The Ark of the Covenant from an Engineering Perspective

The thesis of this paper is this: It might be entirely possible that the sequences described in the Torah pertaining the the fire that emerges from the Ark of the Covenant are explainable by the physics of high energy electrical fields, hence while awesome, are not a miracle in the sense of needing divine intervention to work.

The Torah portion Shemini (the eighth (day)) contains the tragic deaths of Aaron’s sons, Nadav and Avihu, who were burned to death after spontaneously deciding to bring incense pans with “strange fire”  into the part of the Traveling Tent called the Mishkan that held the Ark of the Covenant.

There are many interpretations of this confounding anecdote about the fiery death of these two young men. Was it a punishment on them, or a punishment on their father Aaron for the golden calf incident? Was it because they wore the wrong clothes or brought eish zara, a strange fire with them?

Being an electrical engineer I have a theory about this tragedy, that comes about from the very nature of the Ark of the Covenant itself. To see a source of this, we have to look back to the sections that describe how to construct the ark, and the vestments the high priest must wear when approaching it, written in 1933 by a Dean of Electrical Engineering.

According to an article that appeared in the March 5th, 1933 edition of the Chicago Daily Tribune, Frederick Rogers, the Dean of the Department of Engineering at the Lewis Institute of Technology, conducted a careful study of the construction of the Ark as described in the Bible, and concluded that its design matched a perfectly constructed simple electric condenser:

The scientific interest in the construction pointed out by Prof. Rogers was that the acacia wood box—about 40 inches long and slightly less than 30 inches in width and in depth—not only was lined with gold teal on the inside but overlaid with the same metal without.

This, according to Prof. Rogers, is the first step that any modern boy with a flare for electrical experimentation will take to create a Leyden jar, except that in the Leyden jar, a glass receptacle is coated on the inside and outside with tin foil instead of gold. Then, with the aid of a rod with a small knob at the top and a short chain at the bottom which is inserted through the cork so that the chain can make contact with the bottom of the jar, the young experimenter is ready to collect small charges of bottled lighting.

But the Ark of the Covenant was a much larger condenser….The divine directions called for the creation of two cherubim of pure gold to be placed on a gold slab or “mercy seat” overtop the Ark. These cherubim, Prof. Rogers explained, made up what he believes to have been the positive pole of the circuit.

He explained…that it is known among physicists that a “difference of potential” exists between the earth and the air which may be collected in electrical charges under certain favorable conditions…It was explained that even slight movements of heat rising in smoke—such as from burning sacrifices or even incense—would distribute lesser charges of static electricity….This, Prof. Rogers explained, may have accounted for the collecting of bolts powerful enough to cause death.

https://gizmodo.com/the-engineer-who-said-the-ark-of-the-covenant-was-a-gia-1598583115

Professor Rogers established the fact that the details for the construction of the ark would have likely made it a very powerful electrical condenser,  also called a capacitor. A capacitor is designed to hold electrical energy, and the larger the capacitor the more charge it can hold.  A Leyden jar, or large capacitor can certainly hold enough electrical charge to create a spark large enough to look like lightning, and strong enough to kill.

A giant modern electrical capacitor
Moses and Joshua bowing before the Ark (c. 1900). Gouache on board, 18.7 x 22.5 cm (7 3/8 x 8 13/16 in). Jewish Museum, New York City: a giant ancient capacitor?

If the Ark was indeed a giant capacitor, numerous sections of the Torah make sense from the point of view of electrical safety. Let’s consider the world today where the electrical grid is the world’s largest machine, and we have this powerful force of electricity so controlled as to be literally at our fingertips.

You may occasionally see modern-day installations called electrical substations. They are fenced areas surrounding a lot of scary-looking equipment, and electrical lines coming and out.

Electrical substation in Moore County, North Carolina

Having worked with a supplier of electrical equipment I spent some time inside the fence of electrical substations in and around Tennessee. There’s a reason they are fenced and have large warning signs.

When you go inside the fence, and approach high voltages you can feel the power – there’s a low-frequency hum everywhere, and your body senses the strong electrical field.

