ARK-ifacts

Sometimes, great surprises just happen. That was the case recently for Rabbi Josef A. Davidson of Congregation B’nai Amoona.

He had just finished teaching a class for b’nai mitzvah students and their parents when he walked into the synagogue lobby and there it was: A life-sized replica of the Ark of the Covenant, made out of acacia wood and covered with gold leaf, replete with a “mercy seat” and two golden cherubs, exactly as detailed in the Book of Exodus.

“It’s a superb piece of work,” says Rabbi Davidson. “For the next four weeks, we will be reading Torah portions Terumah through Pekudei (from Feb. 5-March 5), which include the tabernacle construction. It will be wonderful to have the visual right here in our foyer as you approach the sanctuary.”

The ark was built by Curt Voelkel and his Sunday school class at St. John’s United Church of Christ in west St. Louis County. Voelkel’s class was reading the Book of Exodus when they got to the part where God tells Moses on Mount Sinai how to build the Ark of the Covenant. “It just hit me that maybe we should build the tabernacle exactly to the specifications that the Lord told Moses,” says Voelkel, who owns a plastics company. “Everyone in the class thought it was a great idea.”

The specifications are indeed very precise: “They shall construct an ark of acacia wood two and a half cubits long, and one and a half cubits wide, and one and a half cubits high,” it is written in the Book of Exodus. “You shall overlay it with pure gold, inside and out you shall overlay it, and you shall make a gold molding around it.”

Voelkel, who said he typically “is not someone who likes to build things,” was inspired to try. He contacted a friend in Israel for the acacia wood, and he in turn was able to have the wood shipped to St. Louis from the Sinai Peninsula. It took about three weeks to arrive. No nails or screws were used in the construction; rather the structure is dowel pinned together.

Of course before he could do anything, Voelkel and his team needed to figure out what a cubit is.

“Actually, the pharaoh at the time was Pharaoh Ramses and a cubit was the measurement from his elbow to his closed fist,” explains Voelkel. “It’s about 18 and a half inches.”

Voelkel said it took about eight months to build the ark and it cost about $3,800. Using 24-karat gold was out of the question, so he and his students settled on gold leaf. But otherwise the structure is built exactly the way it is described in the Book of Exodus, including the dimensions of the mercy seat and placing the cherubs at each end of the seat with “their wings spread upward, covering the mercy seat with their wings and facing one another; the faces of the cherubim are to be turned to the mercy seat.”

“We dedicated the tabernacle to our church, where it resided for a while,” said Voelkel. “Then we were at a bar mitzvah at B’nai Amoona for one of my son’s friends. I spoke to Rabbi (Carnie Shalom) Rose about it and he said he would love to have it for when (the rabbis there) teach that part of the Torah. So my son Ryan and I took it over there a week ago.”

Voelkel says the ark may wind up at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem on consignment. And he will be very pleased if that happens.

“It never became a chore to build. We always worked on it because we wanted to,” says Voelkel. “The fact that it was in a church and now a synagogue is awesome. This isn’t about religion but rather spreading God’s word.”

Remembering Pratzel’s

When my seventh-grader learned that Pratzel’s bakery was closing, his pale face grew even paler. Where would I get the chocolate-chocolate cupcakes, his “most favorite” dessert ever?

As most of you know by now Pratzel’s, the only independent kosher bakery in town, closed last Sunday after 98 years of business. While the retail operation inside Kohn’s Kosher Deli in Creve Coeur was going strong, the wholesale side, which accounted for about three-quarters of the business, had dipped in recent years. Owners Ronnie and Elaine Pratzel didn’t feel it made fiscal sense to continue anymore.

News of the closing prompted an outpouring from Jews and non-Jews alike. “Pratzel’s was my own ‘Cheers’ – everybody knew my name,” wrote Marcy Cornfeld, a longtime customer and Creve Coeur resident (see commentary on page 9). “When I would arrive on Friday each clerk would know my order and ask after my family and I would ask after theirs.”

When I first arrived in St. Louis as a freshman at Washington University in the mid-1970s, I discovered Pratzel’s the way many college students did. At 3 or 4 in the morning, after hours of studying, someone in the dorm would announce “Pratzel’s run” and off we’d go to the bakery at Delmar and Eastgate, in the U. City Loop. We’d inch our way through the back door and stock up on warm doughnuts and rolls that had just come out of the oven. It was pastry heaven.

Do you have a favorite memory (or memories) of the now shuttered bakery? If so, and if you are willing to share, please email your remembrances or tributes to www.stljewishlight.com/pratzels and we’ll make sure to get them onto the website. This way, we can all sit shiva together.