Dear Dikla,



The custom of the mezuzah is one of those customs entrenched in the secular public, though they have not considered its purpose and significance.



The Torah, as a book of law, requires symbolic acts to remind the public of the laws themselves. Thus, for example, the demand to put ritual fringes on garments to recall the rest of the laws: “That shall be your fringe; look at it and recall all the commandments of the Lord and observe them” (Numbers 15:39). Thus, too the demand to put on tefillin is to recall the laws of the Torah: “And this shall serve you as a sign on your hand and as a reminder on your forehead in order that the Teaching of the Lord may be in your mouth” (Exodus 13:9) and the demand for a mezuzah, “Take to heart these instructions with which I charge you this day…inscribe them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.” But Chazal, “in their way with the holy” changed the significance of the commandment of mezuzah, whose goal was to recall the commandments. Instead of demanding that the laws of the Torah be written on the doorposts, the ten commandments or the commandments themselves, as Ibn Ezra stated (Deuteronomy 6:6), they demanded the writing of the text which demands the mezuzah. Thus they turned the Scriptural text into something ridiculous. What is this like? Like a teacher who asks his students “Write the ethical values of democracy” and instead they write the question itself.



Let us return to the secular public which on the one hand is interested in preserving the enlightened Western values and on the other clings with all its strength to religious rituals which contradict their values. The mezuzah, whose purpose is to recall the laws of the Torah, in fact is a symbol of support for the ancient laws which forbid the freedom of religion and conscience, which sentences a person to death for his sexual orientation, and which forbids a divorced woman marrying her cohen lover.

If the secular paid attention even a little to their own perverse acts they would see that many of their symbols which are based in the Jewish religion contradict the values of democracy. If the Jewish culture is so important to them and ethnic identity is part of a person’s forced reality, at least let them change the text of what is written to something which reflects their current values.

What would be wrong with putting the UN Charter on our doorposts?



N.B. This is the text of the two sections in the mezuzah:



Deuteronomy 6:4-9



Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our G-d, the Lord alone.

You shall love the Lord your G-d with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.

Take to heart these instructions with which I charge you this day.

Impress them upon your children. recite them when you stay at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you get up.

Bind them as a sign on your hand and let them serve as a symbol on your forehead.

Inscribe them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.



Deuteronomy 11:13-21

If, then, you obey the commandments that I enjoin upon you this day, loving the Lord your G-d and serving Him with all your heart and soul

I will grant the rain for your land in season, the early rain and the late. You shall gather in your new grain and wine and oil.

I will also provide grass in the fields for your cattle, and thus you shall eat your fill.

Take care not to be lured away to serve other gods and bow to them.

For the Lord’s anger will flare up against you, and He will shut up the skies so that there will be no rain and the ground will not yield its produce; and you will soon perish from the good land that the Lord is assigning to you.

Therefore impress these My words upon your very heart: bind them as a sign on your hand and let them serve as a symbol on your forehead

And teach them to your children, reciting them when you get up

And inscribe them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates

To the end that you and your children may endure, in the land that the Lord swore to your fathers to assign to them, as long as there is a heaven over the earth.



Sincerely,



Daat Emet