For a bunch of wandering ex-slaves wandering in the Sinai peninsula electricity would have only been apparent as lightning where its appearance often signaled a life-threatening thunderstorm. Being able to channel, and be safe from lightning is a power that is referred to in many cultural mythologies – think of Thor and Zeus and their mythic control over lightning.

If we accept the idea that the Ark is a giant capacitor a couple of questions arise in the minds of the curious engineer: What can charge up this capacitor, and how do ensure no one gets electrocuted from it? But the big question is: What do a bunch of desert wanderers need with a giant capacitor?

Layout of the Mishkan. Note the Ark is in line with the Altar

In Leviticus 9:24 at the dedication of the Mishkan, all the Israelites were gathered in front of the altar to witness the glory of God.

And there came a fire out from before the LORD, and consumed upon the altar the burnt offering and the fat: which when all the people saw, they shouted, and fell on their faces.

Looking at the diagram above, it’s plausible that this holy fire emerged from the innermost vault where the ark of the covenant had been storing up electrical energy, and jumped as lightning to the altar, burning the offering to a crisp.

Obedience by Awe

The Hebrew word יראה (Yirah) has two meanings; sometimes it is interpreted as fear, and sometimes as awe. Whenever miracles are presented in the Torah, they invoke both awe and fear, which gets used to keep the unruly Israelites in line to keep the commandments Moses received from God.

The American Heritage dictionary defines a miracle as:

        1. An event that appears inexplicable by the laws of nature and so is held to be supernatural in origin or an act of God.

which also reminds me of the quote from Arthur C. Clarke about miracles:

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

The thesis of this paper is this: It might be entirely possible that the sequences described in the Torah pertaining the the fire that emerges from the Ark of the Covenant are explainable by the physics of high energy electrical fields, hence while awesome, are not a miracle in the sense of needing divine intervention to work.

But the show is certainly impressive and was probably a key element of keeping a bunch of unruly ex-slaves from constantly questioning why they had to do so many things that didn’t make sense to them.  The Torah is full of wisdom about how to sustainably manage, move, and feed a large population, but then, like now, many people distrust leadership and only want to do what they understand and agree with. Having an image of an all-powerful God was a pretty useful tool for maintaining obedience, for keeping people behaving in a way that was good for long-term societal survival, even if they didn’t always understand why. Having Him perform the occasional miracle helped cement the fear of consequences, and encourage obedience.  As it says in Exodus 24:6

נַעֲשֶׂ֥ה וְנִשְׁמָֽע – na’aseh v’nishmah
They said, “All that Adonai has spoken, we will do and we will listen.”

Charging up the Ark: Smoke and Fire

Given there was no electrical grid at the time, the surest way to charge a capacitor is with lightning – nature has used lighting for 3.5 billion years or so and may be the initial spark that created life on Earth.

The wandering Israelites didn’t have to wait for lightning storms to charge up the ark, because a pillar of smoke and fire accompanied the mishkan throughout its journey. Through the pillar of fire, lighting could descend and charge the large capacitor which was the ark of the covenant. The concurrence of lighting inside a column of smoke is well established, and is called pyrocumulonombi – fire clouds.

Tesla coil at the Spark Museum in Bellingham WA

Protecting audience members and staff from is of course an important safety factor, and is accomplished with a device called a Faraday Cage. Developed from the theories of Michael Faraday in the 19th century, a Faraday shield is a metal cage. Faraday discovered that an external electric field could be completely stopped by a surrounding metal shield, and there would be no electrical field inside the cage. Faraday cages are used regularly to create regions free from electrical interference, for testing electrical equipment. Some people even experiment with going inside them to feel what it’s like to be in an environment somewhat free of electromagnetic fields.

A ground connection for a house

For maximum safety, the Faraday Cage should be grounded, i.e. connected directly to the earth with a low-resistance copper cable. You may have seen this same grounding cable in your own home near the electrical box, where a large braided or twisted copper cable connects the electrical ground plugs of all the outlets in your home to the earth. At one time that was done by clamping the copper cable onto a metal water pipe, but now in the age of plastic pipes, you’ll often find the house ground connection attached to a spike just outside the foundation of your house.

