T

op Five pesukim on top of the aron kodesh brought many reader submissions.
Here are some of our favorites:

Shloime Ludmir shares a picture of the aron kodesh in a shul in Beit El, which reads

“Ein zeh ki im beis Elokim,” and then on the paroches, “v’zeh sha’ar hashamayim.”

Rivkie Berger shares a picture of the inscription on the wall of the hidden shul in the Terezin (Theresienstadt) ghetto/concentration camp, used in secret as formal prayer was forbidden:

“U’vchol zos Shimcha lo shachachnu. Na, al tishkacheinu (and in spite of all this, we have not forgotten Your Name; please, do not forget us).” As she writes, “They did not need to be reminded ‘know before Whom you stand,’ a popular pasuk used in our modern shuls.”

Reader M. Mandel points out that in Mir-Yerushalayim, on the top of the aron kodesh is inscribed

“Mah ahavti Sorasecha, kol hayom hi sichasi,” a favorite pasuk of the late Rosh Yeshivah, Rav Nosson Tzvi Finkel ztz”l.

Finally, an anonymous reader shares a picture of the shul in Tannersville, New York. “While traveling upstate with my family last summer in Tannersville, New York,” he writes, “I had the zechus to daven in the Anshei Hasharon shul built many years ago by the Washington Heights community. From the first moment I looked up and saw the saying of Chazal printed on top of the aron kodesh, I couldn’t help but smile and chuckle at how appropriate it was for the meticulous, heilige tzibbur of medakdikim b’Torah u’mitzvos:

‘Da lifnei Mi atah asid litein din v’cheshbon — Know before Whom you will make your final accounting.’ ”

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 687)