Conference taveng::bagels

Did you ever try to buy a [kosher] muzuzah in the Nashua area?
[I had to go to New York to get one.]

Probably, a kosher mazuzah is one that was blessed by a Rabbi.

I have never heard of a mazuzah being koshered, so to speak, but
I have recently discovered that anything is possible.

That was a very refreshing story, and I hope that we can get more people
from Usenet over here. (What is Usenet -- please send mail...)

Re:  "REnewed interest in Judaism"

YES !!!!!!!  Being the typical rebelious child, after my bar-mitzvah,
I never really took much interest in shul or festivals.  However,
a few things have now changed in my life:

	1]	I am now 23 and am seriously thinking about marriage
	and the future.  I have had many difficulties dating non-jewish
	women when it came time to actually consider our 'real' differences.
	There also seems to be an inverse relationship between the
	Jewish-ness, if you will, of my girlfriend, and the amount
	of "Oy's" from my folks.  all though this has never really
	bothered me ("everyone goes through it") -- there was something
	my friends and I talked about that helped understand WHY
	parents push us to marry intra-racially; it's all
	from our childhoods. Being brought up Jewish has more
	of an impact on you than you think.  Just the basic elements
	of being a Jew can make a relationship have more common ground.
	When you get to the lowest level, we are all from the same
	backround -- that's why we all understand what we mean when
	we use Yiddish and slang.  It is so refreshing to be with someone
	who understands what mongol bread, hhala and hhomentashen are (%^}).

	WHich do you prefer; Apricot or prune ???

	Micahel

Ha, I made a 1] in the last reply and forgot the rest.

	2]	Recently I have traveled throughout Japan.  Now this was
	interesting, most of them do not know what a Jew is !!  Actually,
	at first, they did not know, but when I explained to them
	they said "ah,, Judai".  Different word, that's all.  Anyway, some
	older folks did not know what I was talking about -- just I was from
	Israel (Surprise).  Speaking with my Japanese friend and family
	help to make me realize just how old the Judaic religion is.
	(Actually, we were the first , right ?)  


	3]	Relating to number one is also, the feeling that, during
	college (in Worcester Polytechnic Institute), I was pretty much
	part of a very small (6 or 7) amount of Jewish people at the
	school.  This made me feel very lonely and empty around Passover.
	I tried to hang around Clark U. as much as possible, but the J.A.P.
	ratio brought back to many memories of Long Island. (Good ?)
	
	Funny, how when I came here to the land of Ham and Cheese, that
	when anyone hears that I am from Lawn-Guy-Land, their first
	question is... "Ya must be Jewish, huh !"

	(%^})
	Mihhahel  (Trying to obey my own language definition !)

Whether or not a mazuza is considered kosher has to do with the parchment
inside.  If there were any errors or smudges made when it was being written 
then it is not kosher.  Similarly, if the parchment has begun to deteriorate
then the mezuza is no longer kosher, and the parchment should be replaced.

Hope this was helpful.

--Janet

The laws pertaining to what makes a Mezuzah kosher are quite explicitly
outlined in the Shulchan Aruch (The Jewish Code of Law).

The two main elements are the parchment and the writing.

Basically, the parchment has to be made from the skin of a kosher animal.
It has to be prepared with the intention of using it for a Mezuzah (or
a Torah Scroll or for Tefilin Scrolls). It must have lines scratched into
the writing surface (not drawn).

The writing must be done by a religious person with the explicit intention
of writing a Mezuzah. The shape of the letters must follow the guidelines
set forth in the Shulchan Aruch (these are very detailed laws and I personally
am not fully familiar with them). The letters must be complete (thus we check
them periodically, usually every seven years unless there is reason to
believe that something has happened to the Mezuzah, to make sure no 
deterioration has taken place. The text is the first paragraph of the 
Shema Yisroel which we recite twice daily. As opposed to other Religious
scrolls, whose text can be written in any order, the Mezuzah has one peculiar
stipulation that the text must be written orderly. This means that the words
must be written in the exact order in which they appear in the Torah. For this
reason it is almost virtually impossible to correct a Mezuzah which has become
not kosher since correcting any letter (other than the last letter) would 
amount to having written the Mezuzah not orderly.

This has not been an attempt to cover the subject fully. The Laws are lengthy 
and at times complicated. There are of course other aspects such as what rooms
require a Mezuzah, where and how to place the Mezuzah, which blessing to make
on the Mezuzah. I wanted merely to highlight the basic points.

Cb.

You heard it here, on WDEC.

SHalom Israel, it is good to hear from you all.

Michael

I am returning to the original question in the note:  How may of us 
returned to Judaism after a long dormant period.  For me it was a 
little different.  For the most part of my life I was an atheist.  I 
grew up in the USSR in a regular family.  My parents didn't discuss 
religious matters because my father was afraid I would say something at 
school and he will have to suffer for it, and my mother was a member of 
the Communist Party and an atheist.  But I knew very well that I was 
Jewish because of constant anti-Semitism in the country.  (My parents' 
and later my internal passports said that we were Jewish).  Only when I 
grew up, at college, I started to get interested.  

There is only one synagogue in Moscow for 500,000 Jews living in the city.  
My Jewish friends invited me to go there with them on some high holiday.  
The first time there I was shocked seeing huge crowd of young Jews 
gathering there.  There were thousands of them!  I realized later that 
they came there not for the service but just to get together, to 
identify themselves as Jewish.  After that I used to came there on all 
holidays.

