By Donald H. Harrison
SAN DIEGO – On a day last year, Rebecca Cohen mentioned to Rebbetzin Debra Trestman of the Beit Betzalel Chabad of North County Inland that husband Jack’s and her middle son, Doron, was trying to decide what he should do for his Eagle Scout project.
The rebbetzin pointed out that their recently-created shul in the Rancho Bernardo neighborhood of San Diego, adjoining the City of Poway, needed to obtain an Aron Kodesh, a Holy Ark.
Doron Cohen, then a junior at Poway High School, checked with his Eagle Scout counselor, and once getting approval for the project, consulted with Rabbi Dr. Yehuda (Kenneth) Trestman, who is both a pulmonologist with the Palomar/ Pomerado Hospital Group and a Chabad rabbi. The rabbi told Doron that it would be ideal if the Holy Ark could house three sefer Torahs because the congregation already had two Torah scrolls and arrangements were being made for a third one to come from South Africa.
Rabbi Trestman noted on Sunday, May 28, when the Aron Kodesh was officially dedicated, that there are days on the Hebrew calendar when it is practical to read from three different Torah scrolls.“One of them is when Chanukah falls on Shabbos,” he said.“You take out the sefer Torah for Shabbos; another sefer Torah for Chanukah, and another sefer Torah for the reading of the maftir. So, you have these three different passages, and what happens if you have only one sefer Torah, you are scrambling at the last minute to scroll forward or scroll backwards.”
Doron was advised that the Holy Ark should measure approximately 5 ½ feet tall, 3 to 4 feet wide, and 2 feet deep. He began construction in December 2022 at the Poway High School’s wood shop under the supervision of teacher Roger Dohm, continuing it off and on as classroom and sports schedules permitted, through April 2023. Doron–who played for four years on Poway High’s baseball team, the last year as a pitcher–made the Holy Ark from A-grade birch plywood, fastening it with screws, then applying wood stain and gloss. Doron enlisted the help of his friends to transport it to the sanctuary of the Chabad shul.
A member of Poway High School’s robotics team for the last two years, Doron is the son of a structural engineer, and the younger brother of Mois Cohen, 20, who for his Eagle Scout project constructed a rigging system for trash cans at Lake Poway. So, Doron, 18, did not lack for people, including his mother, 15-year-old brother Ariel, and friends Evan Tantuwaya and Blake Mihata, to ask for suggestions and occasional assistance. However, the project essentially was accomplished by Doron, who will study mechanical engineering when he enters Purdue University this coming fall as a freshman.
At the dedication on Sunday, considerable symbolism was found in a Cohen (believed to be descended from the priests of ancient Judaism) to have built an Ark at a synagogue named after “Betzalel,” which in addition to being the name of Rabbi Trestman’s father also was the name of the person identified in the Book of Exodus as the man who built the Ark of the Covenant, with the help of Oholiab.
Doron’s father, Jack, commented that “by Divine providence, Doron’s bar mitzvah parsha was Terumah, which prescribes the construction of the Mishkan, or Tabernacle. The central feature of the Tabernacle was the Ark which housed the 10 Commandments.”
Building an Ark is not simply making a piece of furniture, Trestman told Doron and those who joined them at a celebratory breakfast following morning prayers. “You are doing something holy; you are doing something for God, and you are doing something for the community. It is a Kiddush Hashem, sanctifying God’s name, in your community.”
Obtained from elsewhere, a separate wood carving, featuring two lions bracketing a crowned set of the Ten Commandments, was placed atop the Aron Kodesh, which itself is decorated with Stars of David on both doors.
While Doron was not the first Eagle Scout to build an Aron Kodesh, he is a member of a very small, select group of people who did. In 2019, Takeshi Shiratori built one for a fledgling Jewish congregation in Bahrain.
A Boy Scout must earn 22 merit badges to qualify as an Eagle Scout. Doron earned 25. When the emblem signifying that he was now an Eagle Scout was affixed to his uniform, it brought the number of distinctions to 26. “In Judaism, we have gematria (assigning numeric values to words),” Rabbi Trestman noted. “So, 26 is the gematria for Yud, Hay, Vuv, Hay (the spelling of a name of God, which is not pronounced). How fitting that in becoming an Eagle Scout, you are expressing one of God’s names on your dress. You represent God in the world by doing this.”
On Tuesday evening, May 30, Doron’s Boy Scout Troop 685 will conduct a Court of Honor ceremony in an all-purpose room of the Del Sur Elementary School of the Poway Unified School District recognizing scouts who have advanced in rank, culminating with Eagle Scout recognition.
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Donald H. Harrison is editor emeritus of San Diego Jewish World. He may be contacted via donald.harrison@sdjewishworld.com