A Torah ark (also known as the hekhal, Hebrew: היכל, or aron qodesh, אֲרוֹן קׄדֶש) is an ornamental chamber in the synagogue that houses the Torah scrolls.
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👉 Torah ark in the context of En-Gedi Scroll
The En-Gedi Scroll, also called the En-Gedi Leviticus Scroll (EGLev) is an ancient Hebrew parchment found in 1970 at Ein Gedi, Israel. Radiocarbon testing dates the scroll to the third or fourth century CE (88.9% certainty for 210–390 CE), although there is disagreement over whether the evidence from the writing itself supports that date. The scroll was discovered to contain a portion of the biblical Book of Leviticus, making it the earliest copy of a Pentateuchal book ever found in a Torah ark.
The deciphered text fragment is identical to what was to become, during the Middle Ages, the standard text of the Hebrew Bible, known as the Masoretic Text, which it precedes by several centuries. Damaged by a fire in approximately 600 CE, the scroll is badly charred and fragmented and required noninvasive scientific and computational techniques to virtually unwrap and read, which was completed in 2015 by a team led by Brent Seales of the University of Kentucky.
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Torah ark in the context of Torah scroll
A Torah scroll (Hebrew: סֵפֶר תּוֹרָה, romanized: Sefer Torah, lit. 'Book of Torah'; pl. סִפְרֵי תוֹרָה, Sifrei Torah) is a handwritten copy of the Torah, meaning the five books of Moses (the first books of the Hebrew Bible). The Torah scroll is mainly used in the ritual of Torah reading during Jewish prayers. At other times, it is stored in the holiest spot within a synagogue, the Torah ark, which is usually an ornate curtained-off cabinet or section of the synagogue built along the wall that most closely faces Jerusalem, the direction Jews face when praying.
The text of the Torah is also commonly printed and bound in book form for non-ritual functions, called a Chumash (plural Chumashim; "five-part", for the five books of Moses), and is often accompanied by commentaries or translations.
Torah ark in the context of Masoretic Text
The Masoretic Text (MT or 𝕸; Hebrew: נֻסָּח הַמָּסוֹרָה, romanized: Nussāḥ ham-Māsorā, lit. 'Text of the Tradition') is the authoritative Hebrew and Aramaic text of the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) in Rabbinic Judaism. The Masoretic Text defines the Jewish canon and its precise letter-text, with its vocalization and accentuation known as the masora. Referring to the Masoretic Text, masora specifically means the diacritic markings of the text of the Jewish scriptures and the concise marginal notes in manuscripts (and later printings) of the Tanakh which note textual details, usually about the precise spelling of words. It was primarily copied, edited, and distributed by a group of Jews known as the Masoretes between the 7th and 10th centuries of the Common Era (CE). The oldest known complete copy, the Leningrad Codex, dates to 1009 CE and is recognized as the most complete source of biblical books in the Ben Asher tradition. It has served as the base text for critical editions such as Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia and Adi.
The differences attested to in the Dead Sea Scrolls indicate that multiple versions of the Hebrew scriptures already existed by the end of the Second Temple period. Which is closest to a theoretical Urtext is disputed, as is whether such a singular text ever existed. The Dead Sea Scrolls, dating to as early as the 3rd century BCE, contain versions of the text which have some differences with today's Hebrew Bible. The Septuagint (a compilation of Koine Greek translations made in the third and second centuries BCE) and the Peshitta (a Syriac translation made in the second century CE) occasionally present notable differences from the Masoretic Text, as does the Samaritan Pentateuch, the text of the Torah preserved by the Samaritans in Samaritan Hebrew. Fragments of an ancient 2nd–3rd-century manuscript of the Book of Leviticus found near an ancient synagogue's Torah ark in Ein Gedi have identical wording to the Masoretic Text.
Torah ark in the context of Torah reading
Torah reading (Hebrew: קריאת התורה, K'riat haTorah, "Reading [of] the Torah"; Ashkenazic pronunciation: Kriyas haTorah) is a Jewish religious tradition that involves the public reading of a set of passages from a Torah scroll. The term often refers to the entire ceremony of removing the scroll (or scrolls) from the Torah ark, chanting the appropriate excerpt with special cantillation (trope), and returning the scroll(s) to the ark.It is also commonly called "laining" (lein is also spelt lain, leyn, layn; from the Yiddish לייענען (leyenen), which means "to read").
Regular public reading of the Torah was introduced by Ezra the Scribe after the return of the Judean exiles from the Babylonian captivity (c. 537 BCE), as described in the Book of Nehemiah. In the modern era, Orthodox Jews practice Torah reading according to a set procedure almost unchanged since the Talmudic era. Since the 19th century CE, Reform and Conservative Judaism have made adaptations to the practice of Torah reading, but the basic pattern of Torah reading has usually remained the same:
Torah ark in the context of Parochet
A parochet (Hebrew: פרוכת, romanized: parôkheth; Yiddish: פרוכת, romanized: paroykhes), meaning "curtain" or "screen", is the curtain that covers the Torah ark (Aron Kodesh) containing the Torah scrolls in a synagogue.
The parochet symbolizes the curtain that covered the Ark of the Covenant, based on Exodus 40:21: "Then he put up the curtain for screening, and screened off the Ark of the Pact—just as יהוה had commanded Moses."
Torah ark in the context of Synagogue architecture
Synagogue architecture often follows styles in vogue at the place and time of construction. There is no set blueprint for synagogues and architectural shapes and interior designs of synagogues vary greatly. According to tradition, the Shekhinah or divine presence can be found wherever there is a minyan: the quorum of ten required for Jewish prayer.
Synagogues have some requirements. They always contain a Torah ark where the Torah scrolls are kept (called an aron qodesh (Hebrew: אָרוֹן קׄדֶש) by Ashkenazi Jews and a hekhal (היכל) by Sephardic Jews). Also, since synagogues are buildings for congregational worship, they require a large central space (like churches in Christianity and mosques in Islam). They are generally designed with the ark at one end, typically opposite the main entrance on the east side of the building, and a bema either in front of that or more centrally placed. Raised galleries for female worshipers have been common in historical buildings.