ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, September 18, 1996 TAG: 9609180064
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CODY LOWE STAFF WRITER
FOR THE congregation at Roanoke's Temple Emanuel, participants in high holy days observances this year are keeping their eyes on the Torah in a whole new way.
On the sabbath before Rosh Hashanah, the congregation dedicated new doors for the ark - the niche or closet at the front of the sanctuary in which the Torah scrolls are kept.
Rosh Hashanah is the Jewish New Year and marked the beginning of the holy days last Saturday. The season ends on Sept. 23 with Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement.
The new ark doors - depicting the biblical symbol of the "tree of life" - "reflect the joyousness of our faith and its many textures," Temple vice president David Nova said during the dedication.
Designed by Roanoke Valley sculptor Linda Atkinson, the doors were carved from Honduran mahogany and inlaid with stained glass for the leaves, through which the Torah scrolls behind may be seen.
In the Bible, the ark in which God's laws were kept was a portable gold-encrusted box.
Rabbi Kathy Cohen explained that the ark has evolved through the centuries to its present form, in which the Torah scrolls are stored standing upright in a permanent storage place in the sanctuary.
The ark has become the focal point of Jewish corporate worship in the United States since World War II, Cohen said, and "next to the Torah, the ark is the most holy and precious" object in the temple.
The project to replace the previous ark doors was conceived in 1994. By the fall of 1995, the coordinating committee had contacted several artists with a prospectus for the doors. Six responded with designs, from which Atkinson's was chosen as the winner.
"It was kind of intimidating," Atkinson said last week. "I'm a contemporary artist," and hadn't considered doing work on a more traditional project, she said.
But, "it was a nice commission, and it was an honor to be asked," she said.
Atkinson visited the temple, took photos of the interior, and began a "mini-survey of Judaism" to make sure she decided on symbols that were appropriate for the doors.
In researching symbols, she "came across the tree of life." As it turned out, the two Hebrew letters displayed on the top portion of the ark stand for "tree of life."
Such a "serendipitous" coincidence settled the issue. "An artist works in an intuitive, spirit-guided way at times," Atkinson said. Sometimes, "things happen that make you think you're on the right track."
Though the "tree of life" is the central symbol of the doors, they also include a representation of a mountain in the background, symbolic of Mount Sinai, where Moses received the Ten Commandments.
Once she settled on the symbol, Atkinson had to work out dozens of details on the actual creation of the doors.
The committee supervising the project had specified that the doors were to allow the congregation to see the Torah scrolls. Atkinson decided to use stained glass for leaves on the tree, through which the congregation would be able to see a suggestion of the scrolls inside when the ark lights were on.
Atkinson worked with several area craftsmen in completing the project, including glass worker John Keenum and woodworker John Popejoy of Wirtz, who helped get the wood for the doors - which weigh 135 pounds each.
After carving the designs in relief on the interior and exterior surfaces of the doors, Atkinson stained them in dark, muted tones to complement both the wood and the bright primary colors of the sanctuary's stained-glass windows.
One of the touches that many in the congregation commented on during the dedication was the lack of visible hardware - including doorknobs or handles.
Instead, Atkinson carved recessed handholds into either side of the trunk of the tree. When the rabbi reaches out to open the ark, she thus "embraces the `tree of life''' to open and reveal the Torah at its center.
"Proverbs says Torah is a `tree of life' to all those who hold fast to it," Cohen said in her dedication sermon. In opening the doors to bring out the Torah scrolls each Sabbath, Cohen will "hold fast" to the tree.
Cohen reminded that congregation that King David, great as he was, was denied the privilege of building a temple in which the Torah would be housed. That was left to his son Solomon.
"We are the generation of Solomon, to make a home for Torah," Cohen said.
"May our Judaism be to us as a tree of life."
LENGTH: Medium: 89 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: ROGER HART/Staff. 1. Roanoke Valley sculptor Lindaby CNBAtkinson designed the new ark doors for the sanctuary at Temple
Emanuel. 2. Atkinson carved the doors from Honduran mahogany. The
Torah scrolls may be seen behind the inlaid stained-glass leaves.
color.