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Mezuzah.net
Library:
Commentaries to Deuteronomy 6:9
The Verse
| And you shall write them upon the doorposts of your
house and on your gates. |
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| And you shall write them upon scrolls, and you shall affix them
upon the doorposts of your house and in your ??. [Onkelos translates
the word ‘mezuzot’ as ‘scrolls’,
and the word
‘write’ as ‘write and affix.’] |
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The doorposts of your house and on your gates.
The doorposts of the entrances of your houses and your gates. |
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The doorposts of your houses.
‘Doorpost’ [Mezuzat: singular]
is written, since only one is necessary.
And on your gates. To include courtyard gates and state gates
and city gates. |
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| ... and the commandment of Mezuzah is added
here [in this section of the Torah]:
And you shall write them upon the doorposts of your
house and on your gates, which was not mentioned [in a passage of the Torah
from Exodus, to which Ramban has been comparing this one].
And perhaps this [the commandment of Mezuzah]
is implied there [in the Exodus passage] in the commandment: “And as a reminder between
your eyes, in order that the Torah of God shall be on your lips” (Exodus 13:9). [The word
‘lips’ may be an allusion to Mezuzah, which is affixed to the doorpost at the
height of an average person’s lips.] |
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| The point of [the word] and on your gates is:
the doorposts of the
rest of your gates, such as the city gates and the state gates, as in the verse
“in one of your gates” (Deuteronomy 16:2). [An example of an employment of the
word ‘gate’ to signify a city.]
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[Chizkuni appears on p. 40 of the link. Warning: it loads very slowly, but is
worth the wait, for the beauty of the cover page alone.]
| Upon the doorposts.
I might think [that the Mezuzah scroll must be affixed to] both doorposts.
R. Yitzchak says: It says [in another passage, regarding smearing the blood of the
Pesach sacrifice on the doorposts]: “They shall place [the blood] on both
doorposts and on the lentil [the top post]” (Exodus 12:7). That [verse] sets
a precedent [through the redundant usage of the word ‘both’]:
wherever ‘doorposts’ is written, the intention is one,
unless the text spells out explicitly two doorposts. |
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| Upon the doorposts. Our Rabbis said:
Opposite a[n average] person's shoulders, at the beginning [i.e. bottom]
of the top third [of the doorpost], and towards the outside. |
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| Upon the doorposts of your house.
Upon the doorposts of your ‘entrances’ -- at the same side
where you initially enter, which is the right, for when one steps [into a room],
one steps in with one’s right foot first. |
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| And on your gates.
Similar to your house. Just as your house is a dignied place,
so too, all dignified places [require a Mezuzah],
excluding chicken coops, stables, silos, etc. |
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© Baal Shem Tov Foundation 2003-2005 |
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