The Torah has a lengthy and detailed description of the robes that were to be worn by the High Priest when he approached the innermost section of the Mishkan where the ark of the covenant was stored. It seems very possible that the design was meant to act as a wearable Faraday cage.

The Faraday Cage of the Ephod

The Torah goes into great details as to the proper design and construction of the Ephod, and it includes a lot of gold. Gold is long recognized to be one of the best electrical conductors.

Exodus 28:4 “These are the vestments they are to make: a breastpiece, an ephod, a robe, a fringed tunic, a headdress, and a sash. They shall make those sacral vestments for your brother Aaron and his sons, for priestly service to Me

28:6 “They shall make the ephod of gold, of blue, purple, and crimson yarns, and of fine twisted linen, worked into designs.”
 
So the Ephod is a garment laced with gold thread, the essence of making it a Faraday shield.
 

Exodus 28:33 “On its hem make pomegranates of blue, purple, and crimson yarns, all around the hem, with bells of gold between them all around

Various renderings show these bells and pomegranates differently but being at the hem of the ephod, the golden bells will touch the floor, effectively grounding the ephod.

28:55 “Aaron shall wear it while officiating, so that the sound of it is heard when he comes into the sanctuary before יהוה and when he goes out—that he may not die.”

This sounds like a warning of prevention, very much like the High Voltage warning in the sign above.

28:43 “These [garments] must be worn by Aharon and his sons whenever they come into Tent of Meeting, or approach the altar to serve in the Holy [sanctuary], in order that they not bear iniquity and die. This is an everlasting statute for him and his descendants after him.”

For those who thought that it was petty to think that Aaron’s sons, Nadab and Avihu died because they “wore the wrong clothes” I hope this puts that in a new light – the Ark had the potential to hold a massive electrical charge accumulated from lighting and pyrocumulism, and approaching it and its dangerously high electrical fields needed protective clothing, like the Ephod – a highly prescribed precisely constructed, grounded, wearable Faraday shield meant to protect humans from the powerful forces of high voltage electricity.

Nadav and Avihu’s deaths were tragic, and unnecessary, and a harsh reminder that some rules are in place for safety, even if not everyone understands the reason. Na’aseh v’nishmah.

 

 

Loading

Cross-Country to Montréal

Our diary of taking our electric car from Vancouver BC to Montreal PQ with a diversion to Fallingwater, PA

Well, the day has finally come! We are packing up the car, the cooler, the luggage, the clarinet and the charging cables to start east. We have a free-ranging itinerary, with some key dates;

Fallingwater Tour August 8, Montreal Schalkwyk family gather Aug 10, and KlezKanada Aug 21. Along the way, we’ll try to capture interesting sites and share them with you. D & T

packing up Nik for the road
Three Vallley Gap along the Trans-Canada Highway used to be a family stopping ground for our family. It must have suffered lots of setback over Covid, but most of all the loss of Gordon Bell in 2017 seems to have taken the wind out of the their sales.

Three Valley Gap is one of those grand projects that had to take tremendous energy to build and sustain. It’s in a windy crag at the end of the icy-cold Three Valley Lake and has an amazing collection of old farm and train equipment.

The creation of Three Valley Lake Chateau and Heritage Ghost Town was a labour of love for the Bells. It began in 1956, when the couple purchased the land here. By 1960, the Bells had built a seven-seat coffee shop, seven-room motel, and museum. Today, the chateau boasts 200 rooms , a swimming pool and a theatre. – Canada’s History

Three Valley Gap has lots of construction wonders, seems it must have had its own metal fabrication shop, attested to by the uniquely shaped lights, and several custom bridges
one of the many custom metalworks around Three Valley Gap

Day 3, Canmore: 892 km covered, 4579 km to go. On Friday we arrived in Canmore, for a day of rest in the Rockies. A morning of paddle-boarding around the Banff Canoe Club was glorious as we plied the green waters of the Bow river. Dave needed some help getting back to the dock after deciding he would jump off his paddleboard and swim to the dock, underestimating both the temperature and the current. The dock staff seemed very eager to do a rescue and brought the rescue canoe around before he drifted too far down towards the rapids…

The Canmore folk festival is this weekend so after dinner at Rocket Pie we will try to catch the evening concert, then off across Alberta tomorrow morning…

Day 4, Swift Current Saskatchewan, 1467 km covered, 4004 km to go.

