Selling a Synagogue

• As we enter the period of the 3 weeks, we will address the issue of Churban and some of the halakhic ways in which it affects us today.
• Before looking in more details at the halachic framework of ‘zecher leMikdash’ and ‘zecher lechurban’, we will spend one session looking at the question of ‘churban’ in microcosm - in the synagogue, or ‘Mikdash Me’at’.
• In the two thousand years of Diaspora, many Jewish communities have dwindled and disappeared, often leaving behind large and beautiful synagogues with no one left to pray in them.
• In this shiur we will look at some of the halachic issues involved in selling or demolishing a shul. When is it permitted? Who gets to decide? To whom do the proceeds of sale belong? What can they be spent on?

Delivered 21 Tammuz 5782 / July 20, 2022