[Avodah] Carrying the aron (ark) while walking backwards

[Micha Berger]

On Mon, Mar 24, 2025 at 10:15:30PM -0400, Yonatan Kaganoff via Avodah wrote:
> According to the Rambam in Hilchos Klei ha-Mikdash ve-ha-Ovdim Bo 2:13:
...
> When [the Levites] carry the ark on their shoulders, they should carry it
> face to face, with their backs pointed outward and their faces inward.
> 
> Thus those in the front will be walking backwards so that they won't be
> turning their backs to the aron.

Or, everyone was walking sideways. It depends which say the badim
ran when they carried it.

Also, it was usually wrapped up anyway. So, maybe this was only when they
took off the tekhheiles cloth and took the aron out of the tachash-skin
covering. So that this din would only apply when setting up or putting
away the Mishkan. And when travelling and the aron was doubly covered,
they walked normally.

The proble is that the Rambam himself doesn't mention this limitation,
no matter how much it makes sense to me.  And even worse for this theory,
halakhah 12 is about not using a wagon to move it, citing David's forgetting
this law and what happened to Uzzah (Shemuel II 6:2-8) And in that instance,
the aron was travelling, not just being put into or taken out of its
coverings. So it's even harder to argue that halakhah 13 is more limited
and yet the Rambam different differentiate, making it look like a list of
laws for the same situation(s).

But perhaps more likely: It's the same reason why the shape of the tablets
in Rembrandt's Moses with the Ten Commandments (1696) are far far more
often depicted than the brick-like shape of the real Luchos. Why be
surprised that artists don't always know their Rambam.

-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger                 "'When Adar enters, we increase our joy'
http://www.aishdas.org/asp    'Joy is nothing but Torah.'
Author: Widen Your Tent       'And whoever does more, he is praiseworthy.'"
- https://amzn.to/2JRxnDF                   - Rav Dovid Lifshitz zt"l