The structure of a shul might seem haphazard, but in actuality the central parts of the shul-- the Aron Kodesh, the amud where the hazzan davens, and the bimah where the Torah is read-- have fairly specific placements. The Aron Kodesh, obviously, is in front of the shul, but there is some question as to how important it is to place it along the eastern wall of the shul. Since congregants will face the Aron--and we ideally pray facing the ruins of the Temple in Jerusalem -- it was obviously best to combine the two, and place the Aron along the eastern wall.

That is not feasible in every shul, however, and then there is some question as to how congregants should act. While many authorities, and common practice, assume that facing the Aron is a perfectly good substitute for facing east, there are those who believe that facing east during the Amidah is an overriding value. In the YU Beit Midrash, where the Aron is on the northern wall of the room (there are bookshelves along the eastern wall), you will find some people standing to the left of the Aron, so that as they face the Aron they are also facing somewhat eastward. Of those standing to the right of the Aron, however, many will face eastward (or at least slightly eastward), rather than turning full-face to the Aron itself. The placement of the Aron, in other words, is wherever the front of the room is; how to stand for the Amidah, however, is a choice between facing the Aron, or turning at least somewhat eastwards.

The bimah, the stand from which the Torah is read and where rabbinic figures delivered words of spiritual inspiration, should be, ideally, in the middle of the room, although the reason for that is not clear. Some sources indicate that it is an acoustic issue, that placing the bimah ba-emtsa assures that the greatest group of people will be able to hear the Torah reading. In that view, if there is no problem with people hearing the Torah reading (assuming they are trying to hear), the bimah could be placed elsewhere. However, others believe that bimah ba-emtsa was a rule of imitating the structure of the Temple, in which case it is a necessity regardless of whether people can hear or not. This whole issue became more charged in the nineteenth century, when Reformers, looking to make the Jewish synagogue more similar to German Protestant churches, decided to move the bimah to the front of the shul. As is always true (and correctly so), once a particular expression of Judaism becomes attached to a deviationist movement, traditionalists resist it regardless of its technical acceptability. Certainly well into this century, many people strongly resisted davening in a shul which did not have its bimah ba-emtsa, regardless of its Orthodox credentials.

The amud, the place where the hazzan leads the services was generally placed in front of the Aron Kodesh, and was separate from the bimah. According to the Rema, the only prayer the hazzan led from the bimah was Kabbalat Shabbat. A further look, though, suggests a different reason than mere placement for the resistance to using the bimah for the hazzan's tefillot. The gemara says that it is inappropriate for anyone, and certainly the hazzan, to pray on a raised platform, because we should feel ourselves to be davening mi-ma`amaqim, from the depths. That is why the traditional phrase for getting up to lead the services is "yored (descend) lifnei hatevah, going down to the table." In fact, when Rabbi Aaron Kahn (a Rosh Yeshivah at YU) built a shul in Brooklyn, he made a small pit for the hazzan to actually descend into (about a foot lower than the rest of the floor).

According to that reasoning, if the bimah is not raised from the floor, it should be an acceptable place for the hazzan to lead the tefillah. Some rabbis even felt that if the bimah occupied a space of 4 by 4 tefahim (which it always does) and had walls (or was raised from the floor) of ten tefahim high (about 4 feet), it defined a separate space and did not create a problem of praying from a higher place. Leading the services from the bimah, then, was never an absolute problem.

Years of practice, however, tend to convince Jews that there is some ideological reason for that practice as well. Rav Moshe, zt"l, believed that davening kabbalat Shabbat from the amud signified that it is not as authoritatively part of the liturgy as other parts (since it was instituted by Kabbalists in the sixteenth century, based on Talmudic sources). For that reason, he was attached to maintaining a split between the bimah and the amud. Others suggested that placing the amud for the hazzan directly in front of the Aron Kodesh was an important value, although there are no particular sources to support this position.