A replica of the Ark of the Covenant, painstakingly constructed, its creators say, to the Torah specifications of the sacred vessel that was the First Temple’s central fixture, was displayed in Jerusalem on Sunday evening, during the intermediate days of the Sukkot holiday.
The ark described in the Torah, which housed the Ten Commandments tablets among other holy objects, was hidden after the destruction of the First Temple, per rabbinic tradition. At Jerusalem’s King David Hotel, the replica shown in the hotel’s sukkah contained a refurbished Torah scroll, which survived the Holocaust, from Thessaloniki, Greece.
Several members of the Knesset and Israeli activists were on hand at the hotel for an event and festive meal—a stop on the replica’s journey retracing the steps of the biblical prototype.
Earlier in the day, it was fitted with the Greek Torah at Jerusalem’s City of David. It was later displayed—with some difficulty and via a Schweppes pallet jack—on a rooftop overlooking the Western Wall plaza and Temple Mount.
The replica ark stopped in Jericho, the first Israeli city inhabited by Jews after the biblical Exodus from Egypt, and in Shiloh, the site that served as the Jewish capital for 369 years after Jews settled in Israel and the location of the Tabernacle before the building of the First Temple.
It took 17 volunteers, who live in several countries, three-and-a-half years to build the replica ark, which is made out of donated gold and some three tons of Egyptian Acacia, according to “Jake” the project’s chief architect, who prefers to remain anonymous, and Lewis Topper, its principal financier.
Although the Torah delves into extensive detail about the construction of the Ark and its dimensions and materials, it leaves out a lot of critical information that a builder would need to create the sacred vessel.
“It was really a deep process of discovery and a mystery. It’s not a question of just reading the descriptions literally and building the device,” Jake said at the event. “You have to do some heavy research, you have to immerse yourself and you have to go on a journey.”
Each step raised new questions about how such a complex object was constructed before the advent of modern manufacturing.
“We went with the highest purity of gold available to the Egyptians,” Jake said at the event. “The purity used for royal artifacts is around 23.75 carats, so we went with 23.75.”
Illustrations of four biblical stages of the Exodus from Egypt are displayed on the exterior of the ark replica: Moses’s prophecy at the burning bush, the parting of the Red Sea, the clouds and pillar of fire that protected and guided the Jews in the desert and the giving of the Ten Commandments at Mount Sinai.
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