Hi,
Recently we were trying to teach our young son to kiss the mezuzah, when he pulled it off and broke it.
The mezuzah case is now unable to be fixed. The parchment is fine and we can use this in a new case. Is there a custom in getting rid of the case? Are we allowed to just throw it away?
Thank you,
Stephanie

Here is what I answered:

Dear Stephanie,

Even though it is the scroll that is the mitzvah, the case also becomes holy because it is used for a Mitzvah. Therefore the case should be brought to a genizah – that is a place where holy items are brought to be buried in the Jewish cemetery. If you do not know where a genizah is, you should bring it to your local Orthodox synagogue where they will be able to help you.

I would also like to point out that according to custom, when a Mezuzah falls off of the door for any reason, we take it to a certified scribe to have it checked. The reasoning is that if something happened to the Mezuzah, it may be a sign from above that the Mezuzah needs to be tended to. In this matter as well, your local Orthodox synagogue should be able to help you.

With blessings,

Aaron Shaffier

Shalom.
There is a wall with an arch that runs from one end of my house across to the other end with living areas on both sides. When going through the arch toward the back of the house I’m entering the den, kitchen, and breakfast area. When going through the arch toward the front of the house I’m entering a living room and dining room. Should I have mezuzahs at the right of the arch on both sides?
Debra

Here is what I answered:

Dear Debra,
You only put the Mezuzah on one side. The main way to determine which side is by assessing the natural flow of traffic through the house when entering from the front door. It sounds from your email like it is more common to go from the living/dining room to the den/kitchen first. If that is the case then you would put the Mezuzah on the right side as you enter the kitchen/den.

Blessings,

Aaron Shaffier

Dear Friend,

This is a question that I get very frequently.  It always makes me so happy to hear from people who are not Jewish and want to put up a Mezuzah to honor God.  

Generally Judaism recognizes two systems of law for mankind.  The basic ‘7 laws of Noah‘ apply to all of mankind.  The Torah, with its 613 laws, is a special system that God has instituted for the nation of Israel who he chose to be a ‘nation of priests and a holy people’.  

Just like one would not expect the average person to live up to the same spiritual standards as a priest, so to God does not demand from most people to live up to the extra high standard that he demands from His ‘nation of priests’.

The Mezuzah is one of the 613 laws that are were given to the Jewish people in the Torah to help them live up to this standard.  Therefore, non-Jews are not in any way obligated to put up a Mezuzah.  

If a non Jew wants to voluntarily keep any of the Torah laws in order to attain a closer relationship with God, they are permitted to do so.  

In the case of the Mezuzah, the only concern is that you respect the holiness of this article that contains the original name of God in Hebrew.  It cannot ever be taken into an unclean place (such as a bathroom for example).  And if it ever becomes damaged and needs to be disposed of, it must be taken to a synagogue where they have a box for holy items that need to be disposed of.  It will then be buried in a Jewish cemetery.

For this reason, there are some Rabbis who discourage non-Jews from affixing a Mezuzah to their door.  But, if you wish to put up a Mezuzah, and you understand that you are taking responsibility to care for a holy object in the proper way, then there is no reason that you cannot purchase and put up a Mezuzah.

Whatever you decide, your desire to do something to come closer to God is certainly a sign that you are on the right track.  Keep up the good work.

God Bless,

Aaron Shaffier

Who puts up a mezuzah in space? A Jewish astronaut

By Ofri Ilani, Haaretz Correspondent

If Dr. Garrett Reisman did not exist, then Mel Brooks or Woody Allen would have had to invent him. The veteran astronaut, who spent three straight months in space, looks like a character from a comedy about Jews in space: He is short, an engineer and full of self-deprecating humor that is often missing in astronauts.

Reisman, a native of New Jersey, is the first Jew to have lived in the International Space Station. 

“The mission went pretty well, I did not break anything that was too expensive,” he says. 
When he got to the space station, via the space shuttle Endeavor, he was quick to put up a mezuzah in the bunk where he slept. 

“I did not consult any rabbi, so I hope I did not get into any trouble,” he says. 

