Daf Ditty Yoma 11: Liminal Spaces and Thresholds

All the gates that were there on the east side of the Temple courtyard did not have a mezuza except for the Gate of Nicanor, as in the courtyard just inside the gate was the Chamber of Parhedrin, in which there is an obligation to affix a mezuza. Therefore, a mezuza was affixed to the gate as well.

Apropos the mezuza in the High Priest’s chamber, the Gemara discusses other halakhot of mezuza. The Sages taught with regard to the verse:

,And thou shalt write them upon the door-posts of thy house 9 ט כוּ תְ בַ תְּ םָ ַﬠ ל - תוֹזֻזְמ ,ֶתיֵבּ ,ֶתיֵבּ תוֹזֻזְמ {and upon thy gates. {S בוּ שִׁ ﬠְ ָ ֶ ר .י }ס{ Deut 9:16

“And you will write them upon the doorposts of your houses and upon your gates” With regard to the gates of houses, and the gates of courtyards, and the gates of cities, and the gates of towns, all of them are obligated in the mitzva of mezuza in that place, due to the fact that it is stated: “And you will write them upon the doorposts of your houses and upon your gates.”

Steinzaltz

And Rabbi Yehuda said: There was an incident involving an examiner [artavin], who was examining mezuzot in the upper marketplace of Tzippori during a period when decrees were issued against the Jewish people, and a Roman official [kasdor] found him and collected a fine of one thousand zuz from him. The Gemara raises a difficulty: But didn’t Rabbi Elazar say that those on the path to perform a mitzva are not susceptible to harm throughout the process of performing the mitzva?

The Gemara responds: In a place where danger is permanent it is different, as one should not rely on a miracle, as it is written with regard to God’s command to Samuel to anoint David as king in place of Saul:

And Samuel said: 'How can I go? if Saul hear it, he will 2 ב רֶמאֹיַּו לֵאוּמְשׁ יֵא ,ֵלֵא עַמָשְׁו לוּאָשׁ לוּאָשׁ עַמָשְׁו ,ֵלֵא יֵא לֵאוּמְשׁ רֶמאֹיַּו kill me.' And the LORD said: 'Take a heifer with thee, and ;יִנָגָרֲהַו רֶמאֹיַּו ,הָוהְי תַלְגֶﬠ רָקָבּ חַקִּתּ ,ֶדָיְבּ ,ֶדָיְבּ חַקִּתּ רָקָבּ תַלְגֶﬠ ,הָוהְי רֶמאֹיַּו ;יִנָגָרֲהַו .say: I am come to sacrifice to the LORD ,ָתְּרַמָאְו ַחֹבְּזִל הָוהיַל .יִתאָבּ הָוהיַל ַחֹבְּזִל ,ָתְּרַמָאְו I Sam 16:2

“And Samuel said: How will I go, and Saul will hear and kill me; and God said: Take in your hand a calf and say: I have come to offer a sacrifice to God”

4 Even when God Himself issues the command, there is concern with regard to a clear and present danger.

Steinzaltz

Actually they said: There is a legal tradition that a building housing a bathroom, and a building housing a tannery [burseki], and a bathhouse, and a building housing a ritual bath for immersion, and any places of which women make use are exempt from the obligation of mezuza. This baraita is inconsistent with the opinions of both Rav Kahana and Rav Yehuda. Therefore, Rav Kahana interprets the baraita according to his line of reasoning, and Rav Yehuda interprets it according to his line of reasoning.

Rav Kahana interprets it according to his line of reasoning: Your house means your house that is designated for your residence, to the exclusion of a storehouse for hay, and a cattle barn, and a woodshed, and a storehouse, which are exempt from the mitzva of mezuza in a case where their use is standard and they are not used for bathing or other immodest acts. And some obligate these structures in the mitzva of mezuza in a case where their use is standard. In truth they said the following with regard to a bathroom, and a tannery, and a bathhouse, and a ritual bath for immersion, and any places of which women make use; and what is the meaning of the term: Make use? It is that women bathe there. These places are exempt from the obligation of mezuza.

And Rav Yehuda interprets the baraita according to his line of reasoning, and this is what it is teaching: Your house means your house that is designated for your residence, to the exclusion of a storehouse for hay, and a cattle barn, and a woodshed, and a storehouse, which are exempt from the mitzva of mezuza even in a case where women adorn themselves there. And some obligate these structures in the mitzva of mezuza in a case where women adorn themselves there. However, in a case where use of the building is standard, everyone agrees that these structures are exempt from the mitzva of mezuza. In truth they said that a bathroom, and a tannery, and a bathhouse, and a ritual bath for immersion, even though women adorn themselves there, are exempt from the obligation of mezuza, because its filth is extensive.

a gatehouse, used to guard the entrance to a courtyard, a portico [akhsadra], an open porch, and a balcony serving as a corridor to several residences. Therefore, the verse states: House; just as a house is a place that is designated for residence and is obligated in the mitzva of mezuza, so too all similar structures are obligated. This is to the exclusion of those structures that are not designated for residence but for other purposes, which are exempt from the mitzva of mezuza.

I might have thought that I include in the obligation of mezuza even a bathroom, and a tannery, and a bathhouse, and a ritual bath for immersion. Therefore, the verse states: House; just as a house is a place that is designed to honor people who enter it, so too, all places that are designed to honor those who enter are obligated in the mitzva of mezuza, excluding those structures that are not designed to honor.

§ The Sages taught in a baraita: A synagogue, a woman’s house, and a house jointly owned by partners are all obligated in the mitzva of mezuza. The Gemara asks: That is obvious; why would these structures be exempt? Lest you say that it is written: “Your house,” in the masculine, and not her house; “Your house,” in the singular, and not their house, excluding a jointly owned house. Therefore, the baraita teaches us that those houses are obligated in the mitzva of mezuza like all others.

Summary

8 Rav Avraham Adler writes:1

All the gates that opened into the Courtyard of the Bais HaMikdash did not have a mezuzah affixed except for the Gate of Nikanor.

All the gates that opened into the Courtyard of the Bais HaMikdash did not have a mezuzah affixed to them except for the Gate of Nikanor, which had a mezuzah because the Gate of Nikanor led into the Courtyard of the Bais HaMikdash, which led into the Parhedrin Chamber. This ruling can even be in accordance with Rabbi Yehudah. Although Rabbi Yehudah maintains that the requirement that the Parhedrin Chamber itself have a mezuzah affixed to its doorpost is rabbinic in nature, because we are concerned that otherwise people will say that the Kohen Gadol is locked away in jail, the requirement to have a mezuzah on the Gate of Nikanor is part of that original decree. The reason for this is because if the Nikanor Gate would not require a mezuzah, people would still say that that the Parhedrin Chamber was a jail and not a true home, because a true home requires that even the courtyard leading to the home have a mezuzah affixed to it. Thus, the requirement that the Parhedrin Chamber and the Gate of Nikanor have a mezuzah is deemed to be one single decree.

The gates of houses, courtyards, provinces and cities all have the obligation of mezuzah.

It is said and you shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. This teaches us that whether they are gates of houses, whether they are gates of courtyards, whether they are gates of provinces, or whether they are gates of cities, they all have the obligation of mezuzah to HaShem. This is because when it is said and you shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates, the word gates is written in the plural form.

A synagogue that has a dwelling area for the sexton of the synagogue is required to have a mezuzah.

A synagogue that has a dwelling area for the sexton of the synagogue is required to have a mezuzah. Although normally a synagogue does not require a mezuzah because it does not function as a dwelling area for any particular Jew, when the synagogue functions as a dwelling area for the sexton of the synagogue, it does require a mezuzah.

The mezuzah of an individual must be checked twice every seven years and a public mezuzah must be checked only twice in the Yovel cycle.

The mezuzah of an individual must be checked twice every seven years, but a public mezuzah only needs to be checked only twice in a Yovel cycle, which is twice every fifty years. The Chachamim were more lenient regarding a public mezuzah because regarding a shared responsibility, people are more lax and expect someone else to do the job. If it was too difficult to check a public mezuzah, no one would do it at all, so the Chachamim said that a public mezuzah only has to be checked once every twenty-five years.

1 http://dafnotes.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Yoma_11.pdf

9 When it is probable that one will get hurt, one will not necessarily be protected while performing a mitzvah.

There was an incident where someone was checking mezuzos in the upper marketplace of Tzippori and a Roman officer saw him and fined him a thousand zuz because he suspected him of practicing witchcraft. Although there is a rule that one who is involved in a mitzvah is not harmed, it is different when there is likelihood that one can be harmed. In this case it was probable that one would be harmed because the king was looking for pretenses to accuse the Jews of wrongdoing. Proof of this is when Shmuel was instructed by HaShem to anoint Dovid as king and Shmuel asked HaShem “How can I go? If Shaul finds out, he will kill me.” So HaShem said: “take along a calf and say, ‘I have come to bring an offering to HaShem.’” We see that Hashem concurred with Shmuel’s concern and HaShem instructed Shmuel to conceal his real mission from Shaul. This demonstrates that when real danger is a concern, one cannot rely on the protection of mitzvah performance.

A gate house, a portico and a gallery are exempt from the obligation of mezuzah.

It is said: and you shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

This teaches us that the gates of houses, gates of courtyards, gates of provinces, gates of cities, gates of stable, gates of chicken roosts, gates of a straw shed, gates of storehouses for wine or storehouses for oil all require a mezuzah. A gate house, a portico in front of a house or a gallery are exempt from mezuzah. The reason for this is because it is said your house, which teaches us that there is only a requirement to affix a mezuzah when it is a structure similar to a house that is specifically used for dwelling purposes, whereas a gate house, a portico or a gallery are used as a passageway and not as dwelling areas. Since they are not similar to a house, they do not require a mezuzah.

There are six gates that are exempt from mezuzah

A Baraisa states that there are six gates that are exempt from a mezuzah. They are a storehouse for straw, a barn, a woodshed, a storage house, a Median gate i.e., a curved archway, a roofless gate i.e., a doorway that is completely open on top without lintel or roof, and a gate that is not ten handbreadths high. (

There is a dispute whether a curved archway requires a mezuzah.

Although the Baraisa stated that there are six gates that are exempt from a mezuzah and then the Baraisa listed seven, the Gemara explains that there is a dispute regarding a Median gate, which is a curved archway. Rabbi Meir maintains that a curved archway requires a mezuzah and the Chachamim maintain that such an archway is exempt from a mezuzah. Rabbi Meir and the Chachamim agree that if the sides of the archway are ten handbreadths high before they curve inward, the archway will require a mezuzah, because we can ignore the curved part, and the vertical sides that are ten handbreadths can be used as side posts.

10 A synagogue, the house of a woman and a house that is owned by partners are obligated in a mezuzah.

A synagogue, a house that is owned exclusively by a woman, and a house owned by partners require a mezuzah. One would have thought that since the Torah states your house in the masculine tense, this would exclude the house of a woman. Similarly, your house in the singular form would exclude the house of partners or a synagogue which is owned collectively. For this reason, we are taught that even these houses require a mezuzah. The reason for this is because it is said regarding the reward for affixing a mezuzah in order to increase your days and the days of your sons etc. Do we say that only men who own homes independently need life, but women, and men who own houses in a partnership, do not need life? We certainly do not say such a thing, and the Torah is teaching us that the houses of women and the houses of partners also require a mezuzah.

A synagogue, a house owned by partners and the house of a woman are subject to the tumah of tzaraas.

A synagogue, a house owned by partners, and the house of a woman are subject to the tumah of tzaraas. One would have thought that because it is said regarding tzaraas and the one whom the house is his shall come etc. the word his implies his and not hers, and his and not theirs. Therefore, we are taught that this is not the case. The reason for this ruling is because regarding tzaraas of the house it is said, and I will place a tzaraas plague in a house of the land of your inheritance. Since the Torah states the word house in a generic sense, we learn that all houses are susceptible to tzaraas.

Mitzvos and danger

The Gemara states that although we have a rule that one who is engaged in the performance of a mitzvah will not be harmed, the mitzvah will not necessarily protect one who is likely to be harmed. What is the power of a mitzvah? Besides the great reward one receives in the next world for performing a mitzvah, apparently there is a reward in this world for mitzvah performance. That reward is manifest in HaShem protecting one who is engaged in a mitzvah.

According to Rabbi Chaim Volozhiner, when one performs a mitzvah, the mitzvah creates a halo which is reserved for the person in the World to Come. Yet, the Gemara in Sota teaches us that a sin can extinguish a mitzvah. The Gemara implies that although a mitzvah protects the one performing the mitzvah, there can be forces that will negate the performance of the mitzvah. How does this occur, in light of the fact that the reward for the mitzvah is already reserved for the person in the World to Come?

Perhaps the idea is that a sin is considered to be dangerous, and although one is normally protected when performing the mitzvah, if he places himself in a dangerous situation, he may not be protected. Similarly, it is not enough for one to perform a mitzvah and then assume that he will automatically receive the reward in the World to Come. One must always be on guard that the lurking dangers of sin should not come and upset his well performed mitzvah, as this will affect his share in the World to Come.

