[citation needed] Jaffe called on Kabbalistic symbolism, the famed light of the Hamptons, and local vernacular traditions to create a contemporary religious space that uses architecture to shape spiritual experience.

[citation needed] The New York Times architecture critic Paul Goldberger described it as "a building that is at once a gentle tent and a powerful monument, at once a civic presence that celebrates community and a place of quiet meditation that honors solitude".

Jaffe eagerly pursued the commission and, although he encountered some resistance from the board of directors, he eventually was chosen to design the new sanctuary when he offered his services pro bono.

Despite the complexity of his solution, he'd managed to preserve the essence of the original idea—the luminescent feeling of a tent softly lit by the sun—through an array of bent porticos separated by skylights.

[citation needed] Set back from the street and tucked behind the style of privet hedge favored by Hamptons’ estate owners, the synagogue is at once visible but not tangible.

From the road the façade is manifest but from the parking area at the east end of the site, a bed of shrubs and ornamental trees screens the southeast view, revealing the synagogue only as one reaches the entrance.

Congregants enter at the southeast corner of the structure and turn west toward a loggia that acts as an interlude and a transition to the sanctuary space, visible beyond.

Indirect light filters through a series of north-facing skylights—the main source of illumination—that evoke a spiritual sensibility and create the tent-like luminescence that Jaffe envisioned.

The repetition of alternating glass and solid creates a governing rhythm that evokes a higher geometric order, and the structure of the building, concealed within wood cladding, assumes a weightlessness quality.

[7] In addition to its references to Eastern Europe, Jaffe's use of wood also reflects local vernacular architectural traditions that date to the early settlers of East Hampton.

Over the years the unstained exterior has weathered to an inky brown, while the finished interior paneling retains the pale blush of newly sawn wood.

Jaffe inverts the traditional relationship between cold stone and warm wood, pairing floors of soft, sensual Jerusalem limestone with clear Alaskan cedar paneling.

Together with the pews and bima, crafted from the same material, this architectural condition contributes a unifying effect that prevents the elaborately detailed carvings from becoming overly dominant.

[10]: 205  Architectural historian Carol Herselle Krinsky called it “a building that deserves an exceptional place among postwar synagogues in this country and Europe.”[11] The most telling commentary, perhaps, speaks of an emotional response to the space.