Our Mezuzah Has Seen It All
Having a Mezuzah on a doorpost is an ancient Jewish practice whose source is found in the Torah.
And you shall write them on the doorposts of your homes and your gates. (Deut. 11:20)
It stands like a watchman every time we pass it when going in or out of a room. The idea is to think about the sacred scroll in the Mezuzah case and the ideas contained therein.
Maimonides, at the end of his presentation of the laws of mezuzah, tells us to think about the eternal nature of the Almighty. This will inspire us to awaken from our slumber and come to the realization that nothing in this world is permanent other than the Almighty and His Torah.
Why does the mezuzah remind us of these concepts?
Perhaps it is because the mezuzah is a silent witness to the ebb and flow of history and human events. Think about the mezuzah of an old shul or some other venerable edifice. It has been hanging there for decades if not centuries. It has seen infants brought into the shul to be circumcised, and it has seen these same people grown old brought into the shul to be eulogized and buried. It has seen generations come and go. It has seen empires rise and fall. It has seen the birth of ideologies and their demise.
In the last century alone, our hypothetical mezuzah would have seen humanism, capitalism, materialism, existentialism, each embraced as life philosophies and then discredited. It would have seen the rise of the Soviet Union and Communism and their ignominious collapse. It would have seen the creation of the Third Reich, the Thousand-Year Reich, its perpetration of the Holocaust against the Jewish people and its ultimate defeat and destruction. It would have seen the birth of Israel and its growth to maturity.
When railroads were introduced in the 19th century, people thought the new technology was so perfect that it would never change. The railroad companies sold corporate bonds for centuries in advance. And where are they all today? On the scrap heap, along with their rusting trains.
Human beings are always seeking immortality. For some it’s an invention or idea, for others it’s a building or this book. Whatever it is, it will capture that elusive immortality, this one will stand the test of time, this is one for the ages, this one will make me immortal. But it doesn’t work.
The Torah tells us (Num. 32:42) about a man named Novach, who captured a city and its suburbs and named it after himself, but it was eventually destroyed. Why does the Torah consider it important to let us know this information? It is meant to teach us the futility of immortalization. Novach wanted to immortalize himself by creating something permanent – an entire city– and crowning it with his own name. But he failed. The city was destroyed, and his name would be forgotten if it were not mentioned in the Torah.
Everything constantly changes. Nothing is permanent. Only the Almighty and His Torah are permanent as the mezuzah bears witness. We Jews are also immortal, as Mark Twain famously observed. “All things are mortal but the Jew; all other forces pass, but he remains.
What is the secret of his immortality?” As long as there are Mezuzot in Jewish homes, there will be a Jewish people.
Good Shabbos
(This dvar Torah is a revised version of a dvar Torah from Rabbi Yissachar Frand)