Why the Ark Was Made of Wood and How the Tablets Were Written

"And they shall make an ark of acacia wood" (Exodus 25:10). Why of wood? Because the Torah is called "a tree of life" (Proverbs 3:18). There were beams of acacia in Migdal Tzava'it. They came and asked Rabbi Hananiah: may one make use of them for work? He said to them: since your fathers practiced a prohibition regarding them, do not change the custom of your fathers, may they rest in peace. How were the tablets written? Hananiah, the nephew of Rabbi Joshua, says: five on this tablet and five on that tablet, as it is said, "and He wrote them on two tablets of stone" (Deuteronomy 4:13). But the Rabbis say: ten on this tablet and ten on that tablet, as it is said, "and He declared to you His covenant which He commanded you to perform, the ten words" (Deuteronomy 4:13), ten on this tablet and ten on that tablet. Rabbi Simeon ben Yohai says: twenty on this tablet and twenty on that tablet. And Rabbi Simai says: forty on this tablet and forty on that tablet, written as a shorthand cipher [notarikon, abbreviated forms]. Hananiah, the nephew of Rabbi Joshua, says: between one utterance and the next lay the fine points and the letters of the Torah, "set with beryl" (Song of Songs 5:14), like the great sea. When Rabbi Simeon ben Lakish reached this verse he would say: well did Hananiah, the nephew of Rabbi Joshua, teach me. Just as in this sea, between one great wave and the next there are many small waves, so between one utterance and the next lie the fine points and letters of the Torah. What is the reasoning of Rabbi Meir? "And you shall put the cover upon the ark from above" (Exodus 25:21). It is the view of Rabbi Meir that there is no earlier and later in the Torah; rather, "and into the ark you shall put the testimony which I shall give you" (Exodus 25:16), and afterward "and you shall put the cover upon the ark from above." Rabbi Pinhas in the name of Rabbi Simeon ben Yohai: the Torah that the Holy One, blessed be He, gave to Moses was white fire engraved with black fire; it is from fire, hewn from fire, given from fire, as it is said, "from His right hand a fiery law for them" (Deuteronomy 33:2). "And they shall make an ark of acacia wood." He said to them: you have prepared lodging for Myself, and now prepare lodging for the Torah, that it may dwell beside Me, for it is My delight, with which I delighted two thousand years before the world, as it is said, "then I was beside Him as a nursling" (Proverbs 8:30). "Two and a half cubits."