"Oy! Iz shver tzu zain a frummer yid (It is terribly hard to be an observant Jew!)" – Anon
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"Oy! Iz shver tzu zain a frummer yid (It is terribly hard to be an observant Jew!)" – Anon |
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The New Hebrew Workshop This fall on PBS Maybe it's a guy thing; maybe not. But, it's impossible to grow up in a world of PBS without becoming acquainted with Norm Abram, who hosts "The New Yankee Workshop" and has kept Steve Thomas out of trouble on countless segments of "This Old House." Norm Abram, master craftsman and carpenter, is indeed the dean of American woodworking. He has a wonderful step-by-step method for building fine furniture and other projects. Thanks to the miracle of editing, he never cuts himself, makes an incorrect measurement, and never has to do anything over. He is enormously popular, and such a success is bound to spawn knockoffs. Here is one: THE
NEW HEBREW WORKSHOP (Open on a bearded man wearing a yarmulke and talis.) Hi, there! Shalom! Welcome to "The New Hebrew Workshop." I'm your host, Abraham Norm. Are you looking for a handy place to store testaments from God? Or a nice wooden chest for keeping comforters, photo albums, or keepsakes? Then the Ark of the Covenant is just the sort of cabinet you need! Today we're going to build a faithful (of course) reproduction of the Ark of the Covenant, based on the original Old Testament model. It's beautiful, practical, and can be a great conversation piece. By the way, an Ark is more than just a handy storage chest. It's also essential if God meets with and communes with you. GETTING STARTED Now if you don't have your copy of Exodus Chapter 25 handy, you can order a complete set of dimensioned drawings (or "drawrings," as we say in New England) for the Ark by writing the address shown on your screen. You can also ask God directly for plans by davening in front of the Wailing Wall, but the way things are going in Israel these days, I personally think you're better off just writing us. Now before we begin, let me stress the importance of shop safety: 1. Always know how
to operate the tools you use. MODEL Now for our model. We found the original Ark in a little village in the mountains of Lebanon. As you might imagine, the current owners didn't want to part with it, but they were good enough to let us measure it and check its construction for our show. We didn't touch it, so we weren't instantly struck down by God. MATERIALS Now if you consult the Bible or Torah, you'll see that it says: "And they shall make an ark of shittim wood: two cubits and a half shall be the length thereof, and a cubit and a half the breadth thereof, and a cubit and a half the height thereof." Well, I'm not sure we can say "shittim" on television, but still I'll tell you, it's in the Bible. We think shittim wood is the wood of the acacia tree, one of the thorny trees found in the Holy Land. It has a very sweet smell. It's a beautiful wood, orange colored, very heavy and close grained. It darkens as it ages and insects can't harm it. You can find species of Acacia (such as the redberry and the Indian cherry) in America. You'll find shittim mostly in east Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana, and east to Florida, north to Kansas, Missouri Illinois, and Virginia. For our project, we couldn't get our shittim together, but we found some nice Vermont maple that should work pretty well, may God forgive me. CUTTING First, we'll prepare the case. Don't worry about the lid. That function will by handled by the mercy seat, which we'll learn about later. I've prepared the boards for the sides, ends, and bottom here in the shop, following the Biblical dimensions. Now the length of 2.5 cubits, width of 1.5 cubits and height of 1.5 cubits is set by God. But I'll have to set the rip fence on my table saw in inches. Trouble is, how long is a cubit? Estimates vary from 18.14 inches to 25.0266 inches. We've settled on 22 inches, as it's a nice round number to work with - and it has some mysterious numerological implications, too. I've put the boards through my Sears Craftsman planer to get them perfectly flat on both sides. I just cut the sides, bottom, and ends on my Black & Decker table saw. So now let's go on to the joinery. JOINERY Well, as you might expect, these days we can't find board lumber as wide it was in Colonial times - or Biblical times, for that matter. So we'll glue these boards together to form the sides, ends and bottom of our Ark. In other shows, I've used my biscuit joiner to cut slots in the edges of boards so we insert elliptical wooden "biscuits." But, being as this is an Ark, I've decided to use my Rokeach matzoh joiner instead to cut slots for small wooden matzohs. I'll demonstrate one the setups. There, watch as I cut the slots. Now, we can glue up the edges of these little matzohs, insert them, and bring the two boards together. I'll clamp them with these large wood clamps. When they're dry, we just have to sand the joint smooth, and we can go on. ASSEMBLY We want secure joints at the sides and bottom. At first, I was going to rabbet them, but of course rabbet isn't kosher, so I'm going to use my Porter-Cabala router to make dovetail joints. It's likely that the dovetails will be more pleasing in the eyes of the Lord. For assembly, we'll glue up the joints with bullock glue and finish things off with my Ryobi power nailer. There! Nice fit! That's solid, and good looking, too! FINISHING Now the Bible says to overlay the Ark with pure gold, inside and out. That's going to be a little costly for our project, so I'm just going to glue down some gold Mylar sheets, which I purchased from a local crafts store. Smooth them out, but if they wrinkle, don't worry. It will make a nice effect. CROWN The case needs a crown of gold round about it. Once again, that's costly, so we've picked up some crown moulding from the builder's supply store and we'll finish it ourselves. I've pre-cut and mitered the moulding sections, so they will assemble neatly around the top edge of our Ark. Let's assemble the sections into a rectangle. Be careful, as