Mt. Sinai and Us - Rosh HaShanah Eve
Rosh HaShanah Eve 5786, Rabbi Samuel M. Cohon, Congregation Beit Simcha
Mt. Sinai, where according to the Torah our people received the Ten Commandments over 3200 years ago, is a unique place. When I traveled around the world ten years ago visiting all the holiest places on earth, it was an important goal of mine to hike up that remote peak and experience it on the Sabbath when we chant the Ten Commandments in synagogue, Shabbat Yitro, and see what that extraordinary experience would be like.
The way it worked back then, you took a tour bus that was supposed to drop you off at the foot of the mountain around midnight, you hiked up for a few hours, and then you awaited dawn on that dramatic peak, recreating in a way the events in the Book of Exodus that we will sing about during the shofar service, when God appeared at dawn and pronounced the great Ten Statements to the assembled Israelites.
Now, nobody really knows if Jebel Musa, “Moses’ Mountain,” is the actual site of Mt. Sinai, or if the revelation at Mt. Sinai really happened the way the Torah describes it, but there is a monastery at the base that has been holding the fort there for close to 1,500 years, and we Jews have built an entire ethical and ritual history on the events that are supposed to have taken place at Sinai over 3200 years ago. And the place we traveled to that memorable night a decade ago is as close to an agreed-upon spot as any.
Now for many, many years—actually for many, many centuries, even for several millennia—Mt. Sinai has been one of the most remote of all sacred sites in the entire world, located in the midst of a barren and forbidding desert wilderness, its base area accessible only by a rough road through a desolate landscape. At that time virtually the only facilities in the entire region were located in the ancient monastery, St. Catherine’s, that sits at the beginning of the steep hike up to the mountaintop. The monastery, still used by Greek Orthodox monks, was designated officially as a holy place in the 4th century by the Roman Emperor Constantine I’s mother, was built like a fortress, and has been protected from incursions for more than 1500 years by the warlike local Jebeleya Bedouin, known in Arabic as “The Guardians of St. Catherine’s.” It is the oldest continually occupied Christian monastery in the world.
When I went there, in 2015, just getting to Mt. Sinai was an ordeal in and of itself. Mt. Sinai has been under Egyptian control since Israel returned the entire Sinai Desert to Egypt following the Camp David Accords, eventually turning it all over in 1982. The way you traveled to Mt. Sinai when I went was complicated. First, you flew into Sharm El Sheikh, a diving and beach resort at the southwestern tip of the Sinai Peninsula. Then you boarded a small tourist bus that bounced along the uneven Sinai roads, in convoy with other buses and Egyptian military vehicles providing protection from terrorist attacks. It is about 220 km, roughly 135 miles, from Sharm el Sheikh to Jebel Musa, the Arabic name for Mt. Sinai, literally, “Moses Mountain.” Going very slowly on the rough roads, and with very frequent stops for security checks and driver breaks, it took us 7 mortal hours to drive there.
The hike up the mountain—in the dark, on a rough, rocky path, shared with jostling camels—was memorably difficult, climbing 3,000 feet in altitude, the last of which was on 3,750 uneven stone and rock stairs. There were many adventures that night—nowhere near enough drinking water was provided or available, for example—but eventually we reached the top of the climb, called Siket Sayidna Musa, the stairs of penitence, which sounds like something out of an Indiana Jones movie. In fact, it felt like something out an Indiana Jones movie. We caught our breath atop the mountain, rested briefly and prepared for the powerful, weird, amazing experience of dawn at the top of what might be Mt. Sinai. When dawn broke, dramatic and gorgeous in the desert light, gently coloring the stark peaks that surrounded us with pastel shades, I quietly chanted the Ten Commandments, the Aseret HaDibrot, from the text on my cellphone, amidst people chanting Koran verses and Christian hymns. It was surreal, incredibly beautiful, powerful.
The hike down from Mt. Sinai, in daylight, was less mysterious or dangerous, and we rested for a bit in St. Catherine’s monastery. The monastery, in addition to boasting a very ancient icon of Jesus, also has what is claimed to be the original Burning Bush, whose roots go under the church building itself. I cannot vouch for this being the original sneh bo’eir ba’eish, the bush enflamed with fire in Exodus, but I can tell you that at least when I was there that bush was not yet consumed. A great memory of a place the seemed destined never to change.