THE "MITZVAH" TO PLACE A MEZUZAH ON CITY GATES

Rav Mordechai Kornfeld writes:2

The Gemara says that the word "bi'She'arecha" (Devarim 6:9) teaches that a Mezuzah must be placed even on the gates of provinces (Medinos) and cities (Ayaros). The Beraisa, when it mentions that such gates require a Mezuzah, says, "Yesh ba'Hem Chovas Mitzvah la'Makom" -- "they have the obligation of the Mitzvah for the Omnipresent."

The Beraisa's expression is unusually elaborate. Why does the Beraisa not say simply that these gates are "obligated to have a Mezuzah" ("Chayavin b'Mezuzah")?

SI'ACH YITZCHAK answers that the Gemara teaches that the Mezuzah arouses Divine protection for Jewish homes and their inhabitants (Avodah Zarah 11a). Similarly, the Gemara later (11b) says that fulfillment of the Mitzvah of Mezuzah brings long life. (Tosfos in Menachos (44a) writes that for this reason even a rented home requires a Mezuzah;

Since the Mezuzah affords Divine protection, one might have thought that a Mezuzah is necessary on the door of one's residence but not on the gates of the city. Since one's home is already protected because of the Mezuzah affixed to its door, there is no need to affix a Mezuzah to the gates of the city. The Beraisa therefore teaches that while it is true that the city gates do not need a Mezuzah for the sake of protection, they still need a Mezuzah because of Hash-m's Mitzvah -- "Chovas Mitzvah la'Makom."

A MEZUZAH MUST BE EXAMINED "TWICE EVERY SEVEN YEARS"

The Gemara quotes a Beraisa that says that the Mezuzah of a private home must be examined twice every seven years ("Shavu'a"), while the Mezuzah of a public building must be examined twice every fifty years ("Yovel").

What is the significance of these numbers, and why are they expressed in such an unusual manner? Does the Beraisa mean that a Mezuzah of a private home must be examined once every three and a half years, or does it mean that a Mezuzah may be examined literally twice in seven years, such as once after the first two years, and again after five years?

2 https://www.dafyomi.co.il/yoma/insites/yo-dt-011.htm

12 These requirements were enacted by the Rabanan. RAV CHAIM KANIEVSKY shlit'a (in his commentary to Maseches Mezuzah) records a dispute with regard to the reason for the different requirements.

(a) According to RASHI, a Mezuzah must be examined intermittently due to concern that it may have rotted or was stolen. The Rabanan did not require that a public Mezuzah be checked as frequently as a private one in order not to inconvenience the public. Had the public been obligated to examine their Mezuzos frequently, each person would pass the responsibility on to another person and the Mezuzos would not be examined at all. (b) The TOSFOS YESHANIM explains that the reason why the Rabanan enacted such infrequent inspections for public Mezuzos is because of the danger that the inspectors faced due to the decrees issued by the foreign regime against the fulfillment of Mitzvos. (c) The SEFER HA'ESHKOL says that private Mezuzos are more likely to become damaged by exposure to the elements than public Mezuzos. The large number of people who pass by the public Mezuzos ensures that public Mezuzos are watched carefully. Rav Chaim Kanievsky adds that although the Beraisa's terminology ("twice in seven years" and "twice in fifty years") implies that one fulfills his obligation to examine his Mezuzah even if he examines it in two consecutive years out of seven, this is not the Halachah. It is clear from the Beraisa in Maseches Mezuzah that the obligation applies every three and a half years for a private Mezuzah, and every twenty-five years for a public one. The Beraisa here merely uses an abbreviated manner of speech (perhaps to avoid discussing half-years) when it discusses the obligation to examine Mezuzos. (D. Schloss)

A MEZUZAH ON A HOLY PLACE

The Gemara cites a verse that teaches that only the entranceway of a "Bayis she'Hu Chol," a non- sanctified house, requires a Mezuzah, but not the entranceway of a holy place, such as Har ha'Bayis, the Lishkos, or the Azaros. Similarly, the Gemara later (12a) cites a Beraisa in which Rebbi Yehudah implies that a holy place does not require a Mezuzah.

Earlier in the Gemara (10a), the Chachamim and Rebbi Yehudah argue whether the Lishkas Parhedrin needs a Mezuzah. The Gemara there says that the question in that case depends on other factors, such as whether an involuntary dwelling place ("Dirah Ba'al Korcho") requires a Mezuzah, and whether a temporary dwelling place ("Diras Arai") requires a Mezuzah. However, the Gemara there does not suggest (according to either opinion there) that the Lishkas Parhedrin should be exempt from a Mezuzah because it is a holy place. Why does the Gemara there not give this reason for why the Lishkas Parhedrin is exempt from a Mezuzah?

(a) The TOSFOS HA'ROSH explains that both the Chachamim and Rebbi Yehudah (on 10a) exempt the Lishkas Parhedrin from a Mezuzah because it is a holy place, as the Beraisa here says. This exemption, though, applies only mid'Oraisa. The dispute between the Chachamim and Rebbi Yehudah is whether the Lishkas Parhedrin requires a Mezuzah mid'Rabanan. Rebbi Yehudah says that it is an involuntary dwelling place, and thus it is exempt from a Mezuzah even mid'Rabanan. (b) The RITVA suggests that both the Chachamim and Rebbi Yehudah argue with the Beraisa here and assert that a holy place requires a Mezuzah mid'Oraisa. The Beraisa (12a) in which Rebbi Yehudah himself implies that a holy place is exempt does not refer to the Mitzvah of Mezuzah at all, but rather it refers to the laws of Nega'im.

13 (c) The ME'IRI explains that when the Beraisa exempts a holy place from a Mezuzah, it exempts a place that is used for purposes of holiness, and not necessarily all places that are sanctified. The Lishkas Parhedrin is not used for a holy purpose when the Kohen Gadol resides there, and thus it requires a Mezuzah even though it is a sanctified place. (d) The Me'iri suggests further that even if an area that is inherently sanctified does not require a Mezuzah regardless of how it is used, perhaps the Lishkas Parhedrin is not considered a holy place at all. RASHI (6a, DH mi'Beiso) writes that the Lishkas Parhedrin was not sanctified, and thus the Kohen Gadol was permitted to sit in the Lishkah (and, similarly, the Gemara's question that the Kohen Gadol's wife should be able to stay with him there is justified; see Insights there). The Lishkas Parhedrin did not have any sanctity, even that of Har ha'Bayis.

A MEZUZAH ON A RENTED HOUSE

The Gemara asks why the verse says "Beisecha" ("your houses") with regard to the Mitzvah of Mezuzah. The word "Beisecha" implies that only a man's house requires a Mezuzah, but not a woman's house. There is no difference, however, between a house owned by a man and a house owned by a woman; both are obligated to have a Mezuzah. The Gemara answers that the word "Beisecha" does not imply that the house of a man needs a Mezuzah but not that of a woman, but rather it teaches that the Mezuzah must be placed on the doorpost to the right of a person who enters the house ("Bi'ascha"). The Gemara in Menachos (44a), however, derives a different law from the word "Beisecha": a rented house does not require a Mezuzah during the first thirty days of the rental period, because it is not "your house." (When one rents a house for more than thirty days, he must affix a Mezuzah only because of Mar'is ha'Ayin.)

Why does the Gemara here not answer that "Beisecha" teaches the law that the Gemara in Menachos derives from this verse?

TOSFOS in Menachos (44a) explains that the Gemara here maintains that even a rented house requires a Mezuzah mid'Oraisa, because it, too, needs protection. (This is in contrast to the assertion of the GILYON HA'SHAS here.) The only reason why such a house is exempt from a Mezuzah for the first thirty days is because it is not considered a dwelling place until one has dwelled there for thirty days. RASHI also explains that a rented house requires a Mezuzah mid'Oraisa (Bava Metzia 101b and Avodah Zarah 21a, DH Chovas ha'Dar). In fact, Rashi derives the obligation (as opposed to the exemption) to affix a Mezuzah to a rented house from the word "Beisecha," which implies "Derech Bi'ascha" -- anyone who uses an apartment, whether he owns it or rents it, is obligated to affix a Mezuzah. Before thirty days have passed, one is exempt only because he has not yet made it clear that he intends to live there in a permanent manner (Rashi to Menachos 44a, DH veha'Socher).

RASHBA in Shabbos (131b, DH Ho'il) writes that a rented or borrowed house obviously does not require a Mezuzah mid'Oraisa. The Gemara could have given that answer here, but it chose to teach another law which is learned from the word "Beisecha."

TOSFOS in Menachos (ibid.) also concludes that a rented house is not obligated to have a Mezuzah mid'Oraisa. He explains that the verse says "Beisecha" twice, and the Gemara here is explaining

14 the second "Beisecha." The first "Beisecha" indeed teaches that a rented house does not need a Mezuzah.

The Mitzva of Mezuza

Steinzaltz (OBM) writes:3

The Gemara on our daf continues the discussion of the mitzva of mezuzot, offering examples of doorways that might not be obligated in mezuza for a variety of reasons.

One baraita that is quoted by the Gemara rules that a Beit haKnesset as well as a house belonging to a woman or a house that is owned by two or more partners is obligated in mezuza. In response to the question Peshita!? – isn’t this obvious!? – the Gemara argues that we may have thought that the passage obligating beitekhah (“your house” in the singular, masculine – see Devarim 11:20) limits the mitzva to a single, male owner. Since, however, the mitzva of mezuza offers the promise of a long life (Devarim 11:21), it is applied to everyone who deserves and desires such – including women.

Many commentaries ask why this particular passage is chosen for distinction. Given that most of the Torah is written in the masculine, yet is applied to all Jews, why should we make a particular point of emphasizing that this mitzva may only have been applied to men? The Gevurot Ari points out that we are dealing with a unique case. The entire parasha was written in the plural, with the single exception of the passage about mezuza, which is written in the masculine. Thus, it is reasonable to consider the possibility that it refers specifically to men.

Another rule taught on this daf is the obligation to have mezuzot checked twice every seven years in a private home, and twice every 50 years in public places. Rashi explains the difference based on the principle that we try to keep from disturbing the public. The Sefer HaEshkol says that it is a practical issue. A mezuza in a public place is seen by all, and if there was a problem with it, it would be noticed by someone who would bring it to the attention of the authorities. The Rosh argues that checking a public mezuza carries with it an element of danger, an explanation that fits in with a story brought in the Gemara.

There was an incident involving an examiner [artavin], who was examining mezuzot in the upper marketplace of Tzippori during a period when decrees were issued against the Jewish people, and a Roman official [kasdor] found him and collected a fine of one thousand zuz from him.

Mark Kerzner writes:4

Since the Torah said, " Write the words about God on the doorposts of your house and on your gates ," we understand that just as the gates of your house are included, so too the gates of your

3 https://steinsaltz.org/daf/yoma11/ 4 http://talmudilluminated.com/yoma/yoma11.html

15 courtyards, provinces and cities. However, just as a house, it should be inhabited. For example, strictly speaking a synagogue requires a mezuzah only of the sexton lives there.

Would a storehouse require a mezuzah? Some say that they do not require a mezuzah, because it is not "your house" but an animal’s. Others say that it is "your house," that is, a house belonging to you, and thus requiring a mezuzah. All agree that a bathhouse does not need one.

What about such a gate that is straight at the bottom but oval at the top? Rabbi Meir says that it still needs a mezuzah, while the Sages say that it does not.

What is the point of contention between them? Rabbi Meir applies the principle of "we view it as if straightened out," that is, if we were to remove the extra material at the arch and make the doorposts go straight, wouldn't it required a mezuzah? - so even now it does. But the Sages do not agree to the principle of "we view it as if straightened out."

Sara Ronis writes:5

Some days the Talmud delights in discussing the most abstract, stylized and seemingly irrelevant concerns and some days we find ourselves, with no warning at all, thrust into a shockingly frank conversation about the most exquisitely painful realities of human existence. Today it’s the latter. But at least I warned you.

There’s a famous Talmudic story (Chullin 142) of a father who sends his son to collect eggs from a bird’s nest in a tree. Being obedient and righteous, the boy climbs the tree immediately but sends away the mother bird before collecting her eggs. The child thus fulfills the mitzvot of honoring one’s parents and of shooing away the mother bird(shiluach ha-ken). On his way down the tree, the boy falls to his death.

This story is a tragedy, all the more so because the biblical verses which command both of these mitzvot, Exodus 20:12 and Deuteronomy 22:7, promise a long life to those who observe them. According to some, the great Torah sage Elisha ben Abuya saw this tragedy and his faith was so shaken that he rejected the Torah entirely. Shouldn’t God protect one who is actively engaged in the performance of mitzvot? Especially those mitzvot which the Torah connects to longevity?

Today’s daf offers a different perspective.

Rabbi Yehuda said: There was an incident involving an examiner, who was examining mezuzot in the upper marketplace of Tzippori. A Roman official found him and collected a fine of one thousand zuz from him.

