page_title: Synagogue
section_title: Eternal Light
hierarchical_section_title: Synagogue / Interior elements / Eternal Light
caption_attribution_description: English: Abudarham Synagogue, Parliament Lane, Gibraltar
context_page_description: A synagogue is a Jewish or Samaritan house of worship. Synagogues have a large place for prayer and may also have smaller rooms for study and sometimes a social hall and offices. Some have a separate room for Torah study, called the בית מדרש‎ beth midrash, lit. "house of study".
  Synagogues are consecrated spaces used for the purpose of prayer, reading of the Tanakh, study and assembly; however, a synagogue is not necessary for worship. Halakha holds that communal Jewish worship can be carried out wherever ten Jews assemble. Worship can also be carried out alone or with fewer than ten people assembled. However, halakha considers certain prayers as communal prayers and therefore they may be recited only by a minyan. In terms of its specific ritual and liturgical functions, the synagogue does not replace the long-since destroyed Temple in Jerusalem.
  In the New Testament, the word appears 56 times, mostly in the Synoptic Gospels, but also in the Gospel of John and the Book of Revelation. It is used in the sense of 'assembly' in the Epistle of James.
context_section_description: Other traditional features include a continually lit lamp or lantern, usually electric in contemporary synagogues, called the ner tamid (נר תמיד‎), the "Eternal Light", used as a way to honor the Divine Presence.
caption: Ner tamid of the Abudarham Synagogue in Gibraltar
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