Yeshivah Shul

I noticed on Chabad.info that the downstairs shul of 770 now has a new "Luach Zmanim". The interesting thing to me is that Yeshivah Shul has just had exactly the same "luach" installed in the foyer of the shul. The new eyesore attracted a lot of attention on Friday night - not too much of it positive. This is just one more addition to the shul which does little to enhance it and much more to highlight the run-down state of the rest of the place.

Let's face it. Yeshivah Shul is, and has been, run down for many, many years. Any changes are either over the top - as in the chandelier - or incompletely and cheaply done as in the renovations to the foyer. I understood that the building was going to get a major overhaul but so far nothing has been done except to send architects on junkets overseas.

The Yeshivah Shul is open 18 hours a day and gets huge amounts of traffic from the many minyonim, the kollel as well as the school students. Repairs and enhancements cannot be superficial but must be fitting to the kovod of a shul and built in a way that can cope with the numbers of people passing through the building. Just because someone wants to donate a "gadget", as in the new luach, doesn't mean that it should automatically be accepted.

I, and most other people who daven in the many minyonim on the Yeshivah premises, want to be proud of our shul. This will only come about with a well thought out plan to either completely rebuild the building or renovate it to a standard befitting what a shul should be.
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