Tzippori was a mixed Jewish-non-Jewish city; the story appears to be set in a period when the public performance of Judaism was either outlawed or strictly regulated. While the man doesn’t lose his life for his work ensuring that mezuzot are kosher, he is forced to pay an enormous fine. The Gemara asks:

5 Myjewishlearning.com

But didn’t Rabbi Elazar say that those on the path to perform a mitzvah are not susceptible to harm?!

Shouldn’t those actively involved in performing a mitzvah, in this case facilitating the mitzvah of mezuzah, be protected from physical and financial harm? The Gemara answers:

Where danger is permanent it is different.

When the risks are ever-present and known, even those engaged in a mitzvah must take precautions.

The Gemara’s proof for this idea comes from 1 Samuel 16. In this text, Israel’s first king, Saul, is currently on the throne, but God has rejected his kingship and commands God’s prophet, Samuel, to go and anoint one of Jesse the Bethlehemite’s sons as king in Saul’s place (spoiler alert: it’s going to be David). If he finds out, Saul is not going to be happy to hear that Samuel is anointing a rival for the throne. “And Samuel said: How will I go, and Saul will hear and kill me? God said: Take in your hand a calf and say: I have come to offer a sacrifice to God.” (I Samuel 16:2) Even though Samuel the prophet will be engaged in actively obeying the direct words of God, God warns him to take precautions and come up with a cover story to protect himself from Saul’s wrath. When the risks are ever-present and known, even those engaged in a mitzvah must take precautions.

Today’s daf acknowledges that the world is a dangerous place. Doing mitzvot isn’t magically protective. But today’s daf also insists that even though doing mitzvot won’t always literally save your life, you are still obligated to do them because fulfilling the mitzvot is the only way to live in harmony with God’s will. After all, for the rabbis, life isn’t just about living but about living well.

The Liminal Space of the MEZUZAH

Keren Hannah Pryor writes:6

Jewish people have this custom of affixing a small box to our doorframes and entrance gates. It usually is a slim, oblong container that can be made from various materials such as plastic, wood, ceramics or metal, including pure silver or gold. I also have one carved from beautiful Jerusalem stone. They can be very simple or elaborate and decorative. Although the word mezuzah (pronounced mah-zooz-ah) originally denoted the doorpost itself, the name now is ascribed to this container. The etymology of the word is unclear. Interestingly, the emphasized central syllable zuz is the Hebrew word meaning move. Indeed, the mezuzah marks the place of a threshold, indicating movement from one place to another; which renders it a perfect symbol for a liminal space!

6 https://his-israel.com/the-liminal-space-of-the-mezuzah-keren-hannah-pryor/

As are most Jewish customs, that of attaching a mezuzah to the doorposts of one’s home (except the bathroom), arose from response to, and in fulfillment of, a commandment of God given in His Torah [teaching or instruction, as recorded in the first five books of the Bible].

And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. …You shall write them on the doorposts [mezuzot] of your house and on your gates. (Deut. 6:4,9)

These words are included in the verses that comprise the Shemah (Deut. 6:4-9), which, together with verses 11-21 from chapter 11, are meticulously handwritten by a professional scribe on a small parchment scroll, called a klaf, which is housed inside the mezuzah. If the klaf can be seen, –shin–dalet) ש-ד-י e.g., through a glass or clear plastic mezuzah, the scribe writes the letters yod) on the outside of the rolled up scroll. The letters form the word Shaddai, a name for God; they also are an acronym for Shomer Dlatot Yisrael – Guardian of the Doors of Israel. On ceramic or metal mezuzot, just the letter shin suffices as a reminder of Who is guarding one’s door!

Being affixed in these strategic positions, the mezuzot are the most prominent religious objects in the home and those most often seen by all the family. This applies publically as well for those of

18 us blessed to live in the Jewish homeland of Israel. Situated at thresholds, the mezuzah is there as a quiet reminder, when one moves, often briskly, from one space to another, that life itself is a “limen” – a transition from one place to the next – from Olam HaZeh (this world) to Olam HaBa (the World to Come). In order to help us remember it is there and the truth it conveys, people often pause, however fleetingly, and touch the mezuzah with a kiss of the fingertips. This helps, in the hectic pace of our days, to constantly keep the reality in mind that we simply are passing through this life and should not lose sight of the eternal perspective and the deeper meaning of our journey.

The pause, thus, is a remembrance of the necessary connection of the physical and spiritual aspects of life. In our physical existence on earth we are bound by the limitations of space and time. We can become so focused on our bodily, physical needs and demands that we forget the reality that we, essentially, are spiritual beings encased in physical bodies. Our spirits also need feeding and nurture in order to grow and flourish. Our spiritual food is the Word of God, the bread from Heaven our Father provided for this very purpose. The mezuzah perfectly pictures this in its form as an outer container housing precious words of God.

The kiss on one’s fingertips is to acknowledge, in love, the One whose idea it was to place His Word at every threshold and thereby to reassure us of His Presence. As we leave the sanctuary of our homes and go out into the uncertain world, we can trust that He is there constantly watching and is with us. We therefore pause, gratefully, to acknowledge His faithfulness with a touch and a kiss.

Thresholds7

7 https://forward.com/shma-now/thresholds/391096/nishma-thresholds/

19 Steven Sager:

In order to provide witnesses for the investiture of the priests, God commanded Moses, “Assemble all of the community in the doorway of the Tent of Meeting.” (Leviticus 8:3) Such crowding of the threshold was certainly impossible.

The ba’al ha-midrash (story master) insists that the word “all” opens things up wondrously — not to a measurable fact, but to the spacious truth of metaphor. Thresholds of consciousness, emotion, pain, and awareness offer vistas wider than their framing moments. At such thresholds, “the little contains the much”: Events deepen into experiences; moments become momentous.

On the “limen” (Latin for “threshold”), we experience liminal, transitional moments; perception crosses a threshold and a deepening awareness creates in us an expanded vision.

The ba’al ha-midrash positioned all of us — those present and those yet to be — on a threshold of religious imagination, inviting coherence, consciousness, and continuity, and allowing us be present to holiness-in-the- making that is beyond us and within us.

The ba’al ha-midrash extended this teaching to include Jerusalem herself. Like the threshold of the sacred tent, Jerusalem became “the little that contains the much” — always wide enough to contain those who seek her. May it be so, quickly, and in our day.

Gray Myrseth:

In his commentary on Leviticus Rabbah, Rabbi Steven Sager speaks of “liminal, transitional moments” where we can be present with “holiness-in-the-making” and encounter a spaciousness that bends the ordinary laws of physics.

When I think of the limen and the threshold, I imagine everyone standing at the edge of our communities, wondering what kind of welcome they will receive as they approach. I think of Jews of color, queer and transgender Jews, Jews with disabilities, and Jews by choice. I think of people with one Jewish parent, people who are unsure for a wide range of reasons whether they will find the right fit in any Jewish community or whether they will stand at the edges forever.

As we consider the thresholds of our homes and sanctuaries, it is my hope that we can remember that the first Tent of Meeting created by our desert ancestors was wide enough to hold every person

20 who approached its doorway. That tent was wide enough to hold the spirit of the Holy One, who defines boundaries and binaries, and who welcomes human beings who do the same. May our own present-day Jewish spaces be as welcoming to the fullness of the Jewish people in all our queer and liminal splendor, as the Tent of Meeting was so long ago. What we find beyond the threshold will be infinitely more fabulous when we do.

Sara Luria:

The poet John O’Donohue teaches that a threshold, from the Old English word “threscan,” is the place where one separates the wheat from the chaff. Threshing is an embodied experience of separating. Right after Moses assembles the entire community at the Tent of Meeting, he washes Aaron and his sons in preparation for their sacred roles.

The mikveh ritual, an immersion in living waters, is an embodied Jewish transition ceremony that facilitates spiritual threshing. Those who immerse themselves allow what is not useful anymore to dissolve in the water, and thus they emerge lighter and more prepared for what is to come.

In the mikveh — and at the threshold to the Tent of Meeting — we are standing in a place in between what we were and what we will become. This is what Rabbi Steven Sager teaches, echoing Leviticus Rabbah, “the little contains the much.” Perhaps, each of us is the little that contains the much. Our small bodies hold vast experiences — losses, hopes, fears, love, pain, and joy. Leviticus Rabbah teaches us that all of Israel — 600,000 people — assembled to participate in transformation. Each of us is one of the 600,000.

Each of us is alone as we stand in the mikveh or at a threshold.

A final point to ponder. The mezuzah also is a reminder of the Exodus from Egypt. The Israelite families who were for God, and were ready to obey His will, followed the detailed commands given to Moses.

They were to take a lamb into their home for four days and, on the prescribed day, when they needed to be packed and dressed for the journey, they were to slaughter the lamb and daub its blood on their doorposts. Then they were to roast the lamb, enjoy a meal together, and be ready to leave when the signal was given.

The blood of the lamb on the doorframe was the sign of their obedience to God. On seeing this, the Angel of Death would pass over them. Then, at a given signal, in a mighty deliverance of God, they would all go forth across the threshold, the great liminal space, from slavery into freedom. They would cross over from the cruelty and crippling physical demands of Pharaoh to the free open space of service to their Creator. They would be free to worship their loving Redeemer, in whose image they were made.

Today, the times we live in often are dangerous. The evidence of cruelty and evil we are witness to is heartbreaking. Now, more than ever, we need sure and constant reminders that affirm and strengthen our knowledge of who we are as beloved children of the Almighty God. We need to know that, in our going, as we “live and move and have our being in Him,” we can “pause” and bring blessing, including into any situation of pain and injustice. We can do this with “a touch and a kiss” in the spirit of chesed – the fiery power of our Father’s love expressed in tender, compassionate action.

Susiya is the site of an archaeologically notable ancient synagogue. The site was examined by Shmarya Guttman in 1969, who uncovered the narthex of a synagogue during a trial dig. He, together with Ze'ev Yeivin and Ehud Netzer, then conducted the Israeli excavations at Khirbet Suseya, (subsequently named by a Hebrew calque as Horvat Susya) over 1971–72, by the Palestinian village of Susiya Al-Qadime

Ritual on the Threshold: Mezuzah and the Crafting of Domestic and Civic Space

Elizabeth Shanks Alexander writes:8

The majority of scholarly discussions on the mezuzah in antiquity have focused on the connection between mezuzah practice and protective magical amulets. The basis for the comparison is

8 Jewish Social Studies Vol. 20, No. 3 (Spring/Summer 2014): Indiana University Press

23 manifold: mezuzah parchments were often written by the same scribes and with the same materials used for amulets;1 several rabbinic passages can be read to suggest that the mezuzah had a protective function;2 writing in antiquity was at times understood to have magical agency;3 and mezuzah can be seen to function like other Jewish symbols and texts inscribed on doorposts and lintels for protective purposes.4 As much as these discussions illuminate ancient mezuzah practice by placing it in the context of related cultural phenomena, they focus on the mezuzah as a discrete object and largely ignore the social and spatial contexts in which the commandment of mezuzah was practiced.5 This article attempts to fill this lacuna by exploring mezuzah as a “spatial practice,” that is, as a ritual practice by which the social meaning of the built environment was negotiated.

Recent scholarship stresses the extent to which space is socially and culturally produced.6 Barbara Mann offers an elegant summary of the key points of this scholarship when she notes that it highlights “the elasticity of space and its reliance upon some human point of view.”7 The meaning of space emerges from the social and cultural practices of those who inhabit it, use it, move through it, avoid it, reflect on it, and imagine it. A number of scholars stress the fluidity of spatial meanings, recognizing that as patterns of social and cultural engagement with elements of the built environment and natural architecture change, the meaning of these elements changes as well.8 This article argues that mezuzah practice was one among many ways in which ancient Jews engaged the built environment.

Though we cannot interview ancient Jews in the manner of ethnographers to discern the role of mezuzah practice in the production of social spaces, we can read the textual and material artifacts left behind with an “ethnographic eye.” According to ethnographer Jalane Schmidt, this approach entails “being attentive to the text’s account of the movements of bodies through physical spaces, the sensorium, emotions, taking seriously the reported nature of material objects, [and] accounts of time.”9

Thus, we can focus on mezuzah’s role in the network of activities that shaped and produced social spaces. One notable feature of the mezuzah is that it is located on the threshold, a liminal space that is neither entirely inside nor entirely outside.10 Deuteronomy 6:7 instructs its adherents to “write them [these words] on the doorposts of your house and at your gates,”11 places of transition that both open up to the world beyond the household and seal off the household, creating intimacy and offering protection.

The inherent ambiguity of the threshold is underscored by Cynthia Baker’s remarks on the fluidity of the boundaries of the domicile; she writes that “many domiciles . . . were not separate structures with rigid boundaries, but rather, dynamic arrangements of access and exclusion, opening and closing, enclosing and disclosing that shifted and varied”12 through patterns of use and engagement.

That is, the built environment was understood to contain, to protect, to divide, and to open up toward the world on the basis of how people interacted with it. Practicing the ritual of mezuzah was one way of negotiating the meaning of the built environment. What role did the mezuzah play in arbitrating the boundary between inside and outside and in giving meaning to space on either side of the boundary?