Reisman is in Israel for the fourth Ilan Ramon International Space Conference, which is organized by the Science Ministry and the Fisher Brothers Institute for Air and Space Strategic Studies. 

The NASA delegation will make a presentation on progress in its most ambitious project: sending humans to Mars. Its schedule is for a manned mission to Mars by 2030. 

However, at this stage, there are still problems to be resolved. The round trip is expected to last at least three years and will require enormous amounts of food, water and fuel. 

No less troubling is how best to assure the health of the crew while millions of kilometers from earth. 

Dr. Johnston Smith, a medical officer at NASA, who is also visiting Israel, is one of those dealing with this challenge. “If someone experiences a standard medical problem, like appendicitis,” he says, “a decision will need to be made on what to do. Therefore, on the voyage to Mars one of the crew will be a doctor and will have the means to undertake simple surgery.” 

Those traveling to Mars will also be away from family and friends for years. According to Johnston, the missions to the International Space Station are meant to build up experience in dealing with psychological dilemmas. Thus, for example, a year ago, NASA had to inform astronaut Daniel Tani, who was at the space station, that his mother had died in an accident. 

“Every astronaut decides before a mission whether they want to know [such news] immediately or not. But on a voyage to Mars these questions will be more significant, and we need to think about how to deal with them,” Johnston says. 

It seems that NY state has a whole section of business law that protects the consumer from being sold non-kosher Mezuzahs and Tefillin.  

Here is a link to the section  Just type Mezuzah in the search box and it will come up.

Pretty amazing huh?

Thanks to xerpentine for the tip.

If I take down multiple Mezuzot for checking, do I make a Brocha when replacing them.  I will not be placing them on the same door as they were taken down from as they were not marked to ensure this.  What happens if one has be replaced due to its being possul?

This issue always comes up when people have their Mezuzah checked.  The problem is that the answer is not so simple because there are several issues here, with multiple opinions involved.

Lets first deal with some more simple issues one by one and at the end I will suggest an answer to the emailer’s question.

1. Do you have to say a blessing when reaffixing a Mezuzah to the same door after having it checked?

There are several opinions regarding this.  Some say that you would say a blessing if the Mezuzah was down for 24 hours others say you say a blessing only if it was down for 30 days.  In this case, one should check with their local Rabbi to find out which custom they should observe.  In a case where this is not possible, the rule is that we are always conservative about saying a blessing in a case of doubt.  Therefore one would refrain from saying a blessing if the Mezuzah was down for less than 30 days.

2. Do you say a blessing when switching a Mezuzah from one door to another?

Yes.  Assuming that the new door is obligated in a Mezuzah according to all opinions.  That is to say it has an actual door that opens and closes and that doorway leads to a room that has more that 36 square feet and is used as a living space.

3.  If the scribe finds something Passul (not kosher) in the Mezuzah and fixes it, do you say a blessing when re-affixing the Mezuzah to the same door?

First see answer to #1 regarding how long the Mezuzah was down.   If the Mezuzah was down long enough it will require a new blessing in any case and this question becomes irrelevant.

Let’s assume though that you took the Mezuzah down and brought it straight to the sofer and he found something passul, fixed it and now you are ready to put it up on the same day.  In this case, you must ask the sofer if the problem that he found was definitely passul according to all opinions or if he was just fixing something to make it better or to make it Kosher according to more opinions.  If the sofer says that it was definately passul, you would make a blessing.

Based on all of the above:

In a case like the one described in the email the best thing to do would be to take one Mezuzah that you know was not on the front door and affix it to the front door saying a blessing.  When you say the blessing, have in mind that it should exempt all of the other Mezuzahs.  Then without interrupting, proceed to affix the rest of the Mezuzahs.

My first floor ceiling now has a horizontal opening say .8 metres by .8
metres with a hatch bordered by a frame. When the hatch is opened you can
grab the loft ladder and access the loft. Does the hatch need a mezuzzah.
Can you place a mezuzah on the horizontal.

Here’s my answer:

Dear Sir,

Any door that is horizontal is exempt from a Mezuzah.  In fact I have the same kind of hatch in my home here in Israel.

