We moved into our new house last year in such a whirlwind of buying and selling, there really wasn’t time to decorate before the moving van pulled up.
I figured it would take a month, maybe two, before we would have everything painted and ready for a housewarming party. I was planning on a real chanukat habayit; a dedication of our new home, a chance to welcome our friends, bake up a storm, and hang the mezuzah.
What was I thinking? The first month was a maze of cardboard boxes.
We stripped the wallpaper off the kitchen walls and discovered they needed professional attention. Two months went by.
A friend who decided to drop by with a housewarming gift forgot our exact address, but figured she’d find us by looking for our mezuzah.
She walked past our naked doorway to another house, which did have a mezuzah up. That neighbor kindly pointed my friend toward us, the newcomers.
“We’re going to put it up soon,” I apologized. “It just seems silly to hang it up and then take it down when we paint.”
Three months passed. Then four.
The blank space by the front door started to bother me. The upper-right-hand corner of every doorway in the house was pristine, with no evidence of nails or screws or painted-over boxes left on the woodwork. Our 50-year-old building had clearly never been home to Jews before.
A mezuzah does not, in and of itself, make a house a Jewish home, but it is undeniably part of the basic decor.
The little box on the door is a sign of welcome, an amulet, and an aesthetic statement. It tells the outside world that “Jews live here.” Its main function, however, is to remind the Jews inside that “Jews live here.”
Inside each mezuzah, there is a scroll inscribed with the Sh’ma, the great affirmative shout of God’s oneness, followed by the more meditative verses called Ve’ahavtah, which tell us to love God everywhere and always: “when you sit in your home, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up.”
The problem is that once you hang a mezuzah, the tendency is to forget it’s even there, much less meditate on the words inside. Mezuzot are like spiritual wallpaper that way. I probably pondered the meaning and importance of mezuzot more in their absence than in their presence.
Nevertheless, with six months gone, the kitchen remained “deconstructed,” but enough was enough.
We had invited a dozen friends over. After eating and drinking, we asked all our guests to gather outside the front door for a moment while we said the blessing and hung the mezuzah.
As our friends came back inside, they kissed us and, one by one, offered blessings: that the house should always be filled with laughter and that we would all get together often for such joyful occasions.
The most memorable wish came from an 8-year-old friend who hoped we would always have good plumbing.
So far, the pipes are holding.