This article examines mezuzah practice as envisioned by both Philo (circa 20 b.c.e.–45 c.e.) and the tannaitic rabbis (circa 80–220 c.e.). Each ancient witness to the practice emphasizes the ritual’s significance for a different social constituency, with the consequence that each also envisions the mezuzah crafting social space on a different side of the threshold.

Philo stresses the ritual’s significance for Jews and gentiles, men and women, adults and children, and freemen and slaves. For him, mezuzah functions to construct the meaning of space on the public side of the threshold. By way of contrast, the rabbis highlight the ritual’s relevance for women, slaves, and minors (taking for granted its relevance for free adult males), with the effect that for them the mezuzah stabilizes the meaning of space on the domestic side of the threshold. For each of these ancient witnesses, the mezuzah ritual provides a means of interacting with the built environment that structures it and gives it meaning.

Notably, the practice of mezuzah was integral to the construction of different kinds of social space among different groups of ancient Jews. Whereas Philo’s mezuzah staked a claim to the meaning of public spaces shared by Jews and gentiles, the rabbis’ mezuzah was significant for those living inside of the house and served to define the meaning of social space within its walls.

Fluid Boundaries between Inside and Outside Several pieces of evidence attest to the unclear status of the threshold in the consciousness of Jews in antiquity. In tannaitic literature, we find the following statement:

In this text, the position of the door determines the status of the threshold. When it opens to the world beyond, it is part of the house’s interior. When it seals off the world, it becomes part of the exterior. This text highlights the astuteness of Baker’s claim that the meaning of elements within the built environment is continually in flux.

A feature of the built environment—the threshold—is interpreted and (at least temporarily) stabilized when it is used or engaged in a particular way. The initial statement that the threshold (literally) “serves two domains” further emphasizes the threshold as a liminal space.15 Housing patterns in Philo’s Roman Egypt likewise exhibit ambiguity about where the boundary between inside and outside, public and private, and civic and domestic lies.

Joan Taylor notes that the “gatehouse area” (pulon) was an ambiguous space, located as it was within the gates of the house and regarded as part of the house in bills of sale even as it was “semipublic” by virtue of the fact that business was conducted there.16

According to Richard Alston, the social meaning of the house changed during the Roman period in Egypt. Whereas traditional Egyptian houses had been regarded as oases of privacy for both men and women, with all business transactions occurring in the street, in the Roman period public activities were increasingly conducted within the house, especially in the pulon, with the result that this space was regarded as “semi-public.”17 If the domicile housed a business, sale and production usually happened on the bottom floor of the pulon.

Whereas prior to the Roman period socializing often took place in public spaces associated with communal buildings (temples and rented symposia [rooms used for banquets]),18 in Roman Egypt, the upper story of the pulon often served as a space for male diners to socialize.19 The pulon of Roman Egypt, like the threshold of t. Shabbat 2.6, “served two domains.” It was part of the inner sanctum of the house and at the same time accommodated activities that had previously been performed in public space.

Gil Klein offers one more piece of evidence regarding the fluidity of the boundary between public and private. He cites a rabbinic story about R. Yannai (a first-generation Palestinian amora) and a traveling peddler20 that demonstrates how the distance between the public square or street and the triclinium (formal dining room) within the house was not fixed and absolute.

The story locates R. Yannai at home in his triclinium as he expounds on Torah. The peddler, who has been traveling the countryside, sets up shop right outside of R. Yannai’s home. When the peddler cries out to advertise his potions (“an elixir of life”), R. Yannai invites him up to the triclinium to engage him. Having arrived at the triclinium, the peddler surprises all by offering a homily on Psalm 34:13–15. Klein calls this moment “the turning point in the plot” because “the distance between the two [sage and peddler] collapses. . . . It is at this moment that the peddler reveals his true nature as a teacher versed in Scripture. His merchandise turns out to be not an elixir, and not even the book of Psalms, but, rather, a homily.”21

Klein’s analysis highlights the parallels between the collapsing social distance between the peddler and sage, on the one hand, and the collapsing physical distance between the street and triclinium, on the other. The bridge that is created between street and triclinium is a concrete representation of the central drama that brings the peddler into the sage’s circle of Torah. For our purposes, this story illustrates once again how patterns of use and engagement can transform space, especially at the boundary between inside and outside.

The peddler’s cries penetrate the triclinium and intermingle with the words of Torah being expounded there. Sound, apparently, does not respect the boundaries between inside and outside. Furthermore, the text states that R. Yannai “looks out”22 from his house to the peddler on the street and invites him in. Visually, the boundary seems to be permeable, as well.

As with the other examples discussed, Klein’s discussion of R. Yannai and the peddler illustrates the fluidity of the boundary between public and private and the important role that social activity (seeing, hearing, speaking, teaching, selling) plays in differentiating or collapsing these spaces. Amidst these shifting understandings of the boundary between public and private, what role did the mezuzah play in stabilizing spatial meaning? Archaeological evidence illustrates that the

26 presence of a mezuzah on a threshold is not a straightforward mechanism for demarcating the line between public and private, inside and outside, or civic and domestic.

The rectangular structure external dimensions are 14.5m long (on the north- south axis) by 8.5m wide. The ruins were preserved to a height of 3.5m. On its eastern wall, which is the front of the synagogue, are two entrances, which a common design of synagogues. The entrances are on the longer side, which are common in smaller synagogues (such as Anim and Ma’on), as opposed to entrances on the narrow side of larger structures (such as Eshtemoh and Susya).

The earliest evidence of a mezuzah niche found in situ is at Horvat Susiya (sixth c. c.e.).23 Though some Qumran scrolls (circa 100 b.c.e.) have been identified as mezuzah slips, the Qumran site itself provides no evidence as to how or where the scrolls were affixed or incorporated into the built environment.24

The house at Horvat Susiya consists of four quadrants: southwest (SW), northwest (NW), northeast (NE), and southeast (SE).25 On the western side of the house, two main rooms have been identified as shops (SW and NW), each with a door leading to the street. On the eastern side of the house are a generously sized triclinium (SE) and a set of living rooms (NE), each with a door leading to the courtyard located on the eastern side of the house. The footprint of the courtyard is almost one and a half times as large as the footprint of the house. The mezuzah niche is located on the right-hand

27 doorpost as one enters what was presumably the main door (SE), leading from the courtyard to the triclinium.26 Finally, an entry to the courtyard lies on its southern side, relatively close to the house. There are several ways to envision the boundaries of the household. Tools for performing household tasks were found in the courtyard, so in one view, the domestic space of this household extends into the courtyard.27

Hirschfeld’s observations regarding the position of the courtyard entrance likewise suggest that the boundaries of the household extended to include the courtyard. He notes that the “entrance to the courtyard was usually positioned on a different axis from that of the house entrance. . . . This arrangement prevented a chance glimpse by passersby into the private areas of the house interior,”28 since the main door to the house would have been open during the day to let in sunlight and air on the eastern exposure.

According to this reading, the main entrance to the house was not the primary place where distinctions between public and private were negotiated. These observations require that we think about the mezuzah niche at the main entrance to the house in new ways. It is no longer self-evident that the mezuzah is located on the boundary between inner and outer, private and public, domestic and civic. In this reading, mezuzah appears to be a ritual practiced inside the domicile rather than on the boundary between domains. This interpretation of the mezuzah niche at Horvat Susiya is further strengthened when we observe that unlike contemporary practice, in which the mezuzah is affixed just outside the closed door, the mezuzah niche here is positioned just inside the closed door.29

My intention here is not to make a sustained argument for the mezuzah at Horvat Susiya as a ritual associated with the inner, domestic realm. Rather, I wish to complicate our understanding of the mezuzah’s location on the threshold. Just as the threshold can be absorbed into both the inner and outer domains in t. Shabbat 1.6, here too the boundary between inner and outer domains is fluid. In t. Shabbat 1.6, the rabbis suggest that patterns of use (opening and closing the door) resolve the ambiguity surrounding the threshold’s locational status.

Richard Alston and Joan Taylor suggest that patterns of conducting business and hosting parties convert one quarter of the formerly private “house as refuge” into a semipublic domain, thus shifting the boundary between public and private one level inward. Modern interpreters look for evidence of ancient patterns of use at Horvat Susiya to resolve the question of where the boundary between inside and outside, public and private, and domestic and civic lies.

Given that some patterns of use (such as performing household labor in the courtyard or positioning the courtyard entrance to secure privacy) place the boundary at the perimeter of the courtyard, the spatial function of mezuzah becomes less clear. The threshold is an inherently liminal place (it can be absorbed into either the inside or the outside), but it is also a moving target, as patterns of use push the boundaries of the house outward (as at Horvat Susiya) or pull it inward (as in Roman Egypt).

What role did the mezuzah play alongside the myriad other social activities that (at least temporarily) stabilized the boundary between inside and outside?

Given the wide range of documented ways of engaging the built environment, it should not surprise us to learn that the mezuzah stabilizes the meaning of different types of social space for Philo, on one hand, and the tannaitic rabbis, on the other. One significant difference between Philo and the rabbis is that each sees the ritual as relevant to a different social constituency. Philo envisions the ritual as having significance for Jews and gentiles, men and women, slaves and freemen, adults and children. By way of contrast, the tannaitic rabbis explicitly state the ritual’s significance for women, slaves, and minors while implying its relevance for free, adult males.

In each case, clarifying the social community for whom the ritual had significance suggests a visual perspective from which the mezuzah on the threshold was viewed. Philo’s mezuzah was viewed by a broad public on the street side of the threshold and staked a claim for the meaning of civic space within the city. By way of contrast, the rabbis’ mezuzah had relevance for those who worked and socialized within the house, so that it became a mechanism for crafting domestic space. Linking the mezuzah to a social community helped to stabilize its meaning so that it became a tool for shaping the spaces in which it was set.

Philo’s Mezuzah: Staking a Claim on Public Space

Richard Alston discusses the contested ethnic character of public space in the urban context of Roman Alexandria during Philo’s lifetime. He writes, the issue of the ethnicity of the city had become increasingly problematic following the Roman reorganization of Alexandria and Egypt. The Romans imposed complex status differentials which were loosely based on ethnicity and residence and reinforced by different rates of taxation, so that to be “Greek”30 and urban was to be of the highest status while to be “Egyptian” and rural was to be of the lowest.31 According to Alston, Philo’s use of “symbolic geography”32 in his account of the Alexandrian anti-Jewish riots of 38–39 c.e. reveals his belief that one of the anti-Jewish rioters’ primary motivations was to “exclude . . . the Jewish community from this urban space . . . and enforce a particular [ethnic] interpretation of the urban community.”33

Alston notes that anti-Jewish hostilities followed the arrival of the Jewish king Agrippa, newly appointed by the emperor Gaius, to the city of Alexandria. Though Agrippa had been directed to the city by imperial authority while he was en route to Judea, and though Philo claims Agrippa wished to maintain a low profile while in the city, Greeks and Alexandrians perceived his presence as a threat to the honor of the local governor, Flaccus. Philo describes the aggressions against the Jews as an indirect response to the perceived overreaching of Jewish presence in the city.

Alston observes that Philo’s representation of the aggression highlights its spatial dimensions. Initially the aggressors “cried out, as if at a signal given, to erect images in the synagogues,”34 thereby asserting Greek authority over all domains of the city, including those under Jewish jurisdiction.35 As the hostilities mounted, the aggressors “drove the Jews entirely out of four quarters [of the city] and crammed them all into a very small portion of one.”36 By excluding Jews from both the physical space of the city and its significant cultural institutions (the gymnasium and the theater), the aggressors asserted that Jews could not live as a distinct ethnic community within

29 Greek Alexandria. As the violence spread to physical assaults and the violent invasion of Jewish homes, “the Greek community . . . asserted control in the only space [still] denied them, the Jewish home.”37 At stake in the riots, then, was the ethnic character of the city, its public spaces, and its institutions. Perceiving a corruption of the city’s Greek character with the presence of a discrete Jewish community, the rioters sought to assert Greek ascendency by eliminating Jewish presence in public urban spaces and by enforcing a Greek presence and authority in (formerly) private Jewish spaces.

The Rabbis’ Mezuzah: Securing and Encompassing the Domicile

When we turn to the mezuzah ritual of the tannaitic rabbis, we find that the social spaces in which it is embedded differ significantly from those toward which Philo’s mezuzah is oriented. Unlike Philo’s mezuzah, which contributes to the moral and aesthetic character of the urban landscape, the rabbis’ mezuzah was all but invisible on the public side of the threshold.