When I moved to the USA I started to look into religion deeper, but 
having been brought up as atheist it did not excited me.  Like in 
Moscow, I went to synagogue on holidays, and that was about it.  But 
last winter my daughter (four years old) got seriously ill.  Doctors 
told us that she may stay mentally retarded for the rest of her life 
and there was not much, if anything, that we could do, except to wait 
and pray.  At that moment we felt that pray was indeed the last resort. 
A few months later my daughter started coming back and now she is 
completely well.  This episode changed our life, and because of the 
"miracle" but because such was my inner feeling.  I do not know if we 
would come to religion, if it was our destiny anyway, but this is my 
way of life now.

BTW, what are the rooms and the doors in the house that require mezuzas?

re -.1

According to Halaka (Jewish law), there must be a mazuzah on every
doorpost in the house, except for the bathrooms. Many of my Lubovitche
friends do this. However, in my house we have them on the front door,
back door, and master bedroom. 

			Fred

Re .7

It is interesting that an illness and recovery brought you closer to Judiaism.

I was fairly observant (more mechanical than anything) until my father was
in a bad car accident. He survived (barely) and now is totally disabled,
his mind almost gone, and mostly paralyzed. 

When someone dies we have all sorts of ritual to help people get over the
loss. We sit shivah, we make condolence calls, we know how to act. After
a while we begin to invite people to gatehrings and draw them out. After
a month or a year we make sure they are invited to everything. We make
a special effort to be at the yahrzeit minyanim.

On the other hand, when someone is sick or disabled, we quickly learn to
avoid the family. We get sick of asking "How is so and so doing?" because
of the bad news. We don't invite the family because we feel akward.

At least that was the experience my family went through and it made me quite
angry. First at friends (not the close friends, they were great, but the
Jews that I would see every week and occasionally get together with). Then
I got angry at Judiasm. I never lost faith in G-d, but I did lose my taste
for organized Judiasm. 

When I got married I began to attend services again and I had a Jewish wedding
but my heart wasn't in it. When my oldest boy was at the age to begin chader,
I realized that I had to give him a Jewish education. Where I grew up there
were enough Jews that school was empty on Yom Tov and I picked up a Jewish
education from Hebrew School, my family, neighbors and may just from the
air. Living in Groton, my son would only get an education from me unless
I did something. Well now we shlep both kids to hebrew school three time
a week (20 mi. each way) and I seem to have gotten back into it.

By the way, I thought I was the only Jew in Groton. I went to all the
synagogues, temles, shuls, etc around and never found anyone else. My wife
though, went into school to talk about chanuka and asked if anyone in the
class lit a chanukiah. To her suprise 4 hands went up.

I haven't worked my way through all the notes yet but if there isn't one
on "Jewish life in the boonies" we should start one.
/joel

As I stated in 32.37 (the "registry" note), I was raised Reform.  I
am, however, interested in learning any/everything I can about Judaism.

I would like to hang a mezuzzah on the front door of my new home.  I would
like to know if there are any "rules/laws" prohibiting hanging a mezuzzah
on a house in which two people are living together, unmarried (sharing 1
bed...).  Also, my boyfriend is Catholic, but understands that I wish to
do this.  Are there any "rules/laws" prohibiting hanging a mezuzzah on a
house in which one of the residents in a Christian?  

Maybe these are silly questions, but my Dad taught us that "no question is
silly or dumb if you don't know the answer".  

My concern is this:
Again, I am Reform.  I realize that the Reforms don't follow many of the
more orthodox customs/traditions, but I DO NOT want to do anything wrong.
If hanging a mezzuzah in either/both of the situations I mentioned above
is concerned "in bad taste", in the views of the Reform/Conservative/
Orthodox branches of our religion, then I certainly don't want to do it.

Thank you.
< Donna >

I don't recall ever seeing any stipulation such as you mentioned concerning
the putting up of a Mezuzah. There is a stipulation of not leaving a Mezuzah
on a house where it is feared that the future inhabitants won't treat the
Mezuzah with the correct dignity. However, this obviously doesn't apply
in your case as you very much express desire to have a Mezuzah.

Just be sure to get a Kosher Mezuzah. The particulars are in a former note,
but they need not concern you as long as you get the Mezuzah from someone
who is both religious and reliable.

The Mezuzah should be placed on the right side of the entrance as you enter
in the upper third of the side post.

I hope this helps you.

Cb.

Thank you very much for your information.  Since posing the question, I
asked my uncle Amir, who now lives with my Boston-born aunt in Randolph,
Mass., but who hails from Haifa; he basically told me the same thing.

< Donna >

    Thanks everyone for the mezuzah lesson.  It made my day.  When I
    first moved away from my parents home, our Rabbi, Baruch Goldstein
    and Mrs. Goldstein gave me a beautiful one for my front door.  They
    came to my apartment (then Park Village West) which was a great
    mixure of all types of people.  The Rabbi along with my immediate
    family made a beautiful blessing and I made tea-and kosher goodies
    in glass dishes of course.  We had a beautiful day. 
    
    My background was very kosher, but never was bas mitzvahed.  In
    those days only boys were bar mitzvahed.  My religious training
    included making all the blessings and learning all the dishes to
    cook and yes, folks, I did make all my own hallahs, knishes, kishky,
    and mundel bread.  However, I had no formal training and all the
    blessings were from memorizing.  I never knew true meaning.  "Grammy"
    felt it was important to know how to light candles and say the prayer.
    Meaning is more important to the men.  This is from the daughter
    of a Rabbi, Abraham Hirshberg, for whom, incidentally, I am named.
    
    I'm so glad I finally got around to bugging my MIS guy to get this
    conference installed. 'twas somewhat difficult, I had a bug in my
    software and couldn't get to any notes.  It's a good thing Don Einis
    is Jewish, there's is nothing worse than a nudge when she wants
    something.
    
    So, thanks all, much appreciated, on this day of quiet activity.
    
    Adriane
    CSCMA::gilder