Day 5 Katepwa Lake Provincial Park, Saskatchewan 1,944 km. Dave really wanted to be at a lakeside on this holiday Monday so we detoured to Katepwa Lake, a provincial park in Saskatchewan. Just like most provincial parks on a summer long weekend it was abuzz with kids in blow-up devices, watchful parents, and fast jet-skis.

Day 6 Winnipeg 2,332km so far. We wanted to be in the city, and found this new boutique hotel called there mere along the river. They have complimentary bikes for guests so we rode all along the riverwalk. I wish we had time to see the Museum of Civilization!

Day 7: Fergus Falls MN, km 2,775. We’ve established our morning routine since we move every day, with repacking various bags and gear to be more efficient. As we reach one of out daily charging spots we decide how much farther we want to drive and start looking for accommodation. I check booking.com where the standard fare come up – Motel 6, Super 8, Hampton Suites, they are all about the same look and the same price but vary a lot with location. Then Tilly checks airbnb while I look at TripAdvisor for anything that might be more interesting, and figuratively or literally off the beaten track. We are getting better at this, and were rewarded with a beautiful airbnb house on a farm outside Fergus Falls MN.

Day 8 km 3,207. After Fergus Falls we went through Tom Tumbles and Tim Trips. Just kidding. Since we only want to drive about 6 hours each day we kind of draw a circle around the area we want to stop and look for accomodation there. For Day 8 the circle was around Monomonie WI, but accommodations seemed limited to the basic travel hotels. I was about to settle for one of those then decided to look a little farther down the road and Eau Claire sprung forward with many more hotel options. It turns out Eau Claire (which we’d translate as Clearwater) is one of the best places to live in Wisconsin – a delightful town with some well-maintained old sections and a riverwalk that featured a live concert when we were there.

Day 9, km 3,713 Chicago IL. We have a couple must-meet dates on this trip. On August 8 we are booked for a hard-to-get tour of Fallingwater, so we decided to spend our anniversary in Chicago and splurged on staying at the Sofitel. Had our anniversary dinner (and bubbly) at Mccormick and Schmick’s and the next day took the Architecture boat tour.

Day 10 Lafayette IN, km 3,913. While not so exciting in the accommodation department, Lafayette is the home of Purdue University and my restaurant-fu led us to the on-campus 8Eleven Bistro. While I chose it for its menu and great reviews I was unaware that it was named for Purdue alumnus Neil Armstrong, who flew on the Gemini 8 and of course Apollo 11 missions. And the food was out of this world…

Onion soup at the 8Eleven Bistro

Day 11, Mill Run PA km 4,630. Scooting through Ohio we headed for Pennsylvania to get to our reserved B&B in Mill Run, just a five minute drive from Fallingwater. Tilly had to navigate the car through an Ohio deluge of biblical proportion but rolled into the Starlight Bed & Breakfast, and a sneak photo of the Fallingwater sign…

Day 12, Fallingwater km 4,999. It’d been a dream of mine for many years to see Fallingwater, but in spite of long beta-sites in Crawfordsville IN, and many visits to printing plants in Wisconsin I never could quite arrange a trip there. So finally, August 8, 2022 I got to visit Fallingwater. I took many pictures but these two stand out. The quintessential view from where the Kaufman’s thought the house would stand, and a glimpse of the natural sandstone formation that inspired Frank Lloyd Wright to echo that in the very structure of the house.

The natural sandstone that lines the Bear Run Creek
Falliingwater over the two waterfalls. It is spectacular.

As hard as it was to leave Fallingwater we had a couple days to press on to our Montréal destination, and took a couple hours to play around Gananoque and take a tour of (some of the) Thousand Islands. Oh, and Thousand Islands dressing was indeed invented here and consists of green relish, ketchup, and mayonnaise. Now you know.

Montréal has been our destination, for a few days of a Schalkwyk family reunion, then drive north for a week of KlezKanada. It’s been a long drive, with may ups and few downs.

Loading