Skip to main content

Thought for the Day: Mezuzah Needs To Be Attached, Not Found To Be Attached

No, this is not a Harry Potter hypothetical question when *POOF* a doorpost appears attached to your mezuzah.  This is a real live, halacha l'ma'aseh question.  How does this happen?  Let's get some background.

The Torah ha'k'dosha says, "u'k'savtam al m'zuzos beiseicha u'visha'recha"/you shall write them on the doorposts of your house and your gates.  The Torah does not mean, obviously, to take a pen and write "them" on your doorposts.  It actually means, as we all know, that you should attach bits of parchment (made with the intention to have at least k'dushas m'zuzah) that have two parashas from the Written Torah (sh'ma and v'haya im shamo'ah), that have been written (again, with proper intent and in order) with appropriate ink (again, made with proper intent).

Of course.  So what, then, does the imperative "you shall write" come to teach us?  That you have to attach the mezuzos to appropriate doorposts.  (For clarity, I shall endeavor to use the word "mezuzah" to mean the bit of parchment and "doorpost" to mean the frame to which the said bit of parchment is actually attached.  Mostly; unless it is obvious to me that I mean something different.)  What's an "appropriate" door?  Well, to be certainly obligated in a mezuzah, the doorpost has to:

  1. be a real doorpost, not just a support for a roof (so no mezuzah on your carport supports)
  2. have a door (so not just an opening between say, the kitchen and the dining room)
  3. enter into a room which is at least 4 amos by 4 amos
  4. be used as a normal path entry to and egress from said room (so not, say, the outside door used to refill the wine barrel stock once or twice a year into the wine cellar from the outside of the house when there is a normal door on the inside that is used daily or more by the wait staff and/or ba'al ha'bayis and/or his teenagers)
  5. enter into a room that is used for appropriate activities (not an outhouse, for example)
That's an exhausting list; that is, I am exhausted trying to remember all the details, but there probably are more.  Some of those are according to everyone (1, 4, 5); others are the subject of machlokes (2, 3).

Let's start with a carport that has supports.  No one requires a mezuzah on those supports; putting a mezuzah on them would be silly, putting a mezuzah on them with a bracha would be tragic for your soul.  You decide to fancy up your carport by installing a garage door, which requires a real door frame.  Let's suppose further that you use those supports as part of the new doorposts that you are building as you build out the door frame.  The mezuzah has to be put on after you are finished building and installing; if you do it sooner you would have to remove the mezuzah and then (re)attach it after the construction was finished.  Ditto if you stare with a closet (smaller than 4x4) and open it up to a beautiful new ballroom (bigger than 4x4).

Suppose you have a room which has an area of sixteen square amos, but is long and narrow.  Soom laundry rooms and even bedroom closets fit that description.  In that case, you should affix a mezuzah, but without a bracha.  Now you make it bigger so that it surely requires a mezuzah according to everyone.  Now you have to remove the mezuzah and re-attach it, again without a bracha, this time because maybe that room already required a mezuzah even before you did the remodeling.

My chavrusa and I have not even finished the first siman on m'zuzos.  I'll bet you're thrilled.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Thought for the Day: Love in the Time of Corona Virus/Anxiously Awaiting the Mashiach

Two scenarios: Scenario I: A young boy awakened in the middle of the night, placed in the back of vehicle, told not to make any noise, and the vehicle speeds off down the highway. Scenario II: Young boy playing in park goes to see firetruck, turns around to see scary man in angry pursuit, poised to attack. I experienced and lived through both of those scenarios. Terrifying, no? Actually, no; and my picture was never on a milk carton. Here's the context: Scenario I: We addressed both set of our grandparents as "grandma" and "grandpa". How did we distinguish? One set lived less than a half hour's drive; those were there "close grandma and grandpa". The other set lived five hour drive away; they were the "way far away grandma and grandpa". To make the trip the most pleasant for all of us, Dad would wake up my brother and I at 4:00AM, we'd groggily -- but with excitement! -- wander out and down to the garage where we'd crawl

Thought for the Day: David HaMelech's Five Stages of Finding HaShem In the World

Many of us "sing" (once you have heard what I call carrying a tune, you'll question how I can, in good conscience, use that verb, even with the quotation marks) Eishes Chayil before the Friday night Shabbos meal.  We feel like we are singing the praises of our wives.  In fact, I have also been to chasunas where the chasson proudly (sometimes even tearfully) sings Eishes Chayil to his new eishes chayil.  Beautiful.  Also wrong.  (The sentiments, of course, are not wrong; just a misunderstanding of the intent of the author of these exalted words.) Chazal (TB Brachos, 10a) tell us that when Sholmo HaMelech wrote the words "She opens her mouth Mwith wisdom; the torah of kindness is on her tongue", that he was referring to his father, Dovid HaMelech, who (I am continuing to quote Chazal here) lived in five worlds and sang a song of praise [to each].  It seems to me that "world" here means a perception of reality.  Four times Dovid had to readjust his perc

Thought for the Day: אוושא מילתא Debases Yours Shabbos

My granddaughter came home with a list the girls and phone numbers in her first grade class.  It was cute because they had made it an arts and crafts project by pasting the list to piece of construction paper cut out to look like an old desk phone and a receiver attached by a pipe cleaner.  I realized, though, that the cuteness was entirely lost on her.  She, of course, has never seen a desk phone with a receiver.  When they pretend to talk on the phone, it is on any relatively flat, rectangular object they find.  (In fact, her 18 month old brother turns every  relatively flat, rectangular object into a phone and walks around babbling into it.  Not much different than the rest of us, except his train of thought is not interrupted by someone else babbling into his ear.) I was reminded of that when my chavrusa (who has children my grandchildrens age) and I were learning about אוושא מילתא.  It came up because of a quote from the Shulchan Aruch HaRav that referred to the noise of תקתוק