Bangor gains third synagogue > Congregation Beth El moving to new home this weekend

A container tiny enough to fit in the palm of a hand and bearing a roll of Scripture will soon be affixed to a red-brick building that this weekend becomes Bangor’s youngest synagogue.

Called a mezuza, the case is traditionally placed in doorways to denote Jewish space. And when it marks the home of Congregation Beth El, it will be on ground that in decades past has been holy to other religious traditions in Bangor: Catholic, Congregationalist, Christian Scientist and Baptist churches have met on or near the site during the city’s 160-year history.

The building, being vacated by Messiah Baptist Church and sold to Congregation Beth El for $350,000, is the first structure that the synagogue has owned since its founding 14 years ago.

For much of the past decade, members of the synagogue had rented quarters from the Unitarian Church, on Union Street in Bangor, which recently merged with the First Universalist Church, located on Park Street in Bangor.

Buying the Unitarian building wasn’t feasible, so Congregation Beth El went looking for a new home. After waging a four-month fund-raising campaign last fall and closing the deal this winter, the congregation planned to move this weekend, with a Purim service scheduled Monday at the newly acquired building.

A formal dedication will occur in April.

“Having our own building is an indication that Congregation Beth El has established itself as an important and equal player in the Jewish community, in fact, in the whole religious community of Bangor,” said Rabbi Laurence E. Milder.

There’s more. The packed boxes and stacked furniture mark a real estate transfer, to be sure, but Milder can point to something intangible at work in the move of a group of faithful people to a new place.

“The moment when the Jewish people really came together as a nation united with a common purpose, according to the Bible, is when we stood at Mount Sinai and experienced revelation,” Milder explained.

“Whatever that experience was, our ancestors experienced God’s presence and God’s voice,” he said. “And they sensed that they stood on holy ground.” In the resulting journey to the Promised Land, a predicament emerged: “How do you leave the place where God is without leaving God?” Milder asked rhetorically.

The response was the creation of the tabernacle, a “sacred space” or place of worship that could go with the faithful and, when they gathered, be used in recreating the Sinai experience. From that concept, among others, developed the synagogue.

“So every synagogue is like a portable Sinai,” Milder said; any gathering of Jews for prayer can create that “sacred space.”

“On the other hand,” continued Milder, “it is a blessing to have a home that we can call our own and [use] to create the kind of worship space that reflects our own sense of dialogue with God.

“That requires the ability to actually manipulate the design, the aesthetics of the space that you worship in,” he said.

Bangor has two other synagogues, from the Orthodox and Conservative traditions of Judaism, on York Street. Congregation Beth El, representing the Reform tradition of Judaism, began in the early 1980s with about 20 households.

The members held services, in homes at first, then at the Unitarian church. Milder is the third permanent rabbi hired by the congregation.

While the synagogue has been meeting at the Union Street church for services, its young people have been attending religous school in a building that serves as an annex to John Bapst High School in Bangor. Today, Milder said, the synagogue has 65 children attending classes, mostly on Tuesdays.

Those classes will continue at the John Bapst annex until dismissed for summer; next fall, they will meet in the French Street building.

Pulling many of the synagogue’s activities under one roof appeals to Milder, who has been working out of offices in a converted house on Grove Street. His office will be in the new building as well.

The logistical improvements, however convenient, don’t excite Milder as much as the symbolism of the move, to a site already marked as a religous landmark in Bangor.

“The history will always be there,” he said. “But it will be transformed into what we consider Jewish sacred space.”

The congregation will hold its Purim service at 6:30 p.m. Monday, March 4, at its new sanctuary at 183 French St., Bangor. The service, which celebrates the deliverance of the Jews by Esther from a massacre, will include music, and participants are invited to wear costumes. Refreshments will follow. For more information, call 945-4578.