Friday night I spoke about mezuzah.and about putting these very words on your doorposts…it is appropriate. This week we read about Passover and how the Israelites put blood on their doorposts, mezuzot, so that the Angel of Death would pass over their houses. Both are about making your house right and drawing close to G-d. But also words for the journey. Place these very words on your doorposts. Speak of them when you lie down and when you rise up, in your homes and on your way…

The third paragraph of the V’ahavta, the paragraph from Numbers about tzitzit. We put tzitzit on our clothing to remember the Exodus from Egypt and how G-d led us out with a strong hand and an outstretched arm. But the rabbis wondered, should we say this at night, when we can’t look upon the tzitzit. and why we would say it at night? In A Minyan of Comfort that we use in shiva houses, it explains what the rabbis decided on page 35:

“In the end, an ingenious interpretation of one of the words led to the decision that the passage should indeed be included in the evening service. In the house of mourning it is reassuring to read this passage which concludes with a reminder that God brought our ancestors out of Egyptian bondage. In the dark night of suffering, God “saw” our people’s afflication and “heard” their groaning. The Lord who liberated our ancestors from their burdens of pain and suffering is the God of love who can liberate us from our burdens of grief and sorrow. In the dark night of bereavement, our faith in God can strengthen our hope that mourners too shall experience an exodus from suffering, and more toward the promise land of healing.”

Today’s first portion (it is a week with 3 Torahs!) has to do with skin eruptions and mold. Things that the ancient Israelites thought were signs that you weren’t right with G-d. Things from which you need to be healed. Things for which you need to be outside the camp. For seven days. Usually. What’s going on here?

Frequently I joke that if you have mold in your house, don’t call me; call a mold specialist. It will cost you big bucks. Mold is very difficult to get rid of! And if you have a skin eruption, don’t call me. Please go the dermatologist.

And yet…

Later in Numbers, when his sister Miriam is struck with something like leprosy, how ever that is translated, she is put outside the camp. Moses himself prays on her behalf. El na refana lah. Please G-d, heal her. A simple prayer of healing. An early form of misheberach, the prayer for healing of mind, body or spirit. And she is healed.

How do we think prayers like that work?

“More things are wrought by prayer
Than this world dreams of.” (Alfred, Lord Tennyson; from Morte d’Arthur)

“Different types of meditation have been shown to result in psychological and biological changes that are actually or potentially associated with improved health. Meditation has been found to produce a clinically significant reduction in resting as well as ambulatory blood pressure,[2,3] to reduce heart rate,[4] to result in cardiorespiratory synchronization,[5] to alter levels of melatonin and serotonin,[6] to suppress corticostriatal glutamatergic neurotransmission,[7] to boost the immune response,[8] to decrease the levels of reactive oxygen species as measured by ultraweak photon emission,[9] to reduce stress and promote positive mood states,[10] to reduce anxiety and pain and enhance self-esteem[11] and to have a favorable influence on overall and spiritual quality of life in late-stage disease.[12] Interestingly, spiritual meditation has been found to be superior to secular meditation and relaxation in terms of decrease in anxiety and improvement in positive mood, spiritual health, spiritual experiences and tolerance to pain.[13]”

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2802370/

So the science is becoming clearer. Prayer and meditation help in healing.

Often I sing the last paragraph of Adon Olam in the hospital with something. I use a Debbie Friedman version that is like a lullaby…

B’yado afkid ruchi
b’et ishan v’airah. V’im ruchi g’viati
Adonai li v’lo irah.

I have stood with nurses in the ICU and watched in amazement as someone’s blood pressure has stabilized.

Besides growing scientific evidence that prayer works, really really works to provide or aid in physical healing, it seems to do something else. It helps a person know that people care about them, that they are part of a community. Do not underestimate the power of prayer.

But back to our mezuzot, our doorposts.

In some Christian traditions, sometimes the priest or the bishop gets called in to perform an exorcism, to cast out a devil