And then last week a headline caught my eye: One of the world's most sacred places is being turned into a luxury mega-resort it shouted, with a photo of St. Catherine’s Monastery at Mt. Sinai. I clicked on it, and sure enough, the site in question was indeed Jebel Musa, Mt. Sinai in the southern part of the Sinai Peninsula. Apparently, the Egyptian government is currently constructing an entire complex of hotels, shops, a visitors’ center, parking lots, and infrastructure to accommodate a large influx of tourists they hope to bring to Mt. Sinai. After contentious negotiations with the resident monks and the Greek government—the Greeks see the Egyptian government as, essentially, stealing their land and monastery, but the Egyptian courts disagree—the government of Egypt is permitting the 1500-year-old monastery and its monks to stay, at least for now. But the published photos of the still incomplete construction lead one to believe that Jebel Musa will soon be a very different place, with extensive development dropped onto the barren wastes that surround this mystical place. The Egyptians are even building a cable car to whisk guests up to the top of Mt. Sinai… a cable car. No more brutal hikes up a rocky path in the dark on an uneven staircase to reach the summit. Just pay for a ticket in the air-conditioned cable car and up you go, whisked effortlessly up to stand where Moses once stood....
You see, even in the realm of religion, of sacred places and holy heights, things can change, and can do so dramatically.
If you have ever traveled abroad and gone to visit older Jewish religious sites, you may be able to guess what I’m about to say. Often, the magnificent ancient or medieval synagogue you are trying to see has been repurposed into a museum, or, quite often, a church or a mosque. In Spain, this happened wholesale after the Expulsion of the Jews in 1492; hundreds of temples were turned into churches, and I’ve personally seen elaborate churches that used to be Sephardic synagogues in Toledo and Cordoba and Seville. When I was in Lisbon, Portugal a couple of years ago, the wall of one of the many Catholic churches there contained what was clearly the remains of a synagogue wall, including a carved menorah and Hebrew inscriptions. Similarly, when Muslims have conquered an area with substantial Jewish population, if the Jews left, the synagogues not infrequently were converted into mosques. Repurposing formerly Jewish spaces into sacred sites of other religions has been a common occurrence throughout history.
My favorite example comes from eastern Turkey, a town called Sanliurfa, near the Syrian border. It is quite close to the ancient city of Haran, where in the Book of Genesis Abram was called by God to go to the Promised Land. In Sanliurfa there is a holy place called “Abraham’s cave” that is supposed to be where our ancestor was weaned, or at least that’s how local tradition has it. Next to this cave is a medium-sized mosque, Dergah Camii, and on the outside wall of this mosque is a plaque. It reads, in English and Arabic, “This building was once a pagan temple. It then became a Jewish synagogue. Then it was turned into a Christian church. Now, it is a mosque.”
It happens frequently; you could even say that it’s a common thing, this turning of a former temple into a church, in particular taking a Jewish sacred building and changing it into a Catholic building.
Well, I am here to tell you that apparently it can also work the other way.
Now most of you know that Congregation Beit Simcha is in escrow right now on a permanent home for our congregation. After being wandering Jews for seven years in the desert—the Sonoran Desert, not the Sinai Desert, but still—we have finally found our Promised Land. After 7 years—a Biblical-sounding length of time, right?—now at last we will be home. And to do so, we are purchasing an amazing building that has been a sacred place for Christians.
To amplify this, for the past 60 years this impressive building has been a Catholic High School, including a chapel and auditorium, and now it will all become Congregation Beit Simcha. Frankly, there is something special about this. Instead of a synagogue fading away, its Jews dispersed to other places, a community declining or even disappearing, we are going the opposite way—the good way. We at Beit Simcha are affirming the vitality of our growing congregation and creating a true center of Jewish life in Oro Valley and the western foothills for generations to come.
It's an incredibly exciting time, a time of remarkable opportunity for us and for the entire Jewish community of Tucson. It is our plan to continue to develop this seven-acre site, on Magee Road just east of Oracle, with beautiful views in every direction, into a dynamic, vital place of active Judaism for everyone.