Charlotte Fonrobert characterizes the rabbinic mezuzah as a discrete marker of Jewish space that would have been perceptible only to those who knew it was there.58 How, then, does the rabbinic mezuzah function to define and construct social spaces? For the tannaim, the mezuzah has relevance for those who work and dwell within the walls of the house. As conceived by the rabbis, the householder is the pivot around which the social community of the household revolves.59

The rabbis’ mezuzah is positioned at the outer perimeter of the Jewish householder’s domain, whereas other rituals (tefillin, tsitsit, and circumcision) surround him at more intimate levels. Because the mezuzah surrounds the householder at the outermost perimeter of his domain, members of the broader social community of the household (women, slaves, and minors) are brought into its sphere of influence. The rabbis emphasize the fact that women, slaves, and minors are obligated in the practice of mezuzah. The relevance of the ritual, however, devolves not from rabbinic interest in them as individuals but rather from rabbinic attention to their presence within the householder’s domain. For the rabbis, the mezuzah contributes to the construction of the social character of the rabbinic household by positioning a male householder at its center and by embedding him in an extended domestic community. A passage from Sifre Deuteronomy emphasizes how the rabbinic mezuzah contains and protects an inner sanctum where the Jew resides:

Here the mezuzah is depicted as one of several rituals that surround and encompass Israel. The first issue to consider is how the spatial metaphor works in this image. At the center stands an

30 embodied individual who performs several covenantal rituals. Though in lived existence an individual actively directs his body to perform these rituals, the source portrays Israel’s body as passive, with a personified Scripture60 surrounding it in layer after layer of ritual.

Israel’s fidelity to God’s covenantal prescriptions—at least those mentioned (tefillin, tsitsit, mezuzah, and circumcision)—is taken for granted in this depiction. One feature that the rituals have in common is their engagement with Israel’s body: several are fulfilled by cloaking and housing the body, whereas circumcision is performed on the flesh itself. A second feature the rituals have in common is the centrality of covenant to each of them. Circumcision is biblically described as a “sign of the covenant” (ot berit),61 and tefillin, tsitsit, and mezuzah are prescribed in the Shema, whose central theme is Israel’s covenantal relationship with the god of Israel.

The covenant depicted in the Shema calls on Israel to express loyalty to God through their performance of commandments, while God is called upon to protect and eventually redeem Israel.62 In an era when God’s covenantal redemption was as yet unfulfilled in the political arena, this source depicts the covenantal rituals providing protection in a very intimate way, both at a very small remove from the body and even when the body is naked and deprived of all protective armor.

The protection, however, is predicated on Israel’s loyalty to the terms of their covenant with God. In representing Israel as the passive subject being “surrounded” by God, the text implies Israel’s active performance of these rituals. Mekhilta Bo is more explicit about the idea that the mezuzah provides divine protection only when Israel keeps up their end of the covenantal bargain. This midrash comments on Exodus 12:23, a text in which God prevents the Destroyer from entering Israelite homes on the eve of the Exodus:

This text depicts God protecting Israel at the doorposts (mezuzot) both by means of the blood that Israel painted on the doorposts during the Exodus from Egypt and by means of the mezuzah of the contemporary era. Where it might be argued that God has failed to provide protection in the contemporary era, the Mekhilta counters that the fault lies with Israel. The mezuzah provides

31 divine protection only in the context of the covenantal relationship, that is, only when Israel demonstrates its loyalty to God. When Israel fails to uphold its end of the covenantal relationship, Israel places a barrier between itself and God, so that all of God’s good will and interest to protect are for naught.63

Sifre’s description of the covenantal framework of the rituals that surround Israel suggests several affective qualities of Israel’s experience. First, the space created by the complementarity of God’s giving and Israel’s performing these rituals is an intimate one, inhabited by only God and Israel. Second, the rituals imply a vulnerable Israel set off from the larger world by God’s protective measures.64 Third, the rituals emphasize the Jewish identity of that which is on the inside, ignoring the ethnic, cultural, or religious identity of those that fall outside the boundary drawn by these rituals.65 The rituals might be seen as encompassing Israel in a series of concentric circles, with mezuzah operating at the outermost level.

The mezuzah’s strategic location “at the opening of their houses” fortifies a vulnerable point on the perimeter of the enclosure,66 ensuring that Israel is protected while being “surrounded.”67 As the rituals move from the outer perimeter of Israel’s domain to the inner perimeter, it becomes clear that the Israel alluded to here is gendered male.

The rituals that encompass the body by cloaking it (tefillin and tsitsit) are rituals that are elsewhere indicated for men but not women, slaves, or minors. Though it might be argued that these rituals are not irrefutably linked to the free, adult male householder, since discrete opinions exist to obligate women in tsitsit and minors in tefillin,68 there can be no denying that the innermost ritual in the set of concentric circles—circumcision—is male.

At the center of the space encompassed by these rituals is the male householder.69 Even when ritual operates in the more spacious domain populated by other members of the Jewish household, the free, adult male householder stands at the center. It is around him that the ever-expanding concentric domains center.

NOTES

1 Meir Bar-Ilan, “Ketivat sifrei torah, tefilin, mezuzot, kemi‘ot ‘al ‘or tsevi,” Beit mikra 52 (1985): 375–81.

2 See Victor Aptowitzer, “Les noms de Dieu et des anges dans la mezouza,” Revue des Études Juives 60 (1910): 39–52; Joshua Tractenberg, Jewish Magic and Superstition: A Study in Folk Religion (New York, 1972 [1st ed., 1939]), 132–53; Franz Landsberger, “The Origin of the Decorated Mezuzah,” Hebrew Union College Annual 31 (1960): 149–66, esp. 153–54; Eva-Maria Jansson, The Message of a Mitsvah: The Mezuzah in Rabbinic Literature (Lund, 1999) 44–58; and Dror Yinun and Ishay Rosen- Zvi, “Takhshitim gavriim, takhshitim nashiim: Mabat hadash ‘al ma‘amdah ha-dati shel ha-ishah bi-mishnat hazal,” Reishit 2 (2010): 5–6. See the discussion of rabbinic sources generally assumed to convey the protective function of mezuzah with the explicit purpose of refuting such an interpretation of mezuzah in Martin L. Gordon, “Mezuzah: Protective Amulet or Religious Symbol?,” Tradition 16 (1976–77): 7–40, esp. 11–22. Yehudah Cohn takes a mediating position, suggesting that in the tannaitic period, the protective function of mezuzah was assumed to inhere within the ten names of God found in the included passages and to be contingent upon Israel’s righteousness. See Yehudah B. This content downloaded from 67.175.189.45 on Mon, 19 Apr 2021 10:09:45 UTC All use subject to htt [123] Ritual on the Threshold • Elizabeth Shanks Alexander Cohn, Tangled up in Text: Tefillin and the Ancient World (Providence, R.I., 2008), 166–69.

3 Catherine Hezser, Jewish Literacy in Roman Palestine (Tübingen, 2001), 38, 190, 209–26.

4 Bar-Ilan discusses the parallels between mezuzah and protective inscriptions among the Samaritans in Meir Bar-Ilan, “Hotemot magiim ‘al ha-guf etsel yehudim bi-meot ha-rishonot la-sefirah,” Tarbiz 57 (1987–88): 37–50, esp. 40–41. See also Martin S.

32 Jaffee, Early Judaism (Upper Saddle River, N.J., 1997), 200–203. Shaked and Naveh discuss the connection between the third- century c.e. Palmyra Inscription (Deuteronomy 6:4–9 on the lintel and Deuteronomy 7:14–15 on the doorposts) and Samaritan amulets. See Joseph Naveh and Shaul Shaked, Magic Spells and Formulae: Aramaic Incantations of Late Antiquity (Jerusalem, 1993), 22–31, esp. 23 and 25. Robert C. Gregg considers the Palmyra Inscription in the context of other lintel and doorpost inscriptions in the Golan from the Jewish, Christian, and pagan traditions. Gregg argues that the inscriptions served two functions: 1) they indicated a particular ethnic or religious identity in an area populated by diverse religions and ethnicities, and 2) they warded off dangerous forces that threatened the house. See Robert C. Gregg, “Marking Religious and Ethnic Boundaries: Cases from the Ancient Golan Heights,” Church History 69, no. 3 (2000): 519–57, esp. 541–56.

5 An important exception is Jaffee, Early Judaism, 200–203. Jaffee argues that the rabbinic mezuzah plays a central role in marking the boundary between the outside, non-Jewish world and the inner world of the home where a relationship with God can be achieved. Jaffee presents the mezuzah as one of several rituals that create the home as a “Jewish space.” This article develops his insights, attending to the social and spatial meanings of mezuzah in both Philo’s and the rabbis’ writings.

6 Two key works in the emerging field of spatial studies are Henri Lefebvre, The Production of Space, trans. Donald Nicholson- Smith (Malden, Mass., 1991), and Edward W. Soja, Postmodern Geographies: The Reassertion of Space in Critical Theory (New York, 1989). Key works on spatial studies in Jewish studies include Barbara Mann, Space and Place in Jewish Studies (New Brunswick, N.J., 2012); Cynthia Baker, Rebuilding the House of Israel: Architectures of Gender (Stanford, 2002); Charlotte Fonrobert and Vered Shemtov, eds., “Jewish Conceptions and Practices of Space,” special issue, Jewish Social Studies n.s. 11, no. 3 (2005); and Julia Brauch, Anna Lipphardt, and Alexandra Nocke, eds., Jewish Topographies: Visions of Space, Traditions of Place (Burlington, Vt., 2008). See also Charlotte Fonrobert, “Review Essay: The New Spatial Turn in Jewish Studies,” AJS Review 33, no. 1 (2009): 155–64.

7 Mann, Space and Place in Jewish Studies, 18. 8 See Pierre Bourdieu, Outline of a Theory of Practice, trans. Richard Nice (New York, 1977), 90–91, on the way that residents and nonresidents invest the Berber house with meaning. See Mann, Space and Place in This content downloaded from 67.175.189.45 on Mon, 19 Apr 2021 10:09:45 UTC All use subject to htt [124] Jewish Social Studies • Vol. 20 No. 3 Jewish Studies, 1–2, on one space having multiple and conflicting meanings based on several different social groups using it at the same time. See also Baker, Rebuilding the House of Israel.

9 See Jalane Schmidt, “Practice Makes Perfect: ‘Lived Religion’ and Ethnographic Inquiry,” in Religious Studies and Rabbinics, ed. Elizabeth Shanks Alexander and Beth Berkowitz (forthcoming). See also Mann, Space and Place in Jewish Studies, 2, on “thinking about space through the lens of text.”

10 Or as some formulations have it, the threshold is both inside and outside. See t. Shabbat 1.5, discussed below.

11 See also Deuteronomy 11:20: “And you shall write them [these words] on the doorposts of your house and at your gates.”

12 Baker, Rebuilding the House of Israel, 38.

13 Lit., “the threshold serves two domains.”

14 Lit., “locked.”

15 See discussion of this source in Yizhar Hirschfeld, The Palestinian Dwelling in the Roman-Byzantine Period (Jerusalem, 1995).

16 See Taylor’s schematic drawing of Philo’s “ideal” home and floor plan from the late Roman papyrus from Oxyrhynchus (P.Oxy. 2406). Joan E. Taylor, Jewish Women Philosophers in First-Century Alexandria: Philo’s ‘Therapeutae’ Reconsidered (New York, 2003), 269, 273. See also Richard Alston, “House and Households in Roman Egypt,” in Domestic Space in the Roman World: Pompeii and Beyond, ed. Ray Laurence and Andrew Wallace-Hadrill (Portsmouth, R.I., 1997), 30–31.

17 Ibid., 37–39.

18 Ibid., 36.

19 Taylor, Jewish Women Philosophers, 169–70. Alston draws the tentative conclusion that more socializing took place in the house during the Roman period, on the evidence of invitations found among the Oxyrhynchus papyri specifying a residence as the location of the party and on the evidence of greater interior ornamentation in the houses; see Alston, “House and Households,” 36, 39.

20 Leviticus Rabbah 16.2. In addition to Klein’s analysis of this story, which will be discussed below, see Avigdor Shinan, “Rabi Yanai, ha-rokhel veha-adam ha-mushpa‘: ‘Iyun be-tashtitam shel shenei sipurim ba-midrash Va-yikra Raba,” Bikoret u-farshanut 30 (1994): 15–23.

21 Gil Klein, “Torah in Triclinia: The Rabbinic Banquet and the Significance of Architecture,” Jewish Quarterly Review 102, no. 3 (2012): 325– 70, esp. 354.

22 Aramaic, odiq (following Margulies’ critical edition); Mordechai Margulies, Midrash va-yikrah rabbah (Jerusalem, 1999 [1st ed., 1954]), 360.

23 Hirschfeld, Palestinian Dwelling, 252–53. As late as Maimonides, the practice of placing a mezuzah in a cavity in the doorpost is considered permissible (Sefer ahavah, Hilkhot tefillin 5.6). See discussion in Jansson, Message of a Mitzvah, 33–34.

24 For the identification of the mezuzah slips, see Roland de Vaux and J. T. Milik, Qumrân grotte 4.II: Tefillin, mezuzot et targums (Oxford, 1977), This content downloaded from 67.175.189.45 on Mon, 19 Apr 2021 10:09:45 UTC All use subject to htt [125] Ritual on the Threshold • Elizabeth Shanks Alexander 35–39, and Maurice Baillet, J. T. Milik, and Roland de Vaux, Les “petites grottes” de Qumrân (Oxford, 1962), 158. Yehudah Cohn expresses some skepticism regarding the identification of the mezuzah slips as such, suggesting that there is not sufficient evidence to preclude the possibility of their being tefillin slips; see Cohn, Tangled up in Text, 60–62.

