It has frequently been observed that synagogue buildings have long fulfilled three related but somewhat different functions, as reflected in the three Hebrew terms used to designate these buildings. The synagogue customarily has been called a beit knesset, a house of assembly; a beit tefilah, a house of prayer; and also a beit midrash, a house of study. 1 However, there is yet another function of a synagogue building at least as significant as the three usually enumerated, for a synagogue is also a mivneh simli, a symbolic structure fraught with meaning. That is, a synagogue building often acts as a concrete representation of the character and condition of the Jewish community it serves. It can and often does reveal not only who the Jews who make use of it are and how they behave, but also what they think and what they believe. As one synagogue architect put it recently, "architecture speaks. It expresses what we value from the past, what our needs are now, and, at its best moments, looks to the future." 2 As much as synagogue buildings provide venues for worship, study, and assembly, they also reflect the circumstances and the mentalité of those who build and use them.The symbolic power of synagogue buildings has long been recognized in Jewish tradition. This is why, as a mark of both its sanctity and its central role in Jewish communal life, the synagogue was to be, at least ideally, the tallest building in a city; tractate Shabbat of the Babylonian Talmud warns that any city in which other roofs are higher than that of the synagogue is destined to be destroyed. A recognition of the symbolic standing of synagogues is also why, from the earliest times, there have been rules governing how one is to behave where these buildings are concerned. The Talmud teaches that a synagogue building must not be used as a pedestrian short-cut, for example, and that even the ruins of synagogues must be treated with respect. The sixteenthcentury Shulchan Aruch decrees that, generally speaking, one should not behave in a frivolous manner in a synagogue, that one should not eat or drink within the sanctuary, nor use it as a refuge from the elements.More specifically, symbolism has also figured in certain matters of synagogue design. Traditionally, synagogues in Europe and the Americas have