Local stories relate mezuzah miracles
of The Chronicle staff
After three years of trying to conceive a second child, Miriam Moses-Winston and her husband, Jay Winston, had given up, resigned to accept that their daughter, Alaina, was meant to be an only child. And then, nine months later, came the mezuzot.
On the suggestion of the attorney hired for their house closing, the couple invited Rabbi Moshe Rapoport, program director of Congregation Agudas Achim Chabad in Mequon,to come to the house and check their mezuzot.
“The rabbi told us stories about these miracles that happen in people’s lives. I wasn’t even thinking about having a baby. I had every contractor in my house. I thought, ‘Why not a rabbi?’” said Moses-Winston, a member of Congregation Shalom.
She discovered that some of their mezuzot had never been kosher and three were no longer kosher. (For a mezuzah to be kosher, each letter must be formed correctly and it must be handwritten on parchment.) The couple immediately installed new kosher mezuzot.
One month later, Moses-Winston discovered she was pregnant.
“I have absolutely experienced a miracle…. I really truly believe that [the mezuzot] are why I’m blessed with this little boy,” she said in a telephone interview while seven-month-old Grant Harrison Moses “talked” in the background.
“We definitely felt he was our gift granted from God,” she explained about their choice of their son’s name.
Stories like these are not that unusual, according to Rapoport. “There are countless stories and articles written about the power of mezuzah,” he said.
He’s experienced mezuzah- related miracles in his own family. Eleven years ago, his grandfather was very ill. “He had very serious heart problems. The doctors basically told the family they should begin coming in,” explained Rapoport.
Rapoport’s aunt went to see the Lubavitcher rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, who used to distribute dollar bills for charity and personal blessings or advice on Sundays at Lubavitch world headquarters in Brooklyn. She asked for a blessing.
The rebbe advised her to check her father’s mezuzot. She subsequently found that the mezuzah on his bedroom door had a crack through the word “heart.” The family replaced the scroll and, a few weeks later, Rapoport’s grandfather came home. Last summer, he celebrated his 90th birthday.
Priceless protection
The mezuzah, which Jews are commanded to affix on the right side of their doorposts, includes two handwritten paragraphs from the Torah. In the paragraphs, God states that great rewards await those who observe the mitzvot, including prosperity, success and long life, according to the website, www.mezuzahdoctor.com.
Rabbi Yoseph Samuels, of Chabad of Downtown, explained the mitzvah’s importance: “The connection between God and the Jewish people is through mitzvahs, and mitzvahs are conduits through which God gives us blessing and life and all the wonderful things he gives us.
“The mitzvah of mezuzah is a conduit for the blessing for one’s house and a person’s well-being, his health. So, if your tefillin and mezuzot are in good order, that means your channels by which God provides life and blessings are open. They’re proper, they’re fixed, they’re good,” he said.
Samuels recalls affixing mezuzot about 20 years ago in every doorway of accountant Larry Appel’s third-floor office, located in a downtown building.
“There was a January thaw and there was a hole in the roof, and everybody’s office in that building became flooded with water. [There was] thousands of dollars of damage. The only office that didn’t have one drop of water [was Larry’s].
“When the inspectors came, they asked, ‘What did you put on the door that kept the water out?’” explained Samuels with a laugh.
Appel remembers, “All my non-Jewish neighbors came in and said, ‘Come on, what’s going on?’ In my heart I think [mezuzot provide] protection.”
The protective power of mezuzah is illustrated through a well-known story from the Talmud Yerushalmi, Peah 1:1. The Parthian king Artiban once sent a priceless jewel to Rabbi Judah the Prince (135-220 C.E.), who was the compiler of the Mishnah and one of the wealthiest Jews of the time. The rabbi’s return gift was a mezuzah.
The king was angry and insulted. “I sent you something priceless and you sent me something that can be bought for a paltry sum!” The rabbi answered, “You sent me something that I must hire a guard to watch and I sent you something that will watch over you.”
According to Rapoport and Samuels, the mezuzah’s protective power is not only a mitzvah and an act of personal protection, but also a way to care for fellow Jews worldwide.
“People ask, ‘What can I do for Israel?’ I say, ‘Put up a mezuzah and you’re not only protecting you in your home but also [people in Israel],’” explained Rapoport.
Samuels explained, “The Jewish people are considered to be one people and therefore even if you’re thousands of miles away and you do a mitzvah of tefillin or mezuzah, in your own life that’s a blessing not only for you but for Jewish people all over the world. Especially the Jews of Israel.”
This is one mitzvah that Jews observe, Rapoport explained. “In most Jewish homes you find a mezuzah in the house, regardless of their level of observance.”
Rapoport said that mezuzah scrolls should be checked regularly. “In the last years, I’ve probably been in 150 homes to put up mezuzot and the vast majority already had one or more. Unfortunately, the vast majority were not kosher,” he said.
Moses-Winston is convinced that mezuzot can bring miracles. For me,” she explained, “there’s definitely something to it. In this day and age, I want to know that I’m doing everything I can to protect my family.”
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