Prayers Rose, a Ceiling Fell, and a Rabbi's Hope Endures

ON Sunday afternoon, in an old Lower East Side synagogue whose threshold is inscribed with the Hebrew words for Gates of Heaven, the ceiling of heaven fell. After receiving the prayers and songs of generations, the thankful whispers and atoning mutters, the ceiling just collapsed, as if from exhaustion.

Rabbi Shmuel Spiegel was driving in Williamsburg when his cellphone rang with news: the roof had just caved in at his synagogue, the First Roumanian-American Congregation on Rivington Street. The punch of emotions he felt was so strong that he rocked in his seat; if brick can be like flesh, the synagogue was like family, it elicited emotions ranging from Thank God we took precautions and going for the prayers to another place, to Oh my God, what now? "I grew up here," Rabbi Spiegel said.

City workers retrieved the Torah scrolls from the debris on Monday, the rabbi said, and for this he was grateful. Also, no matter what happens to the building, whether it is salvaged or torn down, a synagogue will continue to exist at this spot on Rivington Street, "It has to be," said the rabbi.