Everything About Mezuzahs

Our friend Morah Leah has a great new children’s CD. Morah Leah is my neighbor here in Tekoa, Israel and she gave us a copy of this CD a few weeks ago. My kids haven’t stopped listening since. I thought it would be a good idea to offer it to our customers on MezuzahStore.com.

If you would like to hear clips from the CD, click here.

You may have heard that Israeli Astronaut, Ilan Ramon took a Mezuzah and other Jewish items with him into space on the the fatal mission of Columbia in 2003.

Now Jewish Astronaut, Gregory Chamitoff is planning on affixing a Mezuzah to the door post leading to his quarters on the shuttle Discovery.

Read more here…

In October I reported to you that Florida’s Governor, Charlie Crist, had affixed a Mezuzah to his office in the Capitol. Crist, as you may have suspected, is not a member of the tribe. Some of you were in favor of this and some against.

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.

There is exciting news for those that are subscribed to our mailing list. We are going to be auctioning off a $50 gift certificate for our website once a month. All that you have to do to be in the raffle is make sure that you are subscribed to our mailing list. Every month we will choose a random name from our entire mailing list and we will be giving them a free gift certificate!

Now I know you are thinking, “Is it really worth it to get all of this spam just to have a chance at a gift certificate?” I would probably say the same thing, but this is kinda different. First of all, we only send out emails about 2-4 times a month. Second, I wouldn’t really like to call our emails spam. You won’t get any sales pitches for Viagra, you won’t be asked to refinance your Mortgage. What you will get are:

• Links to some of our more interesting articles
• Coupons for products
• Notification of sales in our online store
• Info on new products we have to offer

Overall I would say its not a bad deal. Also, don’t forget, you can always unsubscribe at any time. Every email we send has a link to unsubscribe. Just remember that if you do, your name will go out of the pot.

If you are not already getting our emails, click here to sign up.

I get this question all of the time. The answer is that it depends on how you use your laundry room. If it is a pretty tidy room which has a washer and dryer, then you would put a Mezuzah.

If your laundry room is generally piled up with loads of dirty, smelly laundry. Then you would not put a Mezuzah. This is because it would be considered disrespectful to put a Mezuzah there. The same law applies to a bathroom.

Of course, we are assuming that your laundry room has the minimum 36 square feet that any room needs to be obligated in a Mezuzah. We are also assuming that the laundry room has some sort of door frame. If it doesn’t meet both of these requirements, it is not obligated no matter how immaculate it might be.

In my last post I showed you our new product, the fabric Mezuzah. Afterwards I was thinking that a lot of you may be wondering how you can put a fabric Mezuzah on your front door without it getting ruined.

The answer is that you can’t. You see, I always forget that a lot of people who stumble across this blog don’t know that you need to have Mezuzahs on pretty much all of the doors in your home. Many think that a Mezuzah is just for the front door. The fabric Mezuzah is perfect for the door to the living room or to a bedroom. In fact many of the Mezuzahs that we sell aren’t really intended for outdoor use.

As I was thinking about that, I got an email from a customer asking something similar. I thought that the answer might be interesting for everyone so here it is:

Hello:

I purchased my original mezuzahs from a scribe in Florida several years ago and am replacing the Mezuzah on our front door due to the fact that it got wet-despite being in a clear lucite cover. I recall the scribe telling me that the clear covers are best for the Mezuzahs. However, I would like to purchase at some point a case-both for decorative value and physical protection of the scroll. Is there any reason not to purchase a cover that is not clear?

Many thanks,
Mark R.

Here’s what I answered him:

Dear Mark,

Every situation requires a different kind of Mezuzah cover. For example, a Mezuzah which is in the direct sunlight should not be in a clear cover. The direct sunlight will dry out the parchment and cause it to become brittle and break. Such a door should have a cover which is light colored and made of something that doesn’t heat up such as plastic or wood. A mezuzah which is inside of a bedroom, say a Mezuzah which goes to a walk-in closet should also not be clear, because the scroll cannot be exposed in a place where people get undressed.

On the other hand, if a Mezuzah is on the entry to a dining room, you have much more leeway about what kind of cover you use because the scroll isn’t exposed to the elements. In such a case, it is preferable, if possible, to use a Mezuzah cover which exposes the name ‘Sha-dai’ which is written on the outside of the scroll. This is so that we will be reminded of G-d when we go through that door. Those cases which do not allow you to see the name of G-d on the scroll, generally have the letter ‘Shin’ on the them somewhere to remind us that the scroll inside, bears the name of G-d.

In any case (no pun intended), the most important thing is to choose a Mezuzah case which will properly protect the scroll and honor it.

Thanks for visiting our site.

Aaron Shaffier
MezuzahStore.com

You may have noticed that we recently introduced a new product on our website.  It is the fabric Mezuzah (see them here and here).  I am not 100% sure, but I think we may be the only ones selling a product of this type.

 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.

The GreatShofar.com is a website specializing in Shofars directly from Israel.  We are adding lots of information about the Shofars meaning and instructions on how to blow the Shofar.   Check it out.  We hope you like it.

stop Israels ultra-left media? Check out this story from ArutzSheva.com:

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?

The Chabad Rabbis in Sderot think it may be worth a try. Here is a portion of an article that appeared recently in Israel’s Maariv paper:

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.