Gabion walls and fences are made with rubble recycled from the original building. Photo: Shama Dardai
April 2008 | On Our Radar
God’s New Green House
Home can mean many different things for many different people. Home is where the heart is. Home is where you hang your hat. Home is even where, well, the house is. For the Jewish Reconstructionist Congregation, home is the new temple at 303 Dodge Avenue in Evanston, Illinois. It is North America’s first synagogue to receive the highest level of “Green Building” certification, known as the Platinum Level LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certificate. This house of worship is paving the way for green sanctuaries across America.
The groundbreaking took place in October of 2006, and 16 months later the congregation of nearly 460 families celebrated the opening of the new temple with a ribbon cutting and traditional Torah procession, in which the sacred Torah Scrolls are moved to a new “home,” both physically and symbolically.
The new temple is impressive. It’s composed of 96 percent recycled material, including reclaimed Cypress on the exterior and Dakota Burl cabinetry, a type of particleboard made of sunflower husks. Debris from the old building was mixed in with the foundation and also used as filler for the walls and fences that line the building.
“It’s hard to believe this is the same place, when you look around, but it is the same home,” said Rabbi Rosen. He added, jokingly, “If you ever get homesick for the old building, you should know that a great deal of that concrete [from the old building] is right underneath us. It’s part of the foundation of this building.”
The building contains many energy-efficient features in addition to the recycled materials. Innovations that reduce electric, water and energy consumption include solar-tube skylights, dual-flush toilets and a displacement ventilation system that passes air from ducts to the floors, heating or cooling the bottom half of the spacious rooms. The new temple consumes nearly half of the energy the old temple used.
According to Rabbi Rosen, building a green synagogue has been a great learning experience and has even caused him to rethink what it means to live simply.
“I think the term ‘simplicity’ is a bit of a misnomer, because there’s nothing simple about it,” says Rabbi Rosen. “It’s very simple to live a life of denial, it’s very simple to live a life where you’re exploiting resources and treating the world as something that’s there to serve you. It’s much more complicated to live in accordance with the world.”
Incorporating those values doesn’t stop with the new temple. The Hebrew School’s curriculum is increasing its environmental education programs, along with additional green policy changes in hopes of encouraging members to be more conscious of how they live in their own homes.
The Jewish Reconstructionist Congregation exemplifies the kind of commitment to a green lifestyle that extends beyond the home of the individual or group. Their commitment is to the home — locally and globally.
— Shama Dardai
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