Tips for Jewish Living

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These Words on Your Heart and on Your Doorposts

By Sabena Stark

Home is where I hang my hat. More specifically, it's where I kick off my shoes and play with loved ones, wrestle with my Muse, and engage in prayer and meditation. But it’s also where I do practical things like eat and sleep, vacuum floors and wash clothes, tend the garden and relocate snails (I take the "Do not kill" thing pretty seriously).

Jewish tradition offers a way to sanctify this special place called home. The mezuzah, our quintessential Jewish house adornment, helps us bring our best selves with us when we travel from the arena of the larger society into a private dwelling. A mezuzah is a spiritual traffic sign, a reminder to keep moving toward the Holy One when we step over that threshold from outside to inside. The word mezuzah has multiple meanings. It means "doorpost." It's also the name of a handwritten scroll of prayer. And it's the case that contains the scroll.

Dedication – Chanukat HaBayit
Attaching a mezuzah to the frame of your front door can be a wonderful way to celebrate a new house or apartment. The ritual for affixing the mezuzah is called Chanukat HaBayit, or "dedication of the house." Traditionally, the top of the case should slant inward toward the entrance, a compromise between dueling rabbinical protocols of vertical placement (Rashi) and horizontal (Rashi’s grandson, Rabeinu Tam). The mezuzah is positioned about shoulder height and, if possible, a few inches from the door.

For a community Chanukat HaBayit, rabbinical student Rachel Bat Or suggests that each guest can offer a blessing for the new abode and tap in the case-holding nails just a little bit. The last few taps can be saved for the members of the new household. Here is the simple prayer for attaching a mezuzah and a lovely translation by Rabbi Goldie Milgram:

Baruch atah Blessed are you
Adonai My G-d/Threshold (Adon, the root word of Adonai means threshold)
Eloheinu Our G-d, the
melech organizing principle of
ha-olam the universe (olam = world, eternity or universe)
asher through which
kiddishanu our holiness comes in the
b’mitzvosav doing [mitzvot] (sacred acts of consciousness)
v’tzivanu such as Your guidance
likboah to affix
m’zuzah. a mezuzah.

What's in the Box?
A kosher mezuzah contains a parchment called a klaf, inscribed with the Shema and Ve’ahavta prayers, Devarim 6:4-9 and 3. These prayers state, in essence, "Do what is asked of you by the Holy One, to love and serve the Eternal with your entire being. Put these words on your heart and teach them to your children. Talk about them at home and when you journey, when you go to sleep and when you rise. Write them on your doorposts and your gates." Some Jews put a mezuzah on the doorway of each room except the bathroom. There are even mezuzot you can attach to your car! May we all reside in and create a shelter of peace.