Sunk Cost: Should One Spend Extravagantly To Beautify a Shul?

Adapted from the writings of Dayan Yitzhak Grossman

July 31, 2025

Matzav.com reports:

A monumental milestone has been reached with the completion of the largest Aron Kodesh ever constructed, now standing in grandeur at the Yeshiva Ateret Shlomo campus in Rishon LeTzion.

This extraordinary endeavor, fully crafted by hand, is being hailed as an unprecedented feat.

The awe-inspiring Aron Kodesh, which took over three years to complete, spans 120 square meters, extending 20 meters in length and rising to a height of 6.5 meters. It is fashioned from more than two tons of pure silver, with sections adorned in magnificent 24-karat gold…

Gracing the inner Aron Kodesh is a regal parochess, woven from deep purple threads interlaced with strands of gold and encrusted with precious stones. This intricate masterpiece was painstakingly produced by premier textile artists in the region of Kashmir, completed over the span of several months…

Encircling the entire Aron Kodesh is a majestic copper fence, weighing a full four tons. This was cast in a renowned foundry in Stuttgart, Germany.

The construction process brought together 350 artists and craftsmen from 12 countries across three continents. Components were shipped by sea and air in a complex logistical operation that overcame extraordinary challenges—including regional instability and threats posed by hostile forces—to arrive safely at the yeshiva.

This extraordinary endeavor was made possible through the generous support of an American ba’al tzedakah, a devoted chasid of Bobov who dedicated the project le’ilui nishmas Rav Shlomo Halberstam zt”l of Bobov…[1]

Yeshiva World News reports:

A video of Rabbi Eli Stefansky addressing public questions about the $8 million Aron Kodesh built for Ateres Shlomo—under the leadership of Harav Sholom Ber Sorotzkin shlita—is rapidly going viral. In it, Rabbi Stefansky lays out the financial and spiritual rationale, and how the investment spurred unprecedented donations in support of Torah.[2]

There is nothing new beneath the sun; the basic question of the propriety of extravagant expenditure on shuls is already discussed in the Yerushalmi:

R’ Chama bar Chaninah and R’ Hoshaiah were strolling among the shuls of Lod. R’ Chama bar Chaninah said to R’ Hoshaiah, “How much money my fathers sank into the shuls here!” He said to him, “How many lives your fathers sank into the shuls here! Were there no people toiling in Torah (that they could have supported with that money instead)?”

R’ Avun donated money to make gates for the Great Academy. R’ Mana came to him. He (R’ Avun) said to him, “Do you see what I did?” He said to him: “‘And the Jewish People forgot their Maker and they built sanctuaries (Hosheiah 8:14).’ Were there no people toiling in Torah?”[3]

Poskim apparently assume that the normative view is that of R’ Chama bar Chaninah and R’ Mana, that supporting talmidei chachamim is a higher priority than funding shuls. The Yefei Mareh (R’ Shmuel Yaffe Ashkenazi) understands that this is limited to nonessential ornamentation of a shul, which, though a mitzvah, is of lower precedence than supporting Torah study. But necessary expenditures for the building itself certainly take precedence.[4] The Chikrei Leiv disagrees and argues that the comments of the Rishonim on this Yerushalmi, cited below, indicate that they understood it to mean that supporting Torah study takes precedence over even basic shul needs.[5] The Aruch Hashulchan, however, adopts a position similar to that of the Yefei Mareh, that the Yerushalmi is referring to donations for nonessential aspects of shuls, like ornamentation and additional illumination.[6]

The Tashbeitz (Katan; R’ Shimshon ben Tzadok, a leading talmid of the Maharam of Rutenburg) reports that R’ Shmuel of Banberg (whom the Maharam calls “my teacher and relative”) derives from a version of this passage that “It is better to give tzedakah for youths to study Torah than to give tzedakah to a shul.”[7]

R’ Shimshon’s text of the Yerushalmi differs from ours in a number of ways. Most significantly, where ours reads, “Were there no people toiling in Torah?,” his says, “Was there no person to learn Torah or sick people lying in the garbage (o cholim mutalim ba’ashpah)?” According to this version, it follows that not only students of Torah, but also sick people lying in the garbage, take precedence over a shul for charitable donations. Indeed, the Maharik cites R’ Shimshon as reporting that R’ Shmuel ruled that it is better to give tzedakah to enable youths to study Torah, or to sick poor people, than to give to a shul. The Maharik adds, though, that from the fact that both the Yerushalmi and R’ Shmuel (according to his text) mention sick people, it follows that giving to a shul comes before giving to poor people who are not sick.[8] The Shulchan Aruch accordingly states:

There is an opinion that the mitzvah to support a shul takes precedence over the mitzvah of tzedakah (i.e., to poor people in general, not sick ones), and the mitzvah of tzedakah to allow youths to study Torah or to poor sick people takes precedence over the mitzvah of supporting a shul.”[9]

The Maharam of Rutenburg himself says he asked his teacher whether shul illumination or support for the sick is a higher tzedakah priority, and he responded by proving from the Yerushalmi that the latter takes precedence.[10] (Their text of the Yerushalmi may also have mentioned sick people, although the actual citation of the Yerushalmi in the Maharam’s teshuvah does not mention them.)[11]

