| Online Mezuzah | |
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by Tamar Fox, May 31, 2007
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A while back Laurel wrote about why you should get yourself a mezuzah for your home. It’s definitely a key item for any home. But mezuzahs, which signify that God is watching over our doorposts, and which serve as a constant reminder of God’s presence, are appropriate for other places besides your house or apartment. You can, for instance, get yourself a mezuzah for your car, which is especially appropriate if you have a long commute or spend tons of time on the road. If you work in an office that won’t be freaked out by a mezuzah, it makes sense to have one at work, too.
Your Online Mezuzah: Kiss it!
But many of us spend hours every day in a place that doesn’t seem to allow for a mezuzah: the internet. When I’m not attending classes I often spend most of the day at home, working from my dining room table, and clicking through hundreds of web pages in a few hours. In the sense that the internet has become a place we go to, it seems like it should have it’s own mezuzah.
Years ago I got an e-mail with a suggestion for an internet mezuzah, and though I’ve been googling like mad I haven’t found a site with a text of the e-mail, or an mention of the rabbi who wrote the e-mail. So if it was you who came up with the idea for an internet mezuzah, or you know who it was, please let me know. In the meantime, set your homepage to The Hunger Site. You’ve probably been to the Hunger Site a few times. Someone sent you a link reminding you, so you went and clicked on the little yellow button. Later, because of you 1.1 cups of food were donated to an organization devoted to fighting hunger. Maybe you also clicked on the tabs for the other associated sites, The Breast Cancer Site, The Child Health Site, The Literacy Site, The Rainforest Site and the Animal Rescue Site. It took, at most, two minutes to do all of this. Two minutes to make a fairly substantial tzedakah donation every single day. Not bad, right? And if you set it as your entrance point to the internet then you’re making tzedakah your entrance into the virtual world.
Making the Hunger Site your online mezuzah is the kind of spiritual action you can do without thinking. It’s a painless way of engaging with tzedakah and with God. Make it a part of your daily practice today.
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Tamar Fox has an MFA from Vanderbilt University in Nashville, but she still doesn't like sweet tea. Born and raised in Chicago, she's also lived in Iowa City, Dublin, Oxford, and Jerusalem. When she's not rocking out at honky tonks she teaches More... |
David A M Wilensky
yes, but . . .
I agree wholeheartedly that this is a great thing to do. I do, however, question in what way it is a mezuzah. When you walk through a doorway with a mezuzah, something ben adam l'makom and symbolic happens. When you click on those buttons, something ben adam l'chavero and real happpens.
Tamar Fox
I agree
It's not a perfect correlation, and I really wish I could find the e-mail I got years back, because it explained it way better than I did. I think it's just a nice mitzvah you can do when you enter the web.
David A M Wilensky
yes again, but . . .
Agreed again. A good mitzvah. A good internet-specific mitzvah even, but not a mezuzah.
R.H. Friedman
another Internet mezuzah idea
Someone should create a mezuzah widget that you can "kiss" with your mouse every time you turn your computer on.
BeccaB
No car mezuzah for me...
though our car still sports one of those Gefilte fish (affixed by its former owner, a friend of ours).
Hey, people can do whatever floats their boat, but I've always thought that the car mezuzah is rather bizarre. (And apparently the folks at Mezuzah Gallery agree, 'cos they won't sell 'em.) And I'm not into mezuzah necklaces, keychains, and other non-doorpost-of-your-house uses of this particular ritual object, either. We've got lots of other symbols and objects we can use... but hey, if it works for others, they're welcome to do whatever they find meaningful...
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