25 See description and layout of house in Hirschfeld, Palestinian Dwelling, 36–38; discussion of mezuzah niche, 252–53.

26 Hirschfeld, Palestinian Dwelling, 252–53.

27 Ibid., 38. See Baker, Rebuilding the House of Israel, 22–23, 41.

28 Hirschfeld, Palestinian Dwelling, 250. See also Baker’s discussion of the use of visual access and denied access as a means of marking boundaries; Baker, Rebuilding the House of Israel, 42–47. 29 Hirschfeld, Palestinian Dwelling, 252–53. 30 On the meaning of this term for Philo, see Ellen Birnbaum, “Philo on the Greeks: A Jewish Perspective on Culture and Society in First-Century Alexandria,” Studia Philonica Annual 13 (2001): 37–58.

31 Richard Alston, “Philo’s In Flaccum: Ethnicity and Social Space in Roman Alexandria,” Greece and Rome 44, no. 2 (1997): 166.

32 Ibid., 166. Elsewhere Alston observes that Philo’s “account of the persecution concentrates . . . on the topography of the dispute” (165; emphasis added).

33 Alston, “Philo’s In Flaccum,” 165.

34 Philo, Against Flaccus, 41.

35 Alston, “Philo’s In Flaccum,” 169.

36 Philo, Against Flaccus, 55.

37 Alston, “Philo’s In Flaccum,” 172.

38 See Geza Vermes and Fergus Millar, The History of the Jewish People in the Age of Jesus Christ (175 B.C.–A.D. 135): A New Version of E. Schürer, 3 vols. (Edinburgh, 1973–87), 3.2: 842–44; Maren R. Niehoff, Jewish Exegesis and Homeric Scholarship in Alexandria (New York, 2012), 169–85; and idem, “Philo’s Exposition in a Roman Context,” Studia Philonica Annual 23 (2011): 1–21. One aspect of Niehoff’s argument builds on the observation that Apion, who served as part of the Alexandrian embassy to Gaius, wrote treatises maligning the Jews directed at a Roman audience. Niehoff conjectures that Philo’s writing of Exposition was conceived to counteract unfavorable images of Jews promoted by Apion. My observations about the dialogue between spatial themes in Against Flaccus and in Philo’s discussion of the mezuzah in Special Laws IV corroborates Niehoff’s thesis that the composition of the Exposition historically follows and is thematically informed by the tensions documented in Against Flaccus.

39 Alston, “Philo’s In Flaccum,” 173.

40 Text cited with slight emendations from Philo, trans. F. H. Colson (London, 1939).

41 Naomi Cohen discusses the connotations of ta dikaia as the term relates to dikaiosune (usually translated “justice” or “righteousness”) in This content downloaded from 67.175.189.45 on Mon, 19 Apr 2021 10:09:45 UTC All use subject to htt [126] Jewish Social Studies • Vol. 20 No. 3 Jewish, Hellenistic Greek. She argues that the term implies attention not only to moral

34 standards (in accordance with the conventional understanding of the term justice) but also to ritual standards (i.e., commandments). See Naomi G. Cohen, Philo Judaeus: His Universe of Discourse (Frankfurt, 1995), 113–28, 189–91.

42 Philo seems to be drawing on an earlier Alexandrian tradition attested in the Letter of Aristeas 159, which connects the hand/arm tefillin with the performance of justice. See discussion in Elizabeth Shanks Alexander, Gender and Timebound Commandments in Judaism (New York, 2013), 155–58, 162.

43 See Alston, “House and Households,” 30–31, 36–37, 38. For example, Alston notes that towers on either side of the gate “were probably used to create a more imposing frontage” (30).

44 My analysis presumes an understanding of Philo’s term genoi (strangers) as gentiles. In passing, Jansson proposes to read the term as referring to Jews coming from abroad; see Jansson, Message of a Mitsvah, 36 n. 39.

45 See Philo, Against Flaccus, 55.

46 As Jansson notes, this interpretation of Philo’s mezuzah assumes that the inscription was in Greek, not Hebrew. In any event, Greek would have been the language of choice for the Greek-speaking Jews of Alexandria; Jansson, Message of a Mitsvah, 36 n. 39.

47 See Philo, Against Flaccus, 86–91; Special Laws III.169–71.

48 See Taylor, Jewish Women Philosophers, 266–68, esp. n. 7, and Alston, “House and Households,” 37–38, esp. n. 42.

49 Philo’s identification of the locus of ritual activity in the visual observance of the mezuzah once in place differs from rabbinic practice, which provides a blessing on the occasion of affixing the mezuzah to the doorpost.

50 Jennifer Trimble, Women and Visual Representation in Roman Imperial Art and Culture (New York, 2011), 211.

51 Ibid., 221.

52 Ibid., 245; emphasis added.

53 Ibid., 247.

54 Ibid.

55 See Ellen Birnbaum, The Place of Judaism in Philo’s Thought: Israel, Jews, and Proselytes (Atlanta, Ga., 1996).

56 Electronic communication, November 4, 2010.

57 Philo’s confidence in the moral value of Judaism as a foundation for Greek civic life dovetails nicely with what Ellen Birnbaum writes about Philo’s Jewish particularism alongside his cosmopolitan ethos: “Philo’s unmistakable sense that the Jews and their ancestral heritage were superior to other peoples and cultures stands in tension with his apparent openness to and respect for wise and virtuous people of all ethnic groups” (Birnbaum, “Philo on the Greeks,” 58). In his discussion of mezuzah, Philo displays confidence in the moral value (and perhaps This content downloaded from 67.175.189.45 on Mon, 19 Apr 2021 10:09:45 UTC All use subject to htt [127] Ritual on the Threshold • Elizabeth Shanks Alexander ascendancy) of Judaism for a wide range of ethnic groups and cultures; Birnbaum, “Philo on the Greeks,” 37–58.

58 Charlotte Fonrobert, “Neighborhood as Ritual Space: The Case of the Rabbinic Eruv,” Archiv für Religionsgeschichte 10 (2008): 257.

59 See Neusner’s discussion of the centrality of the householder in the rabbinic culture that lies behind the Mishnah’s composition; Jacob Neusner, Judaism: The Evidence of the Mishnah (Atlanta, Ga., 1988), 250– 56. Hayim Lapin presumes the householder stands at the center of legal considerations in m. Bava Metsia: “The concerns that they reflected . . . were consistently those of the wealthy landowner”; Hayim Lapin, Early Rabbinic Civil Law and the Social History of Roman Galilee: A Study of Mishnah Tractate Baba’ Mesi’a’ (Atlanta, Ga., 1995), 31. See also Alexei Sivertsev, Households, Sects and the Origins of Rabbinic Judaism (Leiden, 2005), esp. 211–55.

60 Azzan Yadin observes that Ha-katuv (the term translated here as “Scripture”) functions as an active agent directing the reader toward interpretation. Though the use of Ha-katuv here does not feature Scripture directing interpretation, Scripture here does function as an active agent, surrounding and encompassing Israel; see Azzan Yadin, Scripture as Logos: Rabbi Ishmael and the Origins of Midrash (Philadelphia, 2004), 11–33.

61 Genesis 17:11.

62 See discussion of the Shema and covenant in Jon D. Levenson, Sinai and Zion: An Entry into the Jewish Bible (San Francisco, Calif., 1987) 81– 86; Moshe Weinfeld, Deuteronomy 1–11: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (New York, 1991), 349–54; and Reuven Kimelman, “The Shema‘ Liturgy: From Covenant Ceremony to Coronation,” in Kenishta: Studies of the Syngogue World, ed. Joseph Tabory (Ramat Gan, 2001), 9–105, esp. 77.

63 See discussion of this source in Gordon, “Mezuzah,” 11–13.

64 Insofar as this source depicts mezuzah serving a protective function, the scholarship that highlights mezuzah as a protective agent is relevant. See scholarship cited in n. 2.

65 Sifre Deuteronomy 36 places the mezuzah on the right side of the door when one is entering the house. A wordplay between “your house” (beitkha) and “your coming in” (biatkha) establishes the visual and spatial orientation from which the mezuzah is encountered. One encounters the mezuzah and comes within its sphere of influence when one enters the house.

66 Sifre Deuteronomy 36 states that the home requires only one mezuzah, at the entrance, thereby distinguishing ancient practice from contemporary practice, in which mezuzot are placed on doorposts throughout the house.

67 Josephus also depicts mezuzah and tefillin surrounding Israel without the connotation of vulnerability on Israel’s part and protection on God’s part. Rather, these rituals make God’s good will conspicuous everywhere around them; see Josephus, Antiquities 4.213. This content downloaded from 67.175.189.45 on Mon, 19 Apr 2021 10:09:45 UTC All use subject to htt [128] Jewish Social Studies • Vol. 20 No. 3

68 For the basic exemptions of women, slaves, and minors, see the following tannaitic sources: m. Berakhot 3.3; t. Kiddushin 1.10; Sifre Numbers 115; and Mekhilta Bo 17. The exemption of women, slaves, and minors from these rituals, however, is not undisputed. T. Kiddushin 1.10 and Sifre Numbers 115 record a position in which women are obligated to wear tsitsit, and Mekhilta Bo 17 records a position in which minors are obligated to wear tefillin.

What’s the Truth about . . . Kissing the Mezuzah?

36 ARI Z. ZIVOTOFSKY9 WRITES: 10

Misconception: There is a Talmudic source for the common practice of kissing the mezuzah upon entering and exiting a room.

Fact: There is no Talmudic source obligating one to kiss the mezuzah, although there may be a source for touching the mezuzah. Kissing the mezuzah seems to have been introduced by the Arizal (sixteenth century) and is thus a relatively recent custom.

Background: The mitzvah of mezuzah requires that a mezuzah be affixed to every1 doorway in one’s home. This is highlighted by the fact that one recites the berachah (“likbo’ah mezuzah”) at the time the mezuzah is affixed to the doorpost. From a halachic perspective, as long as the mezuzah is kosher2 and affixed to the doorpost, the mitzvah continues to be fulfilled without further active participation or acknowledgment on the part of the occupant. However, the Talmud alludes to the idea of having an ongoing “relationship” with the mezuzah (Avodah Zarah 11a):

Onkelos the son of Kalonymus became a proselyte. The emperor sent a contingent of Roman [soldiers] to pursue him, but he enticed them by [citing] Scriptural verses, and they converted to Judaism. The Emperor then sent another Roman cohort, instructing them not to say anything to him. As they were about to take him into custody, he said to them: “Let me tell you . . . ,” and they too converted. He [the emperor] dispatched another cohort and ordered them not to engage in any conversation with Onkelos. As they seized him and were walking, Onkelos saw the mezuzah affixed to the doorway. He placed his hand on it and asked them, “What is this?” They said, “You tell us.” Onkelos replied, “The universal custom is a mortal king dwells within and his servants keep guard over him from without; but with the Holy One, Blessed be He, His servants dwell within while He keeps guard over them from without, as it says, ‘Hashem yishmor tzetcha u’vo’echa me’atah v’ad olam, The Lord will guard your goings and your comings, from now and forever’” (Psalms 121:8). They too converted to Judaism. He [the emperor] sent for him no more.

This Talmudic story, citing Psalms 121:8 as support, links the mitzvah of mezuzah to the notion that God stands outside a Jewish home and protects those who dwell within. Elsewhere, the Gemara states that the mezuzah should be placed on the outermost tefach, handbreadth, of the entranceway (Menachot 33b; see Shulchan Aruch, YD 285:2).

The rabbis offer various explanations for this rule, one of which is that a person should immediately encounter a mitzvah upon entering a house. Rabbi Chanina asserts that one should place the mezuzah on the outermost tefach so that the entire house will be protected. This is also how the Taz (YD 285:2) explains the halachah.3

Rabbi Chanina adds that God’s protection is evident from a different verse in Psalms that alludes to the placement of the mezuzah (121:5): “Hashem shomrecha, Hashem tzilcha al yad yeminecha,

9 Rabbi Dr. Ari Zivotofsky is on the faculty of the Brain Science Program at Bar-Ilan University in Israel.

10 https://jewishaction.com/08/2012/whats-the-truth-about-kissing-the-mezuzah/mezuzah-2/

37 The Lord is your guardian; the Lord is your shade at your right hand.” The mezuzah, which appears on the right side upon entering, protects the inhabitants.

The Rema in Darkei Moshe (YD 285), citing the Maharil, mentions the Onkelos story as the basis for the custom of touching the mezuzah. Note that while Onkelos touches the mezuzah, there is no mention of him kissing it. 4 In the Shulchan Aruch, the Rema also notes the custom of touching the mezuzah upon entering and leaving a house (YD 285:2).5 The Gra (YD 285:1) also assumes that touching the mezuzah is based on the Onkeles story, while the Aruch Hashulchan (YD 285:4) regards the Talmudic story as a weak source for the practice. Interestingly, Rav Yosef Hahn (d. 1637; Yosef Ometz 480) describes a copper mezuzah case with a copper cover over the name Shakai that could be rotated to allow a person to touch it with his finger.

