Wood, stone, or gold, every aron kodesh has its story

Photos: Itai Bodel, Adam Rabinowitz, Meir Binkowitz

The aron kodesh housing the sifrei Torah is the focal point of every shul, all year round and even more so on Simchas Torah. Some are glittering and intricate, others simple and streamlined, but all speak the language of kavod haTorah in wood, stone, and gold, each telling its own special story

Worth Its Weight in Gold

Name: Yeshivas Ateres Shlomo

Location: Rishon LeZion, Israel

N

ews from the yeshivah world usually echoes quietly within our own community, rarely picked up by the outside press. The installation of the new aron kodesh in the Yeshivas Ateres Shlomo campus in Rishon LeZion, Israel, right before Shavous last year, was an exception — and for good reason.

The massive aron kodesh, built of pure silver and plated in places with pure gold, measures 20 meters long (about 65 feet) and 6.5 meters (21 feet) high, spans 120 square meters (1,292 square feet), and holds the title of the largest silver artifact in the world. The gilded aron kodesh gleams under the lights, its columns, arches, and panels clad entirely in precious metal, crowned with gold and copper, and anchored on polished Italian onyx.

Inside, where the sifrei Torah are housed, the aron kodesh is even more striking; The interior is made entirely of gold. On the doorpost of the inner room housing the sifrei Torah, the world’s smallest mezuzah — just 2.7 by 2.7 centimeters — is displayed, unrolled behind glass. Even the security cameras and sensors gleam with gold coating. Arutz Sheva, the go-to Israeli news platform for religious-Zionist and right-leaning readers, was duly impressed. “This monumental project, entirely handcrafted, stands as an unprecedented achievement in Jewish sacred art,” it informed its viewership.

Sitting together with Rav Sholom Ber Sorotzkin shlita, the rosh yeshivah of Ateres Shlomo and the man who spearheaded the project, it was clear that he viewed the project on an entirely different plane than the news channel. The setting wasn’t exactly ideal for a Telzer derashah — we were in the back of a retrofitted Genesis (courtesy of a supporter) — in the parking lot of a Lakewood office building, but the cramped quarters didn’t stop Rav Sorotzkin from speaking with his trademark enthusiasm. He described the Ateres Shlomo network of over 12,000 talmidim, ranging from elementary-school students to kollel avreichim, and quoted the midrash in parshas Naso, which explains why Bircas Kohanim (Bamidbar 6:23-26) was placed immediately prior to the Torah’s account of the public completion of the Mishkan (7:1).

The midrash explains that because both the nesiim bringing korbanos and the completion of the Mishkan was done b’farhesia — in public — there was an element of ayin hara. Hashem offset that by giving Bircas Kohanim as a protection. “You see that when Torah is given,” Rav Sorotzkin thundered, “it must be given mit pumbes — with pomp! Hashem demands kevod HaTorah and kevod malchus. Dos is emes’e hashkafas Toraseinu hakedoshah — this is genuine Torah hashkafah.”

Rav Sorotzkin recruited Reb Aharon Ostreicher, a master craftsman reputed to be in a league of his own by designers around the world, to fulfill his dream of building an edifice that would proclaim kevod haTorah on the grandest scale. Rabbi Ostreicher is the architect behind the Belz and Ger batei medrash in Yerushalayim, Vizhnitz in Bnei Brak, Satmar and Skver in the United States, the Kosel Tunnels, Kever Rochel, and countless batei medrash worldwide.

Rabbi Ostreicher initially balked at the scope of the aron kodesh he’d been commissioned to design. “I thought I had seen everything,” he said, “but I never saw anything like this. I don’t think there will ever be anything like it again.” Even for the seasoned architect, there was a learning curve. “There was always an earlier project that we could learn from. We learned a lot from the experience of other experts, but when it came to this project, there was no precedent. We had to invent the wheel.”

The execution of the $9 million project was literally a global effort. For its engineering and carpentry, the yeshivah tapped Moshe Cohen and the Amash company, a Jerusalem-based firm rooted in a small Machaneh Yehuda carpentry shop and now known for tackling Israel’s most complex synagogue interiors.

Weight posed the first challenge. The aron kodesh would weigh nearly 20 tons, plus another ten tons of marble flooring, which required that engineers fortify the beis medrash floor. At Amash’s Maaleh Adumim facility, carpenters built a full-scale wooden replica, accurate in every detail, to serve as a template for the silverwork.

For the platform of the aron kodesh, Rabbi Ostreicher and his team bypassed more conventional options like marble, which would have given elegance without translucence, electing to use onyx instead. They purchased blocks of natural onyx in Italy, and had them cut into slabs for flooring, the bimah steps, and the amud. Its density allowed the designed concealed lighting to shine through the stone’s golden veins without shadows, creating a radiance that marble could never achieve.

After considering silver workshops across the United States, Europe, and India, they finally settled on one in Udaipur, Rajasthan, a city where silversmithing runs in families for generations. Hundreds of artisans hunched over benches with chisels and mallets coaxed thousands of panels and ornaments into existence, piece by shining piece.

The gold required another set of specialists. Craftsmen from the glittering city of Dubai bonded sheets of 24-karat gold to silver for durability and luster.

And in Kashmir, a Himalayan region between India and Pakistan long renowned for its fine textiles, four weavers spent four months crafting the paroches from fine goat wool, embroidered with gold thread and inlaid with gemstones echoing the colors of the Choshen — ruby, emerald, and topaz.

In Stuttgart, Germany, foundry workers produced the ornamental copper fence, and Indian casters created the massive menorahs, each weighing more than 60 kilograms, and later plated in gold.

In total, more than 350 artisans from 12 countries contributed toward the final product.