Mezzuzot

Every Jew should have mezzuzot on their doors.

What is exactly mezuzah? It is not the case that we nail on our doorframe.  The mezuzah is what lies inside the case. What is inside? Most of us never open one to see. 

One day a man’s curiosity got the better of him pulled the mezuzah off his door frame and peered inside.  Inside was a message: “Help.  Call the police. I am imprisoned in a mezuzah factory!”

What is really inside? It is a hand written parchment, just like our Torah, containing sections from the holy Writ. Scribed by hand are the words of the Shma and following sections that we pray daily. Each parchment must have exactly 22 lines and on the reverse side have God’s name, Shaddai.

Mezzuzot are ongoing reminders of God’s presence in our lives and in our homes. We see them on the right-hand side as we enter into the house. Traditionally, we touch it and kiss it as we go into our home seeking God’s blessing. It is at eye level so that we cannot miss seeing it when we come into our house.

When I visited Poland years ago I walked through the old town of Krakow. I saw one doorway after another with a rectangle about 4 inches long and 1 inch wide carved into the lintels.  These once Jewish homes are mute testimony to the vibrant life that once thrived in the communities of Eastern Europe.

Those old scars in the doorways tell stories. Once there were weddings and brises in this home. People gathered around seder tables and sang and studied. Children were chased and chastised. Love was consummated. Chicken soup wafted on the breeze every Friday evening along with the scent of freshly baked hallah.

Now there is only silence.  Yet these empty spaces are witnesses.

Our mezuzah also testifies to what happens there. They are watchful reminders of a power far greater than us.  They mark our homes as Jews who are proud to be counted as God’s people.  Like the lintels marked in Egypt during the final plague, they invite the Holy One to enter and bless us.

The threshold to every house is small; it is passed and a fraction of a second. Yet the threshold is also boundary. It divides the outside world from the inner world. It separates the home from the street, an office from the hall. This space bridges two worlds and is marked by a mezuzah.

Every room in our home has a mezuzah (the only exception is the bathroom).  This creates sacred space.  It is an invitation to God that the Holy One is welcome here.  It also reminds us that our home is holy and to treat everyone in it with care, not God forbid, with abuse or neglect.

Torah and Us

The problem is us. Not them. Us.

We get in the way of ourselves. We become hopelessly tangled up in the mess we have created. Lives become shattered as wrong words pierce the soul. Feelings are hurt and forever bruised with an offhand remark that was never intended to wound.

We later wonder, “How did it happen?”  “What was the catalyst for such pain?”

”Before you can find God, you must lose yourself,”said the Baal Shem Tov.

How do we find ourselves if we do not know that were lost in the first place? 

For the Jew the beginning and the end can be found in Torah. Genesis details the deliberate actions of the Lord and crafting the universe. Generation after generation wrestles with identity, truth and looks for peace.  We see in their faces the sorrow and the burdens that they carry as we retell and relive the Text year after year. The disappointments run deep. And still God hopes in us.

“Being full of ourselves leaves little room for the Divine Presence to dwell. Egotism is inherently anti-spiritual. Arrogance can be seen as a form of self worship that comes dangerously close to idolatry,”wrote Aaron Z. 

And so we move into the book of Exodus where God reveals himself, His will and His faith in us. God never abandons hope in what we can become.  That is why He shared His most precious possession, Torah, with us.  It is our guidebook to be less prideful, more humble, more inwardly loving and outwardly caring.  With clearer vision from its sacred words we see life for what it can be, not just what it is.

Moving forward into the book of Leviticus we learn how to talk to God and listen more intently to one another.  It teaches us how to reach into our inner core of being and be open, vulnerable and honest.  We learn the value of sacrifice.

In the fourth book of the Torah, Numbers, we learn about our worth. This book teaches the incalculable value of our people. Every person is holy and our nation is holy. You will find idea this stated in our prayers over and again. One Hasidic Sage commented, “Man is the language of God.”   

In the final book of the Torah, Deuteronomy we learn the power of loss and love.   A wise person once said, “If everyone of us was told we had only five minutes to live, the telephone lines would be hopelessly jammed because all of us would be rushing to tell someone how much we really loved them.”   Deuteronomy is Moses’ love song to his nation as he is about to die.  The book is filled with deep wisdom reminding us of the precious knowledge contained in these books.

With Torah we are rich.  We are one.

Hanukkah

The Festival of Lights. Even the name itself rings lustrous. Brightly burning flames, the aroma of frying latkes, shadows playing over the wall: they jump, fall and the rise again. We never know where they will go next.  In the deep recesses of winter we light the colored candles that radiate great hope when light becomes dimmest.

The Hanukkah stories are well worn. We are very familiar with the great wars, triumphs and amazing heroism of the Maccabees. We recall Mattathias, an old man standing up to a tyrannical power, and the handsome, winning bravery of Judah Maccabee  The stories are remembered and retold from year to year, generation to the willing ears of the new generation who listen wide-eyed with anticipation of what is coming.  These stories have all the components that summon our attention: they speak of a daring and courageous history where courage and light purge the land of Israel from impurity. Once we were fierce warriors. It was a different world.   

A child peers into the brilliance of the dancing flames and sees those epic battles relives them. Remember how many times we experienced and saw brave warriors in our minds, vanquishing all the enemies of the Jews! It is the moment of consummate triumph when we turned back the Greeks, the Pharaohs, the Hamans and even the Hitlers of history.

Which was better -- when mommy told us the stories as we lit the candles?  Or when we anxiously turned the pages of the book, or watched the movie?  It was a great and promising story from beginning to end. There is a clear demarcation of those that were wicked and bad and the other side, which was brave and righteous.  The good guys with God on their side prevailed.

What about the family playing dreidel that night? The gathered family and friends to celebrate, nosh and schmooze around the Hanukkiah?  When we push through all the cobwebs of the mind and remember those halcyon days they bring a smile to our face. Even now lips begin to curl upward in anticipation. We cannot help but recall the bubbling sound of frying potatoes in the kitchen. And the table set for eating, mixed together with a sulfurous odor from the Hanukkah lights.

Hanukkah was always warm. Steamed, fogged windows framed with light patches of water droplets.  Little fingers that drew pictures on the windows during those evenings when darkness came early.

The evenings were long. Filled with the sounds of voices, air that was so thick that it penetrated every fiber of our bodies, songs, games, stories…. it is hard to remember when it all ended. Did we get dressed slowly into pajamas?  Or did the night suddenly end as tired eyelids folded over and tiny bodies were tucked into bed? Those things remain in our hearts. The quilts under which our body snuggled became infused with the smell and the excitement of the sacred evening.

Good night and Hanukkah sameach.