor and the spoken word that must capture the emotions of the audience." On the other hand, however, he understood that the setting was nonetheless crucial. "This is how the synagogue, as the theater, challenges the architect, the builder and the lighting designer," he wrote, "for in the temple we are concerned with a living audience and its most important emotions. A temple should inspire . . . ."⁴

With these thoughts in mind, this essay examines one specific element of a synagogue's interior architecture, its bimah , the rostrum from which services are led and from which public readings of the Torah are conducted, in order to explore how the appearance of this feature of a sanctuary and its orientation within the synagogue hall help to frame the theatrical experience that is a Jewish worship service. With examples drawn from a variety of synagogues in the United States, in cities both large and...