According to Halakhah, we must check the mezuzot in our homes twice every seven years to make sure they are still kosher. When was the last time you checked yours?
Some say a mezuzah check is important because a mezuzah reflects its owner. A friend of mine once went to see a mekubal, a mystic who was an expert in reading mezuzot. When the mekubal examined my friend's mezuzah, he said that he had never seen the letter "Kaf" written so large. He deduced from this that my friend must be a kohain. Indeed, he is. After hearing the story, I thought to myself - pretty cute.
There are others who say checking our mezuzot is important because a mezuzah affects our health. Someone once told me that out of the blue he began having heart murmurs. He went to see various doctors but they were baffled. Around that time, he had his mezuzah checked by a sofer - a scribe. The sofer informed him that the word "levavkha" - "your heart" which is usually spelled with two "vets" was spelled with three "vets" in his mezuzah (Devarim 6:9) After the sofer fixed the mistake, the man's heart murmurs disappeared. My reaction to this story - pretty neat.
There are yet others who believe that the status of a mezuzah impacts our finances, family and future. Recently, I was walking past a sofer's shop and saw a sign in the window: "Need insurance? Get your mezuzah checked!" I thought to myself - pretty scary.
Finally, there are some who say getting your mezuzah checked can be a matter of life and death. A terrorist attack in Israel on a school bus was blamed by one rabbi on the invalid mezuzot that hung in the school. After hearing this explanation of tragedy, I thought to myself - how sick.
Each of these four stories reflects the popular idea that a mezuzah is a magical, amuletic object. It may be that this idea originates in this week's parashah - Parashat Korach. We read here that Korach attempts a rebellion against the authority of Moshe and Aharon. The Talmud Yerushalmi (Sanhedrin 10:1, 27-28a) relates that Korach began his insurgence by posing a number of shylas to Moshe Rabbenu. One of them was: "If a room is filled with Torah scrolls, is it still necessary to affix a mezuzah to its door?" Moshe answered that such a room, indeed, requires a mezuzah. Korach then mocked Moshe by saying, "If one mezuzah, which contains a single passage of the Torah, suffices to fulfill the mitzvah of having a mezuzah, shouldn't a room filled with Torahs, all of which contain the mezuzah's portion, meet the requirement even without a mezuzah?!
The midrash does not inform us of Moshe's response. Perhaps he answered that Korach did not correctly understand the purpose of the mezuzah. Korach assumed that the very presence of a mezuzah in a house or room endowed the room with special protection. The more such passages a room contains - the more safety, the more security, the more insurance. This is also the message which many individuals today - like the mystic, the sofer and the rabbi - want us to believe.
The Torah itself, however, teaches that this is not correct. A mezuzah is not an amulet. The mitzvah of the mezuzah's appearance in Parashat Ve'ethanan - which we say as part of Keriyat Shema - explains its purpose quite clearly. We are to love Hashem with all our essence: the mezuzah helps us to do this by serving as a visual reminder of the mitzvah. One which we will see on every doorway of our houses and rooms.
Moshe may have taught Korach that the mezuzah's purpose must be on our doors, not rolled up in a Torah scroll in our rooms, to function as a reminder. A red string on our finger will help us remember to do something, but that same string wrapped around its original spool and placed in a sewing basket could not serve the same purpose.
At the end of Hilkhot Mezuzah (6:13), the Rambam beautifully describes a mezuzah's purpose. He says that every time we enter and exit a room with a mezuzah, we encounter the unity of Hashem's name. It should remind us of Hashem's love and the fact that nothing in all the world exists without Him. We should therefore immediately be encouraged to follow the straight path which Hashem has laid out for us. As the rabbis of the Talmud said: A person with tefillin on his arm and head, tzitzit on his clothing and a mezuzah on his door is guaranteed not to sin because he is surrounded by so many reminders. These reminders are like angels, which protect us from sinning.
A mezuzah is not a barometer of one's personal life, health or future. When we view these objects as magical amulets, they have failed us as reminders. That is why we must not have our fortunes read from them, purchase the now-popular car mezuzah to protect us on the road or blame our problems on mezuzot which are found to be pasul - invalid.
A story is told about a congregant who visited Israel and wanted to buy an extra special gift for his rabbi. So he purchased the rabbi a mezuzah. When the rabbi opened the gift, he saw a mezuzah case with nothing inside - no kelaf. The rabbi asked, "Nothing else came with the mezuzah?" The congregant replied, "Yes, it included instructions but they were in Hebrew and I figure you knew them, so I threw them out."
This humorous ma'aseh also contains a brilliant insight - the kelaf does contain the instructions. It teaches us how to stay connected to Hashem daily. This is why we must check them twice within every seven years: to ensure that we can still properly read them. If they are illegible, if part of their directions is smudged, missing or incorrect - they are ineffective. This is why the mezuzah check is so important - so that the 22 lines, 170 words and 713 letters can be followed correctly, leading us closer to Hashem and to His holy Torah.
Rabbi
Mordechai Friedfertig
Congregation B'nai Shalom
Williamsville,
New York
Email: mordechai at utj.org
Copyright 1998-2003 by Mordechai Friedfertig