"Let There be Light"
The doors are eight feet tall, and gently curved, using the same coopering technique I use to make the legs of my tablebenches. (link) Both edges of each of the fourteen planks that make up the doors are planed by hand to create the slight bevel that coppering requires, and to create perfectly mating edges and an invisible joint line. The entire surface is hand planed as well.
Although I didn’t design this ark I had a transcendent experience while building it that I wish I could convey to you. Something about all the people who have built the Aron Kodesh over the last three thousand years and me.
The accuracy achieved in the end shocked me. When the two doors were complete and the bottoms aligned there was less than a sixteenth inch deviation along the entire eight foot length.
Designed by Nordhaus and Dent. Letters by Harvey Buchalter.


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