A Moral Dilemma to Ask Your Family at the Shabbos Table: “Stopping the Apartment Shul”
By Rabbi Yitzi Weiner
This week’s Torah portion discuss the Tochacha, the Admonition. The Torah mentions “I will destroy the pride of your power (Vayikra 26, 19) ”. Rashi writes that this refers to the eventual destruction of the Beis Hamikdash, the Holy Temple. Nowadays because of the destruction of the Beis Hamikdash, the closest approximation we have is our Mikdash Me’at, our miniature temples, our synagogues.
The following moral dilemma deals with the question of whether it is permitted to build a synagogue, or whether it is permitted to dismantle it.
There was a luxury apartment building in Israel that had around 20 condominium apartments. One of the condominiums was not being sold. Several of the tenants decided to purchase the apartment and turned the empty condominium into a shul. They got permission from the municipality to do this. It quickly became a popular shul and many people from the building as well as the general community attended.
Shorty after the establishment of this apartment shul, many of the Jewish neighbors began to complain. They told the owners of the shul that as a result of the new shul they had difficulty finding parking for their own building. In addition, now, many strange people would come in and out of the apartment building. And finally, they were told by a realtor that their property values were going to decrease as a result of the adjacent synagogue. The neighbors felt that the damage of the shul outweighed its benefits.
The owners of the shul felt very torn. Their shul provided a definite benefit to the building, but they did not want to be the cause of any damage to the neighbors. They certainly did not want to cause their neighbor’s property values to go down. They wondered if they were allowed to keep their shul even at the expense of their neighbors? Did they have to disband the shul?
According to Jewish law, what should they do?
Answer to last week’s moral dilemma
Rabbi Yitzchak Zilberstein explains that they do not need another Kidushin. Even if the ring did not belong to the husband, it belongs to the seller who owes him the money. Because the seller owes him money, this ring can be considered a collateral taken for a loan and that can be used to be mekadesh (betroth) a wife. It was therefore a good kiddushin, See Veharev Na Volume Two Hebrew Edition page 213
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