Page:Jewish Encyclopedia Volume 2.pdf/147

109 THE JEWISH ENCYCLOPEDIA

109

Tabernacle and Temple, and that of the synagogue (compare, however, the Baraita). The vulgar crowd commit a deadly sin in calling the sacred shrine simply " chest " (Shab. 32a). In Megillah iii. 1 this gradation of sacredness is given From the proceeds of the sale of a synagogue an Ark may be purchased from those of an Ark, wrappers (for the Torah scroll) from those





Akk of the Law (From


 * i

photograph

in

Yad ha-Hazakah,

Hilkot Tefillah,

the Synagogue at Gibraltar.

xi. 14,

the Pentateuch and other parts of the Old Testament in book form) from those of books, a Torah

(compare also Shulhan Aruk, Orah Hayyim, § 153, 2). According to Ta'anit ii. 1 the Ark was portable. Josephus ("Ant." xvi. 6, § 2) mentions inciscroll

'

dentally that the sacred books were kept in the synagogue (oappaTciov); Chrysostom (347-407) refers in "Oratio Ad versus Juclwos," vi. 7 ("Opera," ed.Montfaucon, vol. i.), to the Ark (/u/fordf, the word by which the Septuagint renders the Hebrew p"iK) and in "Orat." i. 5 to the "Law " and the "Prophets" which were kept in the synagogues. Itis only Mai-

in the collection of

of wrappers, books (that signifies, according to Mai-

monides'

Ark of the Law

Hon. Mayer Sulzberger.)

monides (Yad ha-Hazakah, Hilkot Tefillah, x. [xi.] state ex3) and Bertinoro (to Ta'anit ii. 1) who plicitly that the sacred scrolls were preserved in the Ark. A

J. M. C. Architecturally Considered In earlier times and in less important synagogues the Ark was .