What possibility is there for the High Priest to find a beit haKenesset, at the time of avodah, that he could make this a condition for his previous divorce?
H David Levine, Roanoke, VA USA
1) The Mishnah at the end of the 4th chapter of Masechet Tamid tells us that the Cohanim said the Shema in the Lishkat Hagazit (which was also where the Sanhedrin convened). The Tiferet Yisrael Tamid 4:63 writes that the reason the Lishkat Hagazit was chosen to read the Shema is because immediately after saying Shema they davened. Since the Lishkat Hagazit was a place where Torah was studied, this meant that the prayers they said there would certainly be accepted. The Lishkat Hagazit was the best Beit Knesset in the world, through the merit of the Torah learnt there!
2) See also Gemara Yoma 25a which tells us that the Lishkat Hagazit was like a big basilica. Rashi writes that it was a high house on the hill. I wish to suggest that the reason it was built on a high place is because there is a Halacha that one only builds a Beit Knesset in the highest place in the city (see Rambam Hilchot Tefilah 11:2). Since the Lishkat Hagazit also served as a Beit Knesset, it had to be built high up.
A Talmid Chacham has just shown me a Rashi in Yoma 68b, in the Mishnah DH Beit, who writes that there was a Beit Knesset near the Azarah in the Har Habayit.
Dovid Bloom