THE SYNAGOGUE: ORIGINS AND DIFFUSION 235
“They may sell the synagogue only on the condition that the new owners must
returnitondemand;”sosaidR.Meir.Thesagessay,“theymaysellitinperpetuity
(andthenewownersmayuseitforanypurpose)exceptasabathhouse,atannery,
a ritual bath[bet hatevilah], or as a urinal.”R. Judah says, “They may sellit to be
a courtyard, and the purchaser may do with it as he pleases.”The opinion attributed to R. Meir suggests that the synagogue retains some
of its sanctity even after its sale, that the site itself has a kind of inherent
sanctity. This conforms in a rough way with the common conception, trace-
able inscriptions dating fro mthe third centuryB.C.E. to the seventh century
C.E., that the synagogue is a holy place, very much like a temple (see below).
ButasidefromtheisolatedviewofR.Meir,thePalestinianrabbisseemgener-
ally to have embraced such a conception only with serious qualifications.^62
The PalestinianTalmud seemsto accept theview ofR. Judah recordedin the
following Mishnah that a ruined (as opposed to a sold) synagogue retains
some trappings of sanctity. But the Mishnah itself, and the Tosefta following
it,promotetheviewthattherearefewornorestrictionsonwhatthepurchaser
may do with a synagogue. It would, according to “the sages,” be disrespectful
to transfor mthe for mer synagogue into a urinal or tannery. In the Tosefta’s
version of this rule, R. Judah, who believed the purchaser’s rights were un-
restricted, and the sages were inessentialagreement; the sages only forbade
use of the site as a urinal, and so on, as long as it continued to be called
“the synagogue.” In other words, neither the sages nor R. Judah believed the
synagogue, once sold, retained any substantial residual sanctity. Rather, the
sanctityofthesynagoguewasineffecttransferredtothemoneythetownspeo-
ple received fro mthe sale. The synagogue’s sanctity is thus, in the standard
rabbinic view, not inherent in the place but is a formal attribute, conferred
and removed by the actions of the townspeople.
SomeComplicationsWe have already seen that the Mishnah’s legislation is frequently character-
ized by tension, sometimes explicit, sometimes subtle, untheorized, perhaps
even scarcely conscious, between what may have been popular conceptions
(^62) Note also theberaitaquoted at B. Shabbat 32a: “R. Ishmael b. Elazar says, ‘For two sins do
the’ammei ha’aretzdie, because they call the holy ark’arona’, and because they call the syna-
gogue ‘bet ha’am.’ ” The former usage is attested in inscriptions (see Levine, “Sages,” p. 212 n.
61), the latteris not.Aronamay beobjectionable because it isthe name of the arkof the Temple
or perhaps because it is the normal word for coffin (any explanation is rendered difficult by the
fact that R. Ishmael himself calls the synagogue arkaron haqodesh), andbet ha’am, instead of
bet hakeneset, because’amshould refer to the people of Israel as a whole, not the members of a
local community.Notwithstanding R. Ishmael’s usagehere, Tannaitic (but notAmoraic) sources
normally call the synagogue arktevah, that is, box or bookcase; see Levine, “Fro mCo m munity
Center,” 71 n. 182.