And it will happen soon. We anticipate being in the building by the end of 2025. We have been treated with great love by our hosts here at Church of the Apostles, and we will be grateful to them forever. They have been, and remain, good friends to us and our entire congregation.
But it is time we had our own home.
In our new, repurposed building, we are creating within the existing structure a beautiful sanctuary and social hall on the first floor that will bring together our congregation, friends and guests in an embracing, elegant environment filled with Jewish meaning and joy. There will be appropriate entry areas that include a garden celebrating Israel, and art that captures the spirit of Jewish life. Our renewed sanctuary will be the place we celebrate the High Holy Days of 5787 together, just 12 short Hebrew Calendar months from now. There is a commercial kitchen next to the social hall that we will utilize fully to produce the delicious meals we are already known for, and perhaps someday host a kosher restaurant; Tucson certainly needs one!
The 2nd floor is where our administrative and clergy offices will be, and where we are planning a Judaic gift shop, café, a chapel and choir and music room, meeting rooms, and of course permanent classrooms for our Religious School and Adult Education Academy. There is a perfect location behind the sanctuary building which will serve as an outdoor chapel and assembly space where we can hold services in the cooler months, with an incredible view that reaches to Picacho Peak, with the Catalina Mountains as a dramatic backdrop.
We are working actively with partners in the Jewish community to share space on the extensive 2nd floor, and we are looking forward to bringing at least two important Jewish community programs into our new Beit Simcha building. While we are finishing our sanctuary redesign, we plan on using the magnificent library on the third floor for services and classes—it has great city views, too—and beginning next fall we anticipate leasing that third floor to enrichment or charter school programs, providing a revenue stream while we continue to grow our congregation.
Speaking of growth, there is plenty of room to plant a Biblical garden—or gardens—and a 3,000 square foot outer building that will become a preschool in the future.
This will be our permanent home, a place where we can celebrate Judaism, pray, learn, teach, sing, dance, make friends, discuss, argue, laugh, celebrate, mourn, eat—always eat—and engage in meaningful projects to better our community. It is where we can grow and flourish and creatively explore the best way to be Jewish and share Judaism in dynamic and exciting ways. It will be a place to seek God and truth, to create holiness and beauty, to truly build on the warm community of our Beit Simcha synagogue and to welcome many new friends. It will be the place to celebrate Hanukkah, to enjoy Purim, to have a fabulous Seder, a place to truly belong.
Like our ancestors we have wandered through, and succeeded, in a series of temporary homes over our seven years. We have surmounted many obstacles, overcome many vicissitudes—from COVID to October 7th, from urgent relocations to urgent schlepping—and we have survived many unsuccessful efforts to acquire a permanent Beit Simcha home. It is, in Jewish terms, a true mechayeh to know we have this incredible opportunity to flourish in a real home for Beit Simcha. It is a great blessing of this exciting new year.
Now, I am not promising that our new home will be as important as Mt. Sinai, with or without the resort development going on now.
But my friends, one of the enduring lessons of climbing Mt. Sinai, and experiencing the awe and strangeness of that holy place, was realizing that, in truth, we can stand at Sinai whenever we pray in a congregation with sincerity. We stand at Sinai when a child matures into an adult at Bat and Bar Mitzvah. We stand at Sinai when we celebrate a milestone birthday, when we bless a wedding couple or a new baby, when we mourn a beloved relative and friend together. We stand at Sinai when we help people find healing and community. We stand at Sinai when we feed, clothe and care for the needy.
And in our new Beit Simcha home I promise, in these ways and more, we will indeed stand at Sinai.
Your help is essential to making this home a triumphant success. We want everyone to be able to contribute to our Capital Campaign, at whatever level they can, because we want everyone to know this is their spiritual home—their local version of Mt. Sinai.
Your support matters greatly to Beit Simcha—and your ongoing involvement will make this a truly great new year of 5786, for our congregation and community.
L’shana Tova Tikateivu v’Teichateimu: may you be written and sealed in the Book of Life for a good, healthy year of blessing.