This we know for certain, that whenever and wherever we respond to an inner impulse by the utterance of a prayer, God is near us, for “He is nigh unto all them that call upon him, to all that call upon him in truth” (Ps. cxlv. 18); that we and the place on which we stand are hallowed by the Divine Presence. Places once hallowed by such devotion, whether of our own or of our fellow-men, we like to visit again and again for the same purpose. The spot of Jacob’s first communion with God thus became “the house of God;” and even during the period when there was one central Sanctuary for the Sacrificial Service in Israel, at Gilgal, Mizpah, Shiloh, and later in Jerusalem, there were houses of God throughout the country for devotion unaccompanied by sacrifices. These were “the meeting-places of God” (Ps. lxxiv. 8), in which the Israelites assembled to meet their Creator. Such houses of God were established wherever Jews settled; their main purpose was united devotion; but they served also many other purposes—in fact, every holy, good, and noble cause. The house of God was the Assembly-house, Synagogue (‏בית הכנסת‎), in which the affairs of the community (‏צרכי צבור‎) were settled; the young had there their school, adults came there for religious instruction, and found there opportunity for the study of the Law, and the poor and stranger received there support and hospitality. In a Jewish Synagogue there were two important features, the platform (‏בימה‎) and an ark (‏תבה‎) containing scrolls of the Law. From the platform in the middle of the Synagogue, the lessons from the Pentateuch and the Prophets were recited, and everything else that was directly or indirectly addressed to the congregants. But prayers addressed to the Most High were offered up from a lower place near the Holy Ark, [145] in accordance with the words of the Psalmist (cxxx. 1), “Out of the depth have I cried unto thee, O Lord.” The Ark, or Holy Ark (‏ארון‎ or ‏ארון הקדש‎), in almost all modern Synagogues—in places west of Jerusalem—occupies the middle of the east side of the Synagogue. In the time of the Talmud the Synagogues were to some extent made to resemble the Tabernacle which the Israelites built in the wilderness or the Temple in Jerusalem. The entrance was from the east, and the Ark, which was to represent the Most Holy, was in the west. The Ark was, like the original one, movable. It was called tebhah, lit. “box,” in order to distinguish it from the original. The recess in which it was kept was the Hechal or Kodesh, “The Holy.” The tebhah seems to have served both as a receptacle for the scrolls of the Law, and as a desk on which these were put whenever they were required for the reading of the Torah. On certain extraordinary occasions, when, on account of the absence of rain, a general fast was ordered, the tebhah, with a Sefer-torah on it, was carried into the street, [146] where a special service was held.