The Meaning of the Word Synagogue

The Meaning of the Word Synagogue

The word synagogue means a meeting place the synagogue is a Greek word

for meeting or an assembly.

The synagogue can also be called shul, which is a Yiddish word for

school, because the synagogue is also a place to learn as well as meet

and socialise and pray. The synagogue also helps Jews to share their

problems and talk about their issues with their community and discuss

them.

Other names reflect its function too, for example it may also be

called a Beth hatefilla (house of prayer) as it is also a place to go

to worship and stick to the commandments of the torah. It is also

known as Beth ha-hneset (house of assembly) and Beth ha-midrash (house

of study) as Jews go to the synagogue mostly to study the torah.

Jews also go to the synagogue for celebration, for example a lot of

festivals and prayers, such as Yom Kippur.

The first evidence of the synagogue is as far back as the third

century BCE, this was not a synagogue but a temple founded in Egypt in

Palestine. After the destruction of the first temple, Jews were taken

into exile in Babylon, but even the Jews gathered and met in secret

confinements to keep there faith alive.

“Thus said the lord: though I have removed them far away among the

nations and though I have scattered them along the lands, yet I have

been for them a small sanctuary (synagogue) in the lands where they

arrived” Ezekiel 11:16

There was then a temple in Jerusalem but many Jews did not want to

return, so as Jews spreaded out all over the world more and more

synagogues were being build as the command to visit the temple 3 times

a day was impossible so then came the synagogues and they grew more

and more important.

The synagogues became even more prominent due to the destruction of

the second temple in 70CE, by this time most Jewish communities had a

synagogue for all services and also a place to go to celebrate