A Mezuzah Story from Cantor Jonas

Have you ever sensed someone’s presence before actually seeing that they were near? On a Tuesday morning this past winter, while working at my desk, I could sense that someone was standing at my office door, although I never heard anyone approach. When I looked up from my computer, standing at my door was a young boy from the Children’s Center. He had waited for me to recognize his presence and when I did, he stood in the doorframe, pointed up to the right side of the doorpost, and said “You don’t have a mezuzah.”

I stood up from my desk, walked over to the door and acknowledged that yes; my doorpost was in fact missing a mezuzah. I introduced myself to him and he said his name was Eli. I thanked Eli for noticing, and I did my best to explain that my office space is relatively new, but that he is correct; we are commanded to affix a mezuzah to the doorpost. (Deuteronomy 6:5-9). As quietly and as suddenly as Eli had appeared at my office door, he then took off down the hall with his teacher back to his classroom.

When I returned to my desk, I could not help but continue to think about that interaction. I was impressed that Eli had noticed that a mezuzah was not there. It would be one thing if the mezuzah had been there, and he had recognized it and known its purpose. However, it is something very different to recognize that it was missing. In fact, a mezuzah had never been there in the first place. I had just witnessed what our text teaches us:

You shall love Adonai your God with all your heart,
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 whey 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.
          (Siddur Mishkan Tefillah, taken from Deuteronomy 6:5-9)

For Eli, it appears that those commandments have been so impressed upon him, that as he walks through his day, he is acutely aware of the words of Torah, even when they are not there physically in front of him.

Eli reminded me that being able to recognize the absence of something is equally as important as acknowledging when things are right in front of us.

There is now a beautiful mezuzah on my office doorframe created by Eli, and mezuzot are now present on the all of the Temple office doors, lovingly created and affixed by Eli and his classmates under the artistry of one of our teachers, Sasha Kopp. 

As our text states, “impress them upon your children…” After what I experienced that winter day, I can say that the children of our Children’s Center have impressed that upon me.

Cantor Marcie Jonas