Living Our Values: Sanctuary Redesign at BEKI

Project Overview

Rabbi Eric Woodward asks:

What would it look like if our spiritual space were designed to express our values? At BEKI, there is no front or back, but rather bonds of equality and love. At BEKI, we value all the voices in our diverse congregation. What would it be like to pray in a space that reflected our religious priorities?

A sanctuary redesign means rethinking how we use BEKI’s sanctuary.

The room was designed in the late 1950s for a formal, hierarchical style of worship. The rabbi and cantor led services on a high stage, like performers, with congregants seated like a passive audience.

A redesign means creating a sanctuary that reflects our 21st-century values of warmth and inclusiveness, egalitarianism and engagement. It means enhancing our volunteer-led services, in which we are all participants, not audience members. It means a design that expresses our BEKI values and helps us live those values more fully.

The overarching goals involve making our sanctuary:

• accessible for everyone;
• more intimate and participatory in scale and layout;
• inviting to everyone;
• physically comfortable (which includes heating, cooling, ventilation, and seating);
• more environmentally sustainable.

For more about the thinking behind the redesign, please see the messages from President Yaron Lew and Rabbi Eric Woodward.

What’s the Latest?

05/08/2022    Added: Conceptual Design Sketches: Questions and Answers
04/19/2022    Congregational review of draft design
03/28/2022    Preliminary sketches (password required)

Redesign Committee
email: sanctuaryredesign@beki.org

Carole Bass, co-chair
John Weiser, co-chair
Lynn Brotman
Eric Dunsker, Board liaison & House Committee chair
Howard Gralla
Marga Hirsch
Rick Saltz

Research other congregations that have undertaken similar projects.

Present information and ideas to the BEKI community, and gather feedback.

Provide consistent updates.

Synthesize community feedback into sanctuary design.

Present conceptual designs and collect feedback.

Produce a design that has the support of the congregation and Board of Directors and is ready to implement.