Like the Maharik, R’ Shimon Duran (author of Shu”t Tashbeitz, not to be confused with the Sefer Tashbeitz cited above) infers from the Yerushalmi that tzedakah to needy human beings is ahead of donation to shuls. But unlike the Maharik, he apparently assumes that this applies to poor people in general, even if they are well, despite the fact that he too had the phrase “sick people lying in the garbage” in his text of the Yerushalmi.[12] This is also the explicit position of the Chikrei Leiv; he rejects the Maharik’s understanding of the Yerushalmi that only tzedakah to students of Torah and sick aniyim, and not to poor people generally, comes before donations to shuls. He explains that although even tzedakah in general takes precedence over donations to shuls, the anger at, and criticism of, those who give preference to the latter was specific to those who did so at the expense of students of Torah and sick poor people.[13]

Rav Duran concludes by citing a Midrash criticizing Dovid Hamelech for having hoarded money for the eventual construction of the Bais Hamikdash when it should have been used to save the lives of the poor during a famine. In Sefer Melachim it says: “When all the work that Shlomo Hamelech had done for the House of Hashem was completed, Shlomo brought that which his father Dovid had sanctified—the silver, the gold, and the articles—and placed them in the treasuries of the House of Hashem.”[14] The Midrash offers two explanations for why Shlomo did not use the materials Dovid had sanctified in the actual construction of the Bais Hamikdash:

And why did he not require them?…Some expound in a negative way (yesh dorshin lignai)…it was due to the famine that occurred in the time of Dovid for three years,[15] and Dovid had many tasbiros (?) piled with silver and gold, which he had designated for the Bais Hamikdash. He should have brought them out and saved lives with them, and he did not do so. Hakadosh Baruch Hu said to him: “My children are dying of hunger, and you are gathering money to build a building with it?! By your life, Shlomo will not require any of it.”[16]

The Midrash repeatedly indicates that the people to whom Dovid Hamelech should have given the money were actually dying, so it does not necessarily follow that tzedakah to the poor in general has priority over donations to the Bais Hamikdash and shuls; presumably Rav Duran is just citing another example of the idea that the needs of human beings come before honoring Hashem through buildings. The Aruch Hashulchan, on the other hand, though he does not mention this Midrash, nevertheless maintains that the Maharik and Shulchan Aruch, who rule that donating to shuls takes precedence over tzedakah to healthy aniyim, are not referring to feeding the starving—which would indeed come before donating to nonessential parts of shuls—but to providing the non-starving poor with additional support. It is such tzedakah to the poor that is of lower priority than donating toward even nonessential shul needs.[17]

The Sheivet Halevi has a detailed and nuanced discussion of our topic; the details are beyond the scope of this article, but we will note his exhortation that

Chalilah to disperse the money on superfluous things—even if this may perhaps be included in “‘This is my G-d and I will glorify Him (anveihu)’…beautify yourself before Him in mitzvos”[18]—where there are actual poor people…[19]

The Chayei Adam scathingly denounces those who spend lavishly on writing sifrei Torah and celebrating their donation to shuls but do not support students of Torah; although he does not mention the Yerushalmi, his position is quite similar to the principle expressed there:

And it seems to me that the support of those who study Torah takes precedence over the writing of a sefer Torah, and not like the masses who think that writing a sefer Torah is a mitzvah with nothing higher, and by this alone do they acquire the World to Come, and they do not give at all toward the support of students of Torah, and they walk in darkness.[20] And a fortiori that they disperse money, at the time of the giving of the sefer Torah to the shul, on meals and many lights and great expenditures. If they would listen to the words of the Chachamim, it is certainly better to disperse money to poor people who study.[21]

[1]Completion of the World’s Largest Aron Kodesh at Yeshiva Ateret Shlomo. Matzav.com. https://matzav.com/completion-of-the-worlds-largest-aron-kodesh-at-yeshiva-ateret-shlomo/.

[2]Watch: Rabbi Eli Stefansky Responds to Critics of Ateres Shlomo’s $8M Aron Kodesh. YWN. https://www.theyeshivaworld.com/news/general/2424471/watch-rabbi-eli-stefansky-responds-to-critics-of-ateres-shlomos-8m-aron-kodesh.html.

[3]Yerushalmi Shkalim 5:4 (15b/23b) and Peiah 8:8 (37b).

[4]Yefei Mareh Peiah ibid. os 11.

[5]Chikrei Leiv Y.D. cheilek 3 siman 114 s.v. Umitoch mah sheheiveisi.

[6]Aruch Hashulchan Y.D. 249:18-20.

[7]Sefer Tashbeitz (Katan) os 533.

[8]Shu”t Maharik shoresh 128, and cf. shoresh 5. Cf. Yad Sha’ul ibid. os 7; Rav Asher Weiss, Shu”t Bedinei Kedimah Bitzdakah.

[9]Shulchan Aruch ibid. se’if 16.

[10]Shu”t Maharam ben Baruch (dfus Prague) siman 692.

[11]See Chikrei Leiv ibid. at the beginning of the siman.

[12]Shu”t Tashbeitz cheilek 3 siman 190.

[13]Chikrei Leiv ibid.

[14]Melachim I 7:51.