Ark
of the
Law
THE JEWISH ENCYCLOPEDIA
108
Ark ok the Law of the Sephardic Synagogue at Amsterdam. (After Picart.)
congregation rises in reverence for the Torali it holds, and when it is empty, as on the Feast of the Rejoicing of the Law (Simhat Torah), when all the Torah scrolls are taken out to be carried in procession, a
is placed in it. Before the Ark there frequently placed a curtain of costly material, called paroket after the curtain which in the Tabernacle and Temple screened the Holy of Holies (Ex xxvii. 21, xxxvi. 35, xl. 21). It may be safely assumed that the Ark constituted from the first an integral part of the synagogue edifice. The synagogue was considered a sanctuary next to the Temple (Meg. 29a see Targum to Ezek. xi. 16), and the Ark as corresponding to the third division of the Temple, the Holy of Holies. The application of the term ioTI to the Ark is therefore not appropriate, as this name was given to the second or middle division of the Temple (I Kings vi. 5, 17; vii. It is equally certain that the Ark served from 50). the beginning as a receptacle for the sacred scrolls used in the service of the synagogue, although the older accounts do not expressly mention it. This may be inferred from the analogy with the Ark of the Covenant in which, according to tradition (Deut. x. 2 et seq. I Kings viii. 9; II Chron. v. 10), the tablets of the covenant, or the Decalogue, were deposited, and the place of which was taken by the Ark and the Torah. In the Mishnah the Ark is referred to not as JVlN, but as mTI, the word used in the Old Testament (spelled without i) for the Ark of Noah (Gen. vi.viii.) and the Ark in which Moses was hidden (Ex. ii. Its preference for the term " Tebah " may be 3, 5). duo to a desire to distinguish between the Ark of the
burning candle is
Symbolic Representation of an Ark of the Law on a Glass Dish in the Museo Borgiano at Rome. (From Garrucci, " Arte Christiana.")
