Beth El Congregation of Baltimore is getting a big change to its sanctuary.
After 61 years of use, the Conservative synagogue is retiring its shulchan — its reading table — and will be replacing it with an all-new one that is custom made to suit the synagogue’s needs. A dedication ceremony for the new shulchan is scheduled for Saturday, April 20, during the congregation’s regular Shabbat morning service.
For those who may not be familiar with the term, a shulchan is where the Torah is read from. Some synagogues have two, one for their rabbi and one for their cantor, but Beth El has only ever had one. According to chabad.org, most shulchanot in synagogues today are modeled off of the original golden shulchan housed in the Holy Temple in Jerusalem. The Zohar states that this original shulchan brought the blessing of sustenance to the world.
Shulchanot at synagogues have little to do with sustenance, but are still an important part of the sanctuary.
“After the destruction of the Temple, all synagogues try to keep some connection with the ritual items that were in the Mishkan,” said Ben Kreshtool, Beth El’s ritual director. “We based our design off of that and grew from there. We wanted to use wood that was in line with what was already in our sanctuary, while maintaining a link to our past, but also create something that’s modern, new and fresh, and that will last for a long time.”
Beth El has used the same shulchan since its founding. But as the congregation has grown over the years, a need arose to enhance its ritual space so it could fit more people. The current shulchan is fairly small, making it an arduous task for multiple people to read the Torah at once. It also sits on a tilt, which can make reading difficult.
About a year ago, the synagogue’s leadership began the search for a craftsman to build the new shulchan. They landed on Mark Plakotoris, the son of a Beth El congregant and a furniture designer. Plakotoris is the owner of Designed With Purpose Furniture and Lighting, which creates custom woodworked furniture.
“This is actually the first ritual piece for a synagogue he’s ever built,” said Amanda Beitman, Beth El’s director of development. “We looked at his work and saw the quality. Ben and the Rabbi [Steven Schwartz] helped educate Mark, and he really wanted to learn about the process and what was important about the shulchan. He was the perfect fit for us.”
The new shulchan has yet to be unveiled and properly installed, but Beitman described it as “The Mary Poppins of shulchan,” likening it to the popular character’s ever-expanding bag.
“It’s not just a piece of furniture, it truly is a ritual piece,” she said. “We added everything you can imagine possible, and it can do anything and everything. It’s a main piece and focal point in our sanctuary, it’s always there, and we needed it to be something extremely special.”
The new shulchan’s design contains a lot of callbacks to the synagogue’s long history. Its doors are repurposed from the original shulchan, so the new one will still carry part of the original with it. The door handles are also taken from the building and are designed in the image of the four crowns: the crowns of priesthood, the messiah, glory and a good name. These four crowns used to make up the original Beth El Congregation logo.
“We wanted to create something that was really a blend of our past and present,” Kreshtool explained. “We acknowledge our past because it helped us grow to where we are now. We wanted to give a nod to all our past leadership and clergy for all their hard work that got us to where we are today.”
The shulchan was gifted to Beth El by Sheila and Donald Leiss in memory of Sheila Leiss’ parents, Vera and Sam Singer. Both of the Singers were deeply involved with Beth El, so the shulchan’s dedication being in their honor is fitting.
“Anyone from that generation who was a member of Beth El would have known their names,” Beitman said. “It’s an honor for us to have it dedicated in their memory. These are people who were proud to be part of our congregation, and we were proud to have them as our members.”