this crown will be flimsy until we attach it to the Ark. Be sure to sand off the edges where the miter joints meet. Later, I'll apply strips of gold Mylar and work them into the features of the moulding. Well, that's about it for today. We'll finish up tomorrow. ----------- Good morning! Let's continue building our Ark storage chest. We'll set the rectangle (the crown) on the Ark and tack it in place - from the inside of the case - with the nailer. Now we'll use my Milwaukee power screwdriver to tighten up our assembly. We're attaching the crown with screws from the inside of the Ark. There! Three screws on the long sides and two on the short sides ought to do it. GOLD RINGS Now the Bible calls for four gold rings to be mounted on the outside corners of the Ark, two to a side. But once again, gold is out of our budget. So we found these four gold-anodized aluminum carabiners from our local rock climbing shop. They're going to do nicely for us. I've pre-measured where to insert four steel eyes, and I'll screw them in. Now I just clip on the "gold rings," and we're done with that step. STAVES The Bible calls for two staves of shittim wood. They should be overlaid with gold. Of course, these are used to carry the Ark around. But since you'll most likely be using your Ark as a coffee table or bedroom storage chest, we'll bypass that step. Now if you want the authentic touch of staves, I can recommend using good straight-grained oak dowels, about an inch in diameter, about eight feet long. Round off the ends, and apply the same Mylar decoupage technique we used on the Ark. Here's a caution: If you insert the staves in the rings, you should not remove them. Exodus 25:15 tells us "The staves shall be in the rings of the ark: they shall not be taken from it." MERCY SEAT Now, no Ark would be complete without a mercy seat. Exodus commands us to make it out of pure gold, the same size as the Ark. So it serves as both lid and seat. Well, not only is that too costly for us, but it would make our Ark almost impossible to carry around. So, we found another piece of Vermont maple, our substitute for shittim wood. I planed it and cut it to size, and used my Hitachi router's ¼" roundover bit to apply a simple, smooth edge treatment. I've also covered it with our substitute gold material, so now I'm ready to attach it to the case. But before that, we have to add an essential part to our mercy seat. CHERUBS The Ark must have two cherubim mounted at the edges of the mercy seat. The Bible calls for beaten gold, but that's just not possible in a soft economy. Also, most of us would have trouble making a cherub out of any material. So for advice, we turned to Sir Lyman Gilmore, Director of Biblical Restorations at the British Museum. He put us in touch with a retired specialist in restoration, Infratemporal Fossa. Dr. Fossa directed us to Depota di Cherubi in Milan, a major manufacturer of cherub likenesses. And that's how we ended up with these (holds up cherubs). Here is a pair of injection-molded polycarbonate goldtone cherubs with diffraction grating finish. These will really sparkle when they're mounted on our Ark, and the material will last longer than the real Ark! But there's one more thing. These are Italian cherubs, you'll see, and haven't been circumcised - yet. So we've asked certified mohel Ibraihim Levy to join us today to help us complete our work. He's from Temple Beth El in Boston. (Enter Ibraihim.) Well, Ibraihim, please describe what you're doing there. "Norm, I'm going to use my Binford 3000 Exacto-Milah to get these cuts right the first time. I've done over 15,000 of these ceremonies and it hasn't failed me yet." "You have the honor to be the sandak and hold the cherubs during the actual circumcision. There! And… there! Poifect! So, young men, I say to you 'baruch ha-bah!' Welcome! You are a blessing and a crown and a song of rejoicing unto us and our house and unto the people of Israel." Thanks, Ibraihim! Now I'm going to attach the cherubim to the mercy seat from the bottom. I'll use my Cincinnati-Milacron hole shooter to set up the holes, and attach these little angels with a couple of wood screws. The polycarbonate takes the drilling and screws just fine. As Exodus 25:20 tells us, "the cherubim shall stretch forth their wings on high, covering the mercy seat with their wings, and their faces shall look one to another; toward the mercy seat shall the faces of the cherubims be." So be careful not to mount the cherubs backwards, or who knows what wrath you may incur! Now I'll attach the mercy seat to the Ark. I'm going to use a two-cubit piano hinge, which you can find at any hardware store. First we'll attach it to the mercy seat with wood screws. OK. Now, let's use the same technique to attach it to our Ark. Done! WRAPUP And there it is, ready to go. Attractive, useful, and with roots back to the start of Judaism and Christianity. It's a little early to use our Ark for worship or storing testimonies from God, because we have some accessories to build. Also, we'll need to consecrate it. But until then, it's still a handy chest for storing other keepsakes. Now keep in mind that our materials have varied a bit from Biblical requirements. So it's not exactly an Orthodox Ark; it's sort of a Reform Ark. COMING UP Well, that's all we have time for today. Tune in next week, when we'll show you how to make the table, the curtains and the other accessories essential for creating an entire tabernacle. If you had as much fun with building this Ark as we did, we think you'll enjoy our other Biblical carpentry projects. And remember, The New Hebrew Workshop isn't just for Jews! After all, Jesus of Nazareth was a carpenter, a much respected trade in Judea. Mohammed was a shepherd and Buddha was a minor prince, but heck, we think their followers will enjoy the show, too. Also, be sure to join me and my friend Steve Thomas on "This Old Church," coming up next. We'll be starting a new renovation project in Jericho, beginning with the demolition. Get out your shofar and join us. Goodbye! Shalom!
Telephone:
530-265-4705 Email: info@wvswrite.com
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