Rabbi Says Synagogues As They Are Presently Structured Are Spiritually Insolvent

A prominent Long Island rabbi who has served the pulpit for 40 years delivered a devastating attack today on the institution of the synagogue as it is presently constituted in the United States. Rabbi Max J. Routtenberg, of Temple B’nai Shalom, of Rockville Center, charged the American synagogue with “spiritual insolvency.” He called for the elimination of the “giant synagogue,” of the synagogue that “combines the shul and the pool” and “the synagogue which functions almost exclusively as a business enterprise.” Rabbi Routtenberg addressed a symposium on the topic of “The American Synagogue–Has It A Future?” sponsored by “Judaism,” the quarterly magazine of religious scholarship published by the American Jewish Congress. The symposium was attended by 200 rabbis and scholars. Rabbi Routtenberg called on the American Jewish community to “emancipate itself” from the synagogue “as it is presently constituted.” He proposed the development of small synagogues with memberships of 150-200 families able to “concentrate on genuine functions of a synagogue–prayer, study, religious experience, youth and adult education, the family and its spiritual concerns and the celebration of events on the yearly Jewish calendar.” He said he saw “vitality and hope” in the small Orthodox synagogues in the inner cities, mentioning the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, and in the new religious communes and “havurot.” He declared, “The synagogue as a business enterprise must go for it is corrupting and paralyzing the functions of a synagogue.” Rabbi Routtenberg also claimed that vesting organizational and administrative powers in boards of directors which never have central religious matters on their agenda must stop.