13 Comments
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Avraham's avatar

Need to get the ark exhibited at the wax museum in Tzefas.

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Natan Slifkin's avatar

that's not quite in keeping with our level of art!

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Simon Goulden's avatar

Surely all the floors in the ark were filled to the brim with fish, specifically carp. After all, we have all heard of a multistorey carp ark!

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Nachum's avatar

Har har, but of course there were no fish on the Ark.

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Aryeh Berman's avatar

I was hoping to come tonight but thanks to the chareidi protest on כביש 4, my bus didn't show up.

Big באסה, was looking forward to it.

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Benamouzig's avatar

Although I think your idea of an interactive ark appropriate for playing and interacting activities sounds great, it could also be great without digital screens but appropriate models or dolls of animal and having children play around with that without having to tinker with a digital screen.

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Daniel Popescu / ⧉ Pluralisk's avatar

Excellent analisis! How does regional wildlife art shape national identity?

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Nachum's avatar

The model you're showing looks like a boat, complete with a deck. Is that what the Ark was supposed to look like? "Teiva" means "box". Indeed, in the Epic of Gilgamesh it seems to be a simple cube, with many more than three stories. The Torah version is a very long and thin box, with (it's not completely clear) a roof sloped on two sides or all four, coming to a long peak or a point. The only feature that could be seen from the outside would be the door and the "tzohar," whatever that might be- a window, a hatch, something. It didn't have to sail; it just had to float.

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Natan Slifkin's avatar

Correct, the biblical ark did not have a deck or cabin, and our biblical model does not have one. I'm toying with whether or not to have one on our interactive ark model, for aesthetic purposes.

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Nachum's avatar

Ah, thank you.

Years ago I made a scale drawing of the Ark based just on the pesukim- I still have it somewhere. It can be a bit jarring when considering the pictures we all grew up on.

I have to warn you that I see pigs in that Chinese one. You know how the Jerusalem Zoo has a huge sign declaring (in Hebrew, English, Arabic, and Yiddish) that the peccaries are not pigs- for a good reason. :-)

We have a paper model Ark that came with a kids' book- I imagine you've seen it, they're about ten shekels at Pomerantz Books- which also has pigs, but we're OK with that. :-)

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EJV's avatar

I don’t think pigs mattered then as we were supposed to be vegetarian until the flood and human’s were only permitted to eat meat post flood. Also the rules of kashrut had not been given to us yet.

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Nachum's avatar

Of course, Noah had lots of non-kosher animals on the Ark. My point is that today there are some Jews who react very strongly (without any basis in Jewish law or practice) to even seeing a pig.

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EJV's avatar

I understand your point Nachum. You are correct. Let’s say I was just adding more colour to it.

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