The Center of the World

The place in a synagogue building, the ark, which holds the Torah scrolls, at least in most cases, points towards Jerusalem. Or in other words, if you are facing the ark you are facing towards Jerusalem. This is based on passages in 2nd Chronicles, and as far as I am aware, nowhere else. The Muslims are even more location-based, praying towards Mecca 5 times a day. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to understand that this idea is based on subservience to a temporal power, not G-d. Even if the temporal power is a temporal religious power.

Since it is the Tanakh that concerns me, lets look at the passages in 2 Chronicles 6. This is Solomon's dedication of the Temple in Jerusalem. And he prefaces it with basically skepticism that a house for G-d on Earth is a concept that even makes sense.

But will God really dwell on earth with humans?
The heavens, even the highest heavens, cannot

contain you. How much less this temple I have built!

~2 Chronicles 6:18

The idea of a house for G-d that is more than a meeting place for his worshipers is fundamentally a conception that is alien to the G-d of the Torah. The 2nd Commandment makes plain that no image or anything else built by Man is to represent G-d. Yes, there was the tabernacle and the Temple, but this was because the religion of the Torah (which was directed towards a primitive and pastoral people) involved animal sacrifice, and you need a specific place for that. You may notice, there is no longer a tabernacle or a temple and no longer animal sacrifices in Judaism. There were things in the Torah that were for that people and that time, and other things that were for all people for all time.

Also, when Solomon speaks of "praying towards" the Temple, it is not clear if he means the one praying is physically pointed at the Temple, or whether he is directing his prayers towards that place. In other words, since the entire address is a kind of prose poem, we don't really know if he meant literally or metaphorically. The address was not an instruction to pray towards the Temple. The only issue is whether Solomon thought that instruction already existed somehow, but how could that be if he only just finished building the Temple? Did people pray towards the tabernacle beforehand? But the tabernacle was for the first generations of the Exodus a mobile sacrificial site. So obviously the place where it was located wasn't itself important.

Also, we have to appreciate that the Tanakh does contain the words of godless or pagan people. The context makes that clear. If the Tanakh says that Ahab was a wicked king who disobeyed G-d, and then it says that Ahab said or did X, obviously we should not be looking to Ahab for instruction. His words and actions are included to tell the narrative, not to tell US what to do.

What about Solomon? Well it is reasonable to say that Solomon worshiped the Lord or at least went through the motions, but it is also clear that he worshiped other gods too in clear violation of the Torah. His wives were foreign pagans in violation of the Torah. He was functionally a polytheist. Or, like many rulers, he just aped devotion to the gods of whoever he wanted to win to his side. So Hiram of Tyre was his buddy, so Solomon worshiped Tyre's gods along with the G-d of Abraham.

Sooo... should we be looking to Solomon for religious instruction? I would think not. So whatever Solomon says as religious instruction, unless it is already in the Torah, is safe to disregard.

The idea that one place or a few places are the "centers of the world" is a fundamentally pagan conception. The idea that one place or several places are "holier" than others, is pagan. We can get a good idea of that by looking at how Catholics regard their holy sites, since Catholicism co-opted paganism heavily. G-d does not have or need a house. Worshipers might like to have a house to worship in, to keep the rain off their heads, but to the extent that they start to regard it as more than a structure they have delved into paganism.

The meeting place of heaven and earth is not a place, it is in the heart of anyone who prays to the Only True G-d in absolute sincerity. The Shekhinah, the glory of G-d or the immanence of G-d on Earth that was believed to rest on the Ark of the Covenant in the tabernacle, is upon the heart of every true believer who prays in earnestness.

This can happen anywhere, pointed in any direction. Any belief otherwise is bowing to temporal human earthly power, not G-d.