Rabbi Akiva Eiger (Mahadura Kamma, Shu”t, no. 58) decries those who touch the mezuzah and do not differentiate between mezuzot with covers and those without, thereby sometimes inadvertently touching the parchment itself. Rabbi Eiger opines that touching the parchment is prohibited.6 He suggests that if a mezuzah lacks a cover, one should use his sleeve to touch it. While he was obviously familiar with the Talmudic tale involving Onkelos, he maintained that the custom of touching the mezuzah has no Talmudic basis.

The Onkelos story can be interpreted in one of two ways. It is possible that touching the mezuzah, as Onkelos did, was a standard practice at the time; thus, the Gemara provides evidence that almost 2,000 years ago it was customary to have an “ongoing relationship” with the mezuzah. Alternatively, Onkelos’ act can be viewed as an impromptu gesture to win over the imperial delegation (which was subsequently used as a basis for instituting the practice of touching the mezuzah).

Nowadays, kissing the mezuzah is a well-known practice as evidenced by its appearance in many twentieth-century seforim. For example, Chovat Hadar—citing the Chida7 who quotes the Arizal—states that one should kiss the mezuzah by placing one’s middle finger over the word Shakai, then kiss that finger and pray to God to be protected from the yetzer hara (Rabbi Yaakov Yeshaya Blau, 1976; p. 14). He also cites the Kuntres HaMezuzah which states that late, unnamed authorities also maintain that one should kiss the mezuzah.8 The Complete Mezuzah Guide states that “there is a dispute among the posekim whether one is required to kiss the mezuzah” (Rabbi Moshe Elefant and Rabbi Eliezer Weinbaum, ca. 1987; p. 19). In a footnote, it cites the Kitzur Shulchan Aruch (11:24) and the Misgeret Hashulchan which state that one is required to kiss the mezuzah when entering and exiting a house. Ohel Aryeh (Rabbi Label Katz, 1976; p. 121) cites the Onkelos story as well as Birkei Yosef which quotes the Arizal as stating that one should kiss the mezuzah with his middle finger (p. 123).

The practice is so widespread that the late contemporary posek Rabbi Moshe Stern (the Debretziner Rav) deals with the question of which hand a “lefty” should use when kissing a mezuzah. He suggests that he use his left hand (Be’er Moshe 2:2:4). Indeed, the Steipler, who was a lefty, would kiss the mezuzah with his left hand. The Chazon Ish, however, would not touch the mezuzah, although he would look at it as he passed by (Orchot Rabbeinu, vol. 3, p. 164). Similarly, it is reported that Maharil Diskin did not touch the mezuzah but merely looked at it (Salmat Chaim 380). The leading Lithuanian halachic authority of the nineteenth century Rabbi Avraham Danzig says that when one leaves his house, he should kiss the mezuzah (Chayei Adam 15:1). The early

38 twentieth-century Sephardic authority Rabbi Yaakov Chaim Sofer rules that when one leaves his house wrapped in his tallit on the way to shul, he should kiss the mezuzah (Kaf HaChaim, OC 25:22). The late Rabbi Dovid Lifschitz, a longtime rosh yeshivah at Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary, would touch the mezuzah as he passed it, according to one of his grandchildren.

Not all halachic authorities endorse the practice of kissing the mezuzah. Rabbi Yosef Eliyahu Henkin in Eidut Le’Yisrael (p. 159) objects to kissing the mezuzah (and sefer Torah) with one’s mouth or even with a cloth (and most likely with one’s hand as well).9 Instead he prefers the Sephardic, or more accurately, the Georgian (Soviet)10 custom of pointing and “blowing” a kiss. He offers two reasons for this. Firstly, he feels that kissing implies too much familiarity, a level of closeness that one cannot purport to have with a Torah or a mezuzah. Secondly, he opines that kissing a mezuzah even via one’s fingers or hand spreads germs, a hygienic-based halachic problem mentioned in Shulchan Aruch, OC 170:15. 11

Kissing a loved or venerated object appears in other contexts in Jewish life. The Rema (OC 24:4) cites the custom of kissing tzitzit while reciting certain parts of Shema.12 The Kaf HaChaim (ibid. 19) notes that some people kiss the sukkah when they enter and exit and some kiss the arba minim; similarly others kiss the matzah and marror on Pesach. The Sha’arei Ephraim (Sha’ar 10, 4) says that when the Torah is taken out of the aron kodesh, those standing nearby kiss it and recite Shir Hashirim 1:2.13

Possibly the practice of kissing the mezuzah symbolizes one’s desire for Divine protection as well as one’s love of God and His mitzvot. The Ktav V’Kabbalah (on Devarim 6:9) says that the mitzvah of mezuzah does not end with affixing the mezuzah to the doorpost. Rather, the mitzvah entails that one remain conscious of the mezuzah every time one enters and exits a room. To help attain this awareness, he says, the early authorities established the custom of touching the mezuzah whenever one passes it.14 So too, the Rambam (Hilchot Tefillin, Mezuzah 6:13) stresses the importance of being conscious of the mezuzah as one enters or exits a room.

Evidently, the custom of kissing the mezuzah is a recent one, and for most of Jewish history it was not a common practice. This awareness should in no way detract from the custom but place it into perspective.

Notes

1. Excluding the bathroom and certain other rooms. 2. Thus the requirement to check one’s mezuzot twice every seven years (Yoma 11a; SA, YD 291:1) or even yearly (Kitzur Shulchan Aruch 128:3; Yechaveh Da’at 1:49). 3. Rashi says that this protection is from mazikin—“spirits.” Regarding mezuzah as a protector, see Yerushalmi Peah 1:1; Bereishit Rabbah 35:3; Yechezkel Lichtenstein, “Ha’Mezuzah K’segula L’shemirat Habayit,” Tchumin 10 (5749): 417-426. (I thank the late Moshe Tutnauer for showing this article to me.) See Daniel Sperber, Minhagei Yisrael, Vol. 2 (Jerusalem), 87. See Tosafot Yom Tov on Keilim 17:16 who speculates that in the Mishnaic period, travelers would take with them a mezuzah as protection and thought that it was a mitzvah. Mezuzah, more than most mitzvot, has “superstitious” elements associated with it as a segulah. The Tur (YD 285) says that the mezuzah guards the house, which the Beit Yosef explains is a clear miracle. See also the Rambam’s Hilchot Tefillin u’Mezuzah 5:4. 4. See Encyclopaedia Judaica 11:1474 for a fifteenth-century northern Italian illustration of a man touching the mezuzah as he leaves the house. 5. He also notes that one should say “Hashem yishmor tzeiti . . .” In Darkei Moshe, he only mentions the recitation of “Hashem shomri, Hashem tzali . . .” The Ben Ish Chai (Ki Tavo: 3) says that when leaving the house, one should put his hand on the

39 mezuzah and say, “Hashem yishmor tzeiti u’vo’i l’chaim tovim u’lshalom, me’atah v’ad olam; Keil Shakai yevarech oti v’yitein li rachamim.” Despite the fact that he lived in contemporary times, he makes no mention of kissing the mezuzah. 6. Note that the Keset Hasofer (Rabbi Shlomo Ganzfried; Chakirah 19 [pp. 65b-66b in the 1980 ed.]) is lenient with regard to directly touching the mezuzah. 7. Birkei Yosef on SA,YD 285:2. 8. In a footnote, he quotes unnamed authorities who had the practice of kissing the mezuzah before going to sleep. The Kitzur Shulchan Aruch 71:4 also mentions this. 9. The Rema OC 149:1 mentions the custom of teaching children to kiss the Torah and the Kaf HaChaim 134:10; 149:10 notes the custom of adults kissing it. However, Rabbi Yosef Eliyahu Henkin is not alone in objecting to this custom. See also Pitchei She’arim 10:4 quoting the Kitzur Shelah and Siddur Tslusa d’Avraham, p. 375. 10. From 1903 to 1914, Rabbi Yosef Eliyahu Henkin was the rav of several different towns in Georgia. See Rabbi Yehuda Henkin, Equality Lost: Essays in Torah Commentary, Halacha, and Jewish Thought (Jerusalem, 1999), pp. 159-161. 11. On the dangers of kissing a mezuzah from a medical perspective, see Ilan Youngster et al, “Can religious icons be vectors of infectious diseases in hospital settings?” American Journal of Infection Control 37 (2009): 861-3. 12. If tefillin and tzitzit are looked at or touched/kissed while one is reciting the prayer of Shema, what about doing the same for mezuzah when it is mentioned in Shema? Seemingly, it is impractical to kiss the mezuzah when praying as it is not readily accessible (see Shu”t Rivash 486, cited in Beit Yosef, OC 24 as Rivash 2:126). See also the Kovetz Derushim (Warsaw, 1930) that contains Kuntres Toldot Ephraim by Rabbi Ephraim ben Rav Dov Ber from Kalish. In a sub-kuntres (Derech Efrat) he records notes about his father’s customs (p. 67). When his father davened at home and when he recited Shema before going to sleep, he kissed the mezuzah when it was mentioned in the prayer. 13. Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Auerbach (Halichot Shlomo, vol. 1, p. 89, n. 35) would use a retzuah (leather strap) to touch the tefillin and kiss it. 14. During a shiur he once gave in Beit Shemesh, Rabbi Dr. Abraham J. Twerski quipped, “I see people enter a room, kiss the mezuzah and then watch TV for a half hour. I would rather they kissed the TV and then watched the mezuzah for a half hour.”

Our Prison or Our Home Rosh Hashanah11

The most popular reason for why we blow the shofar today is given by the Rambam, Maimonides, in his laws of repentance. The shofar cries to us:

The purpose of the shofar is to wake us up – to jolt us from our comfortable ways – and force us to confront our failures of the past year and steel our resolve to be better this year. But the shofar is not the only commandment that the Rambam believes has this effect, and this is fascinating. Two other laws in Judaism, he claims, also wake us from our slumber and ignite our repentance. The first is death, which isn’t so surprising – it makes a lot of sense. There is something about death that strikes us, that makes us take stock of our own lives, and contemplate whether we are living the way we wish to and consider the necessary change.

11 https://images.shulcloud.com/3195/uploads/DERASHOT/06YOM-TOV/YAMIM-NORAIM/01RH5779TASS.pdf

40 But it’s the other mitzvah that the Rambam claims wakes us from our slumber and causes repentance that I find fascinating. In his laws of mezuzah, the Rambam states:

Whenever we go past a mezuzah and see the tiny scroll upon which is written the frst two paragraphs of the Shema, we get a little theological reminder of our obligations to God and our failure to observe His laws. Te purpose of the shofar today is the same purpose every day of our mezuzot: to remind us of our duties to God and consider changing our ways. But, what I fnd amazing is that this is not the only connection the simple mezuzah has to the High Holidays. It was one of the most important objects of Yom Kippur in the times of the Temple.

When we think of the Yom Kippur service in the Beit ha-Mikdash, the Temple, we have an idealized image of what it was. Unfortunately, this depiction did not always match reality. In particular, not everyone who held the office of Kohen Gadol, High Priest – the central figure of the service – was as righteous and pious as the original Kohen Gadol, Aharon, the brother of Moshe. Sometimes the office was bought by those who were unworthy but wanted the title and prestige. And, for this reason, the Talmudic Sages instituted a week-long training program be-fore Yom Kippur, in order to make sure that whoever was High Priest was ft for service:

That’s an excerpt from the frst mishnah in Yoma, the tractate that deals with the laws of Yom Kippur. And, as the other mishnayot explain, the purpose of this week was a Priestly boot camp: which included the repeated practice of several parts of the service, together with an accelerated education on the ins and outs of what needed to be done. Which brings us to the comment of the gemara regarding the High Priest’s sequestration in the Palhedrin Chamber:

There’s some important background here. The only places that need a mezuzah are residential ones. Homes need a mezuzah, but not places in which you don’t live. And so, the gemara has a long discussion concerning the Palhedrin Chamber: it was only lived in for one week during the Kohen Gadol’s boot camp – otherwise it was just a random room in the Temple’s administrative block – and so it didn’t need a mezuzah.

But they made an exception: because the Rabbis did not want it to seem like a prison, neither for others going to the Beit ha-Mikdash nor crucially for the Kohen Gadol himself, they put a mezuzah on the doorpost. The Palhedrin Chamber had a mezuzah to make it feel homey – the halakhic equivalent of a nice welcome mat and some throw pillows.

But could this have really worked? Was one simple mezuzah able to change the Kohen Gadol’s perception? It’s hard to believe. Imagine you are the Kohen Gadol and, because Chazal don’t consider you worthy, you have to go to this intense, miserable boot camp, which, as a different mishnah explains, would have included nights when you were not allowed to sleep! Te mezuzah couldn’t 3 have changed the pain! How could the Kohen Gadol not see his room as anything other than a prison?

I think the answer lies in the Rambam I quoted earlier. The point of the mezuzah, he claims, is to reorient our priorities: “to remember our love due to God and wake us from our slumber and our foolish absorption in temporal vanities.” When we see it, it reminds us that we are supposed to be serving God, not ourselves. That our duty is to Him.

