Rosh Yeshiva Responds
Rabbi Linzer answers halakhic questions from rabbis and community members
Massachusetts, US
In a new apartment, a door between two rooms doesn’t open and will remain shut. Even if the door could be opened, the tenants are putting furniture on one side of the door and will not be opening it. To me this sounds like a halakhic wall not a doorway. Would this require a mezuzah or not?
QUESTION
Massachusetts
In a new apartment a door between two rooms doesn’t open and will remain shut. Even if the door could be opened, there will be furniture on one side of the door. Does the door need a mezuzah?
ANSWER
I assume at one time it was made to open and it still has the door frame. If that is the case, some say it does still require a mezuzah. The issue is how you distinguish between the case of Shulchan Arukh and the case of Rema in Shulchan Arukh YD 286:18
A woman, for a medical procedure, is temporarily staying at the hotel connected to the hospital.
A. They brought a mezuzah, but were told not to put it on the outside of the doorpost. Can they put it on the inside of the lintel, so that it’s not beyond the hotel door, but is still on the lintel?
B. There are pots and pans in their room that they’d like to use. Libun seems like it’s probably
Does one make a berakhah on a mezuzah put on a garage that does not have an entrance to the house?
Yes. Definitely.
As long as it is not a place with really bad smells, etc. Even if one does not live in the building, as long as it is a place this is of regular use to the person living in the house, it is biblically obligated in a mezuzah. This is the case in the Gemara and Shulchan Arukh regarding a structure for storing straw, etc.
Does this (see picture) require a mezuzah? I assume the doors off the hallway are bedrooms. Not sure the entrance to the hallway is itself a doorway or not.
There are two requirements to be obligated in a mezuzah: two doorposts AND a lintel (horizontal beam on the top of the doorway for the door, if it exists, to close on) (Rambam, hilkhot
The mitzvah of mezuzah appears at the end of this week’s parasha in what we know of as the second paragraph of Shema: “And you shall write them (these words) on the doorposts of your house and of your gates.” (Deut. 11:20). This verse also appears earlier in the first paragraph of Shema (6:9), and it is these two sections of the Torah that are written in the mezuzah.
But what is the purpose of the mezuzah? Is it to remember God, or is to serve as some type of spiritual or even magical protection of the house? The idea of
In Masechet Menachot, there is a very rich section that deals with the laws of tefillin and mezuzah. A particular theme of interest, especially in the context of the korban Pesach, is that of the mezuzah as an object that protects the house. This idea is never stated in the Torah. To the contrary, the Torah juxtaposes the mitzvah of mezuzah with that of tefillin and of constant Torah study. The message is clear – have reminders of God all around you, think of God and God’s mitzvot, and learn Torah at all times – when you
Rosh Yeshiva Responds
Rabbi Dov Linzer will be answering shailas from YCT rabbis and community members on video each week.