Question: Why do we say that we kiss the mezuzah but we tap the mezuzah first and then kiss our hands? If we are kissing the mezuzah, wouldn’t we kiss our hands to take the kiss to the mezuzah and tap the mezuzah after?
Although kissing the mezuzah when we enter or leave a space is a much beloved Jewish ritual, it is actually a custom — not a mitzvah, or commandment. There are indications that in ancient times the custom was simply to touch the mezuzah when one passed through a doorway. There’s a famous story in the Talmud (Avodah Zarah 11a) about a man named Onkelos who converted to Judaism and was summoned by the Roman emperor to account for it. But when the emperor’s soldiers came to fetch him, they saw him touch the mezuzah. They asked him why, and when he explained what was inside and what it meant to him, they were so inspired they left him alone.
Maimonides explained that touching the mezuzah is a gesture of mindfulness, helping us to recall the creator and the meaning of life. Four hundred years later, Rabbi Moshe Isserles suggested that touching the mezuzah calls to mind God’s protective power. Indeed, some think that the God name shadai, which is indicated by the Hebrew letter shin inscribed on many mezuzah cases, might be an acronym for shomer dirot yisrael (“guardian of Jewish homes”). However, neither of these authoritative sources mention kissing the mezuzah, so it’s likely that for most of Jewish history, people touched the mezuzah without kissing it at all.
The practice of kissing the mezuzah is first discussed by the well-known kabbalist Rabbi Isaac Luria, who also suggests a reason for touching it first and then kissing one’s hand: that the holiness of the mezuzah is being transferred to us, not vice versa. This same reasoning applies to the way people commonly kiss the covering of a Torah scroll or other ritual items like tefillin. Rabbi Luria would apparently pray that kissing the mezuzah would ensure that its holiness protected him from the yetzer ha’ra, the evil inclination.
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So when we kiss the mezuzah or any other Jewish ritual object, it isn’t just about showing our affection for it. Rather, this marker on our doorposts has a protective power, and when we touch it and then kiss our hands, we are drawing that power towards us.
Kohenet Rabbi Sarah Bracha Gershuny is a writer, ritualist, musician, healer and teacher.
