In the Temple service, everyone bowed thirteen times, corresponding to the thirteen shofar-shaped collection boxes and the thirteen tables arrayed in the sanctuary. Yet those who belonged to the houses of Rabban Gamliel and Rabbi Chananiah, the president of the priests, bowed fourteen times.
The extra bow always faced the same direction: toward the wood store in the north side of the courtyard. They bowed there because of a family tradition, handed down from their ancestors, that the Ark of the Covenant had been hidden beneath that spot before the First Temple fell.
The tradition began with an accident. A priest was once working near the wood store and noticed that one section of the plaster differed from the rest. He started off to tell his colleagues what he had seen, but before he could speak a word, he dropped dead. The very suddenness of his death was taken as proof. The secret had wanted to stay secret. It could only be confirmed and then sealed again. From that day, everyone knew the Ark lay hidden there, and the descendants of those priestly houses never approached without adding the fourteenth bow (Shekalim 6:1-2).
The Temple was destroyed, the sages teach, but the Ark was never captured. It waits still, beneath stones that will one day be uncovered.