The priestly boot camp wasn’t designed for a worthy Kohen Gadol. It was meant for one who had bought his title for the grandeur and prestige – his foolish absorption in temporal vanities. But, upon seeing the mezuzah on his room he had a reminder: he was here to learn to be the Kohen Gadol. Yes, it was going to be an unpleasant, onerous time and the training would be grueling, but this was his opportunity to be the Jewish people’s representative before God in the holiest place on the holiest day!

He could look at the Palhedrin Chamber and see a prison. A place he had no choice to enter. But he could also see it differently – providing he noticed the mezuzah on the doorpost. Tere was no need for the mezuzah to be there from a legal perspective, but it had to be there to give him the opportunity to consider his priorities.

42 You will notice that we have mezuzot on all the doorposts of this shul. And, here’s the thing: they’re completely and utterly unnecessary. Shul’s don’t need mezuzot, we aren’t a residential building. There is no rhyme, reason, purpose or point to them being here.

Except there is. Because they’re here to reorient our priorities. If we’re being honest, Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are the least pleasant days to be in shul. Rosh Hashanah is a slog to get through: two days where davening takes an inordinate amount of time — and there is no day in which the service is longer than Yom Kippur! And all the standing! It’s a nightmare! Yes, they’re holy, special days, but the service can very ofen feel onerous. We might all too easily see this sanctuary as our prison.

And that’s why it’s important to notice the mezuzot. Because they offer us a choice: Will we let this be our prison, or our home? Will we use our time here for our spiritual development, or spend the entire time watching the clock? Tis is why the mezuzot are here: to encourage us to make the best of our time.

And so, I want to encourage you all, when you’re feeling down about how long this service is taking, when you’re sick of all the standing, to remember that we have mezuzot on the doors even when we don’t need them. Because this is our opportunity, on the holiest days of the year, to stand before God. The shofar is about to call to us, and the mezuzot will underscore: this is an opportunity like no other – do not waste it.

Reading Between the Lines: Liminal Spaces in the works of T.S. Eliot

Jonathon Dey writes:12

Poetry captures something that other mediums struggle with. Novels, prose and films are all effective at capturing spaces, thoughts, and moments but poetry captures the flickering space between the static frames of the ostensibly moving film or the void between paragraphs; the nebulous space of feeling and transition between one thought and the next. This space might be loosely described as the ‘liminal’, the concept of individuals or entities which are “neither here nor there; they are betwixt and between the positions” (Turner 1967 p.25), encapsulating the disorientation and ambiguity that occurs at a threshold that has yet to be crossed. In literature and poetry, the spaces between are important because the boundaries surrounding them are a membrane, the crossing of which necessitates a kind of cost (Viljoen, H & Van Der Merwe 2007 p.11). Interacting with the liminal provides insight and meaning that would otherwise be lost to the filter and consequently by doing so, poetry is able to substantiate feelings and create emotional

12 https://www.theliminalityproject.org/2019/01/29/reading-between-the-lines-liminal-spaces-in-the-works-of-t-s- eliot%E2%80%A8by-jonathon-dey/

44 responses that defy concrete explication (Viljoen, H & Van Der Merwe 2007 p. 10). Exploring this idea, T.S Eliot’s The Hollow Men (1925) and Ash Wednesday (1930) illustrates how liminality creates meaning in the space between meanings, a literary ether in which cognition is ultimately both fluid and diffuse.

T.S. Eliot is a modernist poet, a movement characterized by the desire for something new, owing to the disillusionment with humanity arising from the first world war among other things (Walz 2013 p. 6) The first poem, The Hollow Men expresses this disillusionment directly with a distinct sense of nihilism and hopelessness (Urquhart 2001 p. 199-201). By comparison, Ash Wednesday tracks Eliot’s movement from hopelessness and agnosticism towards religious belief in the notion of a higher power and meaning (Kirk 2008 p. 111-120). In a way, they are themselves a picture of a man caught in a liminal space, ascending from one system of belief to another without truly belonging to either. More importantly however, is the fact that they both also engage with liminality on a textual, structural and philosophical level.

This engagement with the liminal is perhaps most obvious in The Hallow Men which can itself be read as a kind of thesis on liminal spaces. The poem begins and ends in a place of death, which could uncontroversially be described as the ultimately threshold of human existence. It starts with an epitaph referencing the death of Guy Fawkes, “Penny for the Guy” (p. 89) and finishes with repetitions of “This is how the world ends” (p.92) – moving from the death of a man to the death of all men. This is important because it frames the poem within a landscape of inevitability. Life, in essence is what occurs between the bookmarks of oblivion.

This idea of inevitability, of meandering ruin, permeates the opening stanzas of the poem. The living are presented as “Hollow men”, a collection of bodies filled with straw to be looked upon by those who have passed beyond the threshold of death. This threshold is embodied by the reoccurring image of ‘death’s other kingdom’ (p.89-90) juxtaposed against ‘death’s dream kingdom’ (p.89), the former being the threshold itself and the latter being man’s trembling perception of it. In this sense, Eliot posits all life as liminal, as transitory, that we are faded and dead and just briefly engaging in the farce of existence as we fruitlessly search for greater meaning. Capturing this farce is the trite and lyrical nature of stanza 13 which simply reads “Here we go round the prickly pear / prickly pear prickly pear/ here we go round the prickly pear / at five o’clock in the morning” (p.91), a verse which is mnemonically engaging but ultimately meaningless.

45 This frustration towards the search for meaning becomes the focus of the final stanzas of the poem, presenting itself through the metaphor of the falling shadow. Four of the final six stanzas follow a distinct structure whereby ‘the shadow’ is located between four esoteric concepts of meaning. The stanzas proceed with a kind of empiricism, “Between the idea / and the reality / between the motion / and the act / falls the shadow” (p.92), looking for a cause and effect relationship between things, between what we feel and what we do, desire and satiation, existence and non-existence. In this sense, Eliot is situating himself directly in the spaces between these juxtapositions which, significantly, he presents as places of shadow, something obscured. We are, in essence, searching for meaning in the shadows of the boundaries that surround us.

Furthermore, floating even within these boundaries of the final stanzas are three disembodied lines: “For thine is the kingdom / life is very long / for thine is the kingdom” (p.92). The first and last of the three serve as obvious religious allusions to the lord’s prayer “For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory…” and yet the fragment we receive presents only ‘the kingdom’, something which the poem has already previously associated with the boundary of death – “Death’s other kingdom” (p.89). Consequently, these fragments present death conspicuous in the absence of power or glory. Death is simply death and ‘life is very long’ (p.92), another simple phrase carrying with it a tremendous sense of meandering tedium.

Significantly, in the penultimate stanza the fragment is shortened even further, reduced to simply “For thine is / life is / for thine is” (p.92), depriving the fragments of whatever meaning they previously retained. Thus, even our attempts to define life by death is meaningless since both life and death are still ultimately relegated to a slow, meaningless descent into entropy, a concept informing the final stanza, “This is the way the world ends / not with a bang but a whimper” (p.92). In this sense, the Hollow Men uses the liminal to deconstruct the very boundaries that define it and subsequently evokes a profound and enduring image of existentialism and spiritual turmoil, a glimpse in to mind of T.S. Eliot.

Indeed, if the The Hollow Men (1925) was taken as a couple pages in the book of Eliot’s mind, the next poem, Ash Wednesday (1930) might be taken as the subsequent chapter. Within a historical context, the poem marks Eliot’s spiritual awakening, described by Kirk as having “passed from misgiving to belief; from horror to peace…” (Kirk 2008 p113). This movement once again establishes Eliot as a liminal figure in transition between boundaries. However, while in The Hollow Men, the shadows fell across the spaces between, in Ash Wednesday the dominant imagery is instead characterized by the opposite, by brightness and color – by the light that casts the shadow.

On the whole, the voice of Ash Wednesday is far more personal than that of the Hollow Men, as Eliot sets himself up as a kind of pilgrimaging figure voyaging out from the shadows, “Because I do not hope”(p.85), and moving across landscapes of desert towards the light – “through a bright cloud of tears, the years restoring” (p.90). This pilgrimage is denoted by the structure of the poem which is separated into distinct parts, each with their own tone and style. The first part starts with repetitious fragments characterized by hopelessness and weariness in a manner reminiscent of The Hollow Men. In this part Eliot is describing himself, his inability to hope, “These wings are no longer wings to fly / but merely vans to beat the air” (p. 86). It paints the picture of a man still lost to the meaninglessness of reality. The next part however shifts to a meeting with the goddess-like figure of the “Lady” (p.87) whose three leopards eat Eliot down to the bones. The imagery in this section shifts dramatically, exclaiming the “goodness” (p. 87) and “loveliness” (p.87) of the lady and the “whiteness” (p.87) of her gown transposed against the whiteness of Eliot’s bones. Even the desert is recast, emphasizing the “quiet” of the desert and the “coolness” (p.88) of the sand beneath the juniper tree. The third section seemingly denotes temptation back to the despair of the first section, ending in a repeated lamenting cry to god, “Lord, I am not worthy / Lord I am not worthy”(p.89) while the final section is a completed shift to images of color, light, music and redemption. (p.90) Importantly however, in the final section, the autonomous figure of Eliot is gone, with all mentions of “I” being notably absent.

In Stanza eight Eliot writes “We shine with brightness. And I who am here disassembled” (p.87), exemplifying what I think is the key transition from the Hollow Men to Ash Wednesday. While before the world and all its inhabitants were barren and hollow in perpetuity, now it is Eliot himself who is skeletal and flightless as he presses against a boundary of something greater. This seemingly marks a tremendous shift away from the Hollow Men where all things were ultimately meaningless fragments in a space of entropic ruin. Instead, Eliot posits meaning in the religious significance of the garden, the symbol of paradise, heaven, a life without death. In other words, rather than a poem written in the meandering spaces between oblivions, Ash Wednesday moves to a new space situated between living-death (The desert and bones) and salvation (the garden). This is significant in of itself in the sense that religious afterlife is inherently liminal, a kind of purgatory in anticipation of true life (Ashley 1990 p. 11). However, what is more significant about the poem is that Eliot never really reaches the garden as a conscious entity.

Despite the movement from darkness to light, the second part of the poem where Eliot meets the lady, largely retains a sense of grimness to it. She is the impetus of his salvation but upon meeting her he is not simply washed clean and made holy, but rather eaten by leopards until his bones

47 “shine with brightness…” (p.87). He is not saved so much as consumed, rendered back to his disassembled structures, returning to the sand, “united in the quiet of the desert” (p.88) to become, perhaps, the fertilizer needed for the garden itself to grow. He is saved only by becoming something other than himself. Consequently, the threshold to the garden is never truly crossed but rather the space and the boundary become blurred together. This is interesting because despite it being a poem written in the context of spiritual conversion, death, the ultimate threshold set up in The Hollow Men isn’t crossed but rather it is merely reconceptualized. In other words, the entropy and meandering ruin of the Hollow Men persists but is intrinsically rendered as paradise through the acceptance of it. The falling of the shadow becomes the shade of the juniper tree under which “The bones sang, scattered and shining”.

In a way, this reconceptualization of salvation as a beautiful loss of self rather than spiritual persistence for all eternity illustrates a strange and wonderful melding of Agnosticism and Gnosticism, perhaps reflecting Eliot’s dabbling into humanism (Russel 2006 p. 116). Each boundary becomes a platform to reform and reconstruct the other as he passes into the threshold of Anglicanism. Indeed, the ability for the poems to paint in abstract the inner turmoil of a man struggling to find his place and make sense of the universe is perhaps the most striking thing about them. Through the use of imagery, voice, structure and allusion, the poems trace the silk-thread- like lines of reasoning behind Eliot’s transition, embodying the space between Gnostic and Agnostic, hopeful and hopeless, rational and irrational, all the while doing so in just a handful of pages. This is important for a number of reasons. First as an exercise in literary prowess, it magnificently explicates the inexplicable, pushing thoughts to evolve beyond the boundaries of cliché, but perhaps more importantly it reminds us that people aren’t the static, consistent entities that we perceive them to be. In the end we are all liminal, transitory figures speaking with a thousand voices through the filter of one, colonies with grand delusions of unity.

Reference List: Ashley, K 1990, Victor Turner and the Construction and the Construction of Cultural Criticism, Indiana University Press, Indiana. Harris, A 2005, Luminous Intenisty and the other in T.S. Eliot’s criticism and poetry from ‘Silence’ (1910) to Ash Wednesday (1930), UMI Dissertations Publishing Warwick. Kirk, R 2008, Eliot and his age : T.S. Eliot’s moral imagination in the twentieth century, ISI Books, Delaware. Turner, V 1967, “Betwixt and Between: The Liminal Period in Rites de Passage,” from The Forest of Symbols: Aspects of Ndembu Ritual. Urquhart, T 2001, ‘Eliot’s The Hollow Men’, The Explicator, vol. 59, no. 4, pp. 199-201. Waltz, R 2013, Seminar Studies in History: Modernism, Routledge.

48 Viljoen, H & Van Der Merwe, C.N 2007, Beyond the Threshold: Explorations of Liminality in Literature, Peter Lang Publishing, New York.