Temple Sholom 20th Anniversary Booklet (Cincinnati, OH)

1974

caption:
Holy Ark

The Aron HaKodesh holds the central focus in every synagogue, symbolizing the people of Israel, made mindful of God and Torah. Within the Ark are scrolls of the Torah to be read and studied every Sabbath, holy day, and festival. The double curtaining suggests appurtenances in the earliest described wilderness - tabernacle: golden ark-cover and fine-spun partitioning drapes (Exodus 25:21 and 26:31). Drawing open the golden velvet outer curtains in Temple Sholom’s Sanctuary marks the beginning of public worship. The transparent lace inner-curtains are parted to commence the public reading of Scripture and reveal the white marble sefer-torah table (which hints the shape of the Two Tablets of the Ten Commandments.) Throughout the worship service, divine teaching-and-law is projected forward toward the total consciousness of the congregation. Nature, however, and the universe outside the synagogue, the world-at-large and Judaism’s direct concern therewith, is symbolized in the rugged stones of onyx antique and that frame the Ark, as well as in the warm lights that filter through the nearby windows in the daytime.