Be well,

Aaron Shaffier
MezuzahStore.com

Thanks to The Lansey Brothers’ Blog

You can read the full story here.

I am gonna go ahead now and take the liberty of posting it on Mezuzah Planet.  (But it won’t qualify for the $108 gift certificate.)

I wonder how the sweet and sour chicken is at Dini’s?

Well now it is Tuesday and it seems to be working quite well.  If I do a Google search for “Printable Mezuzah” here is what I get:

You can see in the image above that the top result is a site that links my blog post.  The second link is to the page I created.  The third link is to the blog post.  Of course at the time that you are reading this the results on Google may have changed.  But at least for now I feel I have succeeded in my goal.

The Idea of Knol, is to allow anyone to write on any topic.  Over time, the articles that are accurate and informative will rise to the top through community ranking and commenting.   This ultimately allows authors, who publish under their real name, to establish credability in their field.

I am very excited about this.  I love to share what I know with others.  I think this Knol thing is going to become a really great platform to do it.  Here are my first two contributions:

Judaism

Mezuzah

My question is, why can’t a home owners association in say a gated community do the same thing?  They would essentially be able to make a no Jews allowed rule in this way.  You can almost understand the logic in a condo where the association maintains the hallways and they are saying that they want a uniform look etc.  But the fact is that when you live in a gated community or even in many planned communities, there is also a home owners association that tells you which colors you can paint  your house and how tall you can let your grass grow etc.   I would love to hear the opinion of some lawyers out there if they think that this ruling could also apply to the communities that I mentioned.

This whole thing raises a greater issue.  We as Jews throughout history have lived in communities that were centered around Jewish observance.  In ancient times we lived in Israel, and throughout the exile we have lived in shtetls and the like.  America is one of the first places where Jews have had complete equality.  This has caused a phenomenon where Jews feel that they don’t need the benefit of a Jewish community.

We can see what this has caused to Jewish life in America.  Intermarriage rates are well over 50%.  Many Jews don’t have any idea what it means to be Jewish.  When something like this comes up, we all get very mad and say how dare they tell us that we can’t have a Mezuzah.  We take it for granted that we should be able to live in whatever kind of environment that we want and be able to express our religion.

While that is certainly the ideal, stories like this one have to make you think twice.  One of the reasons that I moved to Israel a year ago is because I wanted to live in a country where we are in the majority and issues like this don’t exist.

In any case, for all of you Jews still living in America, I would like to point out that the Halacha (Jewish Law) rules that if you live in a place where it is dangerous to put a Mezuzah outside your door do to anti-semitism and the like, you can put it up on the inside.

I realized that I could do the same thing with Mezuzahs.  Today, I put up a new section on the website called Mezuzah Planet.  It allows customers to send us in a picture of them with their Mezuzah along with a little story about what it means to them.

Also, since I realize that nobody wants to be the first with these kind of things…we decided to make a prize.  For now, we will be awarding a $108 gift certificate to the best of every 10 submissions. If the feature becomes popular, we may have to do one certificate a month or something like that, but for now, if you submitt, you have at least a 1 in 10 chance.

I can’t wait to see what you all send in!

Recently, we got in six new products from the same manufacturer.  Some of these Mezuzahs are made out of pure Jerusalem stone.  Others are made out of Jerusalem stone as well as stone from several other parts of Israel.  The latter Mezuzahs allow you to bring something from all parts of the Holy Land into your home.

A few months ago, I had the privilege to visit in the factory of CJ Art in Yavne, Israel where these Mezuzahs are made.  I was so happy to see how all of the workers in the factory are Jewish.  A lot of factories in Israel employ Arab or foreign workers to save money.  The owner showed me all of the raw stone that they use to make the Mezuzahs and explained to me where each type was from.

These Mezuzahs are the real deal!

Well, I guess that some of the Jewish members of government in Florida felt funny that the Gentile governor had a Mezuzah on his office and they didn’t. It seems that House Majority leader Adam Hasner (Jewish) called up Chabad’s Rabbi Oirchman and asked him to put up a Mezuzah on his office. Two weeks later the Rabbi got a call from the Minority Leader, Dan Gelber.

I wonder if we will see a day when there will be Mezuzahs on the White House and the Congress?

You can read the original article from Lubavitch.com here.

 These Mezuzahs were made specially for us by Rachel Weinstein.  Rachel lives in the village of Tekoa in the Judea region of Israel.  She specializes in making all kinds of crafts from fabric.  She uses classic quilting techniques as well as hand embroidery work.

I met Rachel and we started talking about what kind of fabric products she could make for our website.  She said, “Why don’t I make a fabric Mezuzah?”  Although the idea seemed nice, I was immediately concerned that the scroll inside would not be protected enough by the soft fabric.  We came up with the idea of putting a hard plastic tube inside.  That is how the fabric Mezuzah was born.

Since this is a totally new idea, I would love to hear what you think about it.  Let me know in the comments.

Workers for the Israel Broadcasting Authority (IBA) have raised funds by themselves to affix mezuzot in studios and workrooms after the IBA did not comply with requests by employees, according to the Chabad website. The mezuzah is required by Jewish law and is found in every government room and on almost every store and home in the country.

There was no explanation from the IBA why its rooms lacked the mezuzah. Channel One television reporter Uri Revach, whose office is an informal synagogue, initiated the fundraising to buy 40 mezuzot.

However, dozens of IBA studios and workroom lack a mezuzah. “A kosher mezuzah affects the room to which it is affixed, and a kosher mezuzah at an office where it is decided what is broadcast will only help to create a positive influence,” he said.

I think stopping Kassam rockets may be a bit easier than influencing the Israeli media.

What do you think?

Despite the many tactics being used today, from targeted killings, developing anti-rocket weapons and fortifying homes—the inhabitants of Sderot are trying to find solutions from other directions in order to protect themselves from the Qassam rockets.

Now on the agenda: repairing mezuzahs.

Religious officials in the city claim that examinations of mezuzahs there located many that were defective, and many of the defective ones were found in homes that had been hit.

They said that in places where the Qassam rockets fell in the street and did not enter the yards of houses, kosher mezuzahs were found.

Because of the security situation, ritual scribes from Lod have come to the city every Friday, checking the mezuzahs in homes and various public buildings in Sderot.

Until now, thirty percent of the mezuzahs that were checked were found to be defective or completely unfit. Seventy percent were found to be completely kosher.

In the city’s schools, many defective mezuzahs were found, and the scribes reported this to the school’s administration. Similar examinations were carried out in the Sderot municipality, where the scribes were appalled to discover an unfit mezuzah at the entrance to the office of Sderot Mayor Eli Moyal and at the entrance to the auditorium.

Although in other places the scribes had asked people to buy mezuzahs and put them up, the scribes replaced the mezuzahs in the mayor’s office on their own initiative.

“Moyal is responsible for the city and his office is the entrance to the city, so we did it,” said Rabbi Moshe Zeev Pizam, the director of Sderot’s Chabad House. “An unfit mezuzah does not do anything bad. It just doesn’t provide protection, and the inhabitants of Sderot need that very much.”

The deputy mayor of Sderot, Rabbi Oren Malka, said yesterday that the municipality intends to adopt the scribes’ recommendations and change the mezuzahs that were found to be unfit.

I think that the key thing to remember here is that it is important to have Kosher Mezuzahs on our doors just because the Torah says so and we are Jewish. If God protects us in the merit of doing this Mitzvah, it is a great fringe benefit.

Florida governor Charlie Crist (not Jewish in case you didn’t know) has come under fire for hanging a Mezuzah on the entrance to his capitol office. He received the Mezuzah from his friend state Rep. Adam Hasner (Jewish). Of course the ACLU is not happy about this. I have linked to a few stories about this below.

Hanging of Jewish Symbol in Florida Capitol Sparks Controversy

Mezuzah doesn’t belong on Crist’s office door

Crist defends decision to hang religious symbol on office door

Florida Governor Installs Mezuza on Office Door

Stop the ACLU

So… what do you think? Should the Florida capitol building have a Mezuzah? Post a comment and let us know what you think.