NRR 24-27

THE DISUSED ARK

QUESTION:

The congregation has an Ark which is no longer in use. A proposal has been made to convert the Ark into a bookcase to be used in the instruction of retarded children. Is such a use of a disused Ark permissible? (Asked by Rabbi Richard A. Zionts, Shreveport, Louisiana.)

ANSWER:

THE QUESTION of the proper disposal of unused or unusable sacred objects has received detailed discussion in the law from the time of the Mishnah down to our day. What disposal or use may be made of unusable sacred objects like worn-out Torah covers or the Torah itself or the Ark in which it is contained, etc.? The answer to this depends on the rank of the particular object in the order of sanctity. There are a number of classifications used for sacred objects. The most sacred object of all is the Sefer Torah. The objects that are appurtenances to the Sefer Torah, such as the covers, the bands, and the Ark in which it is kept, are all called tashmishey kedusha (accessories to the sacred). Then there is a second class of objects of lower sanctity which involves, not the Torah, which is the most sacred, but the shofar, the tefillin, the tallis, etc. The appurtenances of these objects—such as, for example, the sack in which tefillin are kept—are called tashmishey mitzvah (accessories to the commandments). The rule covering the two classes is definite enough. The appurtenances of the sacred, i.e., of the Torah, if no longer usable, must be hidden away or buried. But the appurtenances of mitzvah, like the sack for the tefillin when no longer used, may be thrown away (Megillah 26b).

Within the more sacred class, the tashmishey kedusha (i.e., objects involved with the Sefer Torah), there is a gradation of sanctity. This is first mentioned in the Mishnah at the beginning of Chapter 3 of Megillah and is developed in the Talmud (ad loc.) The rule there given can be summed up as follows: One may dispose of these sacred things provided that with the money derived, something more sacred may be purchased. Thus the community may sell the public square (where only occasional fast-day services are held) in order to buy a synagogue, which is more sacred than the square. They may sell the synagogue in order to buy an Ark, which is still more sacred. They may sell the Ark to buy coverings for the Sefer Torah. (These rules are codified in the Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chayim 153:2.) So it is clear from this gradation that the Ark is more sacred than the rest of the synagogue, though less sacred than the coverings of the Torah, etc.

This gradation of sanctity creates certain difficulties. How, for example, if the Ark is so sacred, do we permit incorrect (posul) Sefer Torahs and even other books to be kept in or near the Ark? This question and similar ones have been asked all through the legal literature, from the early scholars like Isaac Or Zorua and Asher ben Yechiel, down to the codes and the later respondents, such as Moses Sofer (Vol. VI, 10) and others. Usually the question is put in the following form: May an old Ark, which is now too small to be used, be destroyed? May it be used (as, for example, Moses Sofer was asked) to make a coffin (the possibility of this strange-sounding question comes from the fact that the Talmud says [ Megillah 26b] that the worn-out coverings of the Torah may be used to make shrouds for the dead).

This and similar varieties of the question of the Ark have been asked. The latest one was by David Hoffmann in his Melamed I’Hoyil (Orach Chayim # 18). The question that he was asked is close to the question asked here. The congregation of Chassidim in Berlin had grown. More Sefer Torahs had been donated to it than the Ark could now contain. They were building a new Ark. Might they use the head decoration of the old Ark on the new Ark and use the rest of the old Ark as a bookcase?

In coming to a conclusion based on all this mass of material as to whether the disused Ark in question may be turned into a bookcase, we can consider the following:

1. Our present Ark does not have the sanctity mentioned in the Mishnah and the Talmud (which hold it to be even more sacred than the Sefer Torah). The Mishnah had in mind a special type of movable Ark which would be taken into the public square for fast-day services and which was made expressly to contain the Sefer Torah. But our Arks are not the movable Arks of ancient days. They are actually a cupboard built into the wall and therefore may have other objects placed in them. This argument that our present Ark does not have the old sanctity was given (as far as I know) first of all by Isaac Or Zerua (Vol. II, 386) and cited in the Notes by Asher ben Yechiel to the chapter in Megillah and cited by Isserles to Orach Chayim 152:1. Since, as Isserles says, our present-day Ark is not exclusively an appurtenance of the Torah, as the ancient one was, we may put unfit Sefer Torahs in it, etc.

2. When a synagogue is built, the leaders of the synagogue have the right to make a precondition that all the appurtenances of the Sefer Torah, such as the Ark, etc., may be used, if necessary, for secular purposes. This rule is in Orach Chayim 154:8, and Isserles adds that even if it is not expressly known that this condition was made at the building of the synagogue, we may assume that it was made.

3. There is a general rule that a Sefer Torah may never be sold except for two purposes, to arrange for a marriage, and for the study of the Torah (Megillah 27a, Orach Chayim 154:6, Yore Deah 270:2). We may assume that the children whose class will be conducted in the synagogue premises will be taught Judaism among other subjects, and therefore we may say that they will be studying the Torah. If the sacred Torah itself may be sold for such a purpose, then surely the less sacred Ark, now disused, may be converted into a bookcase for the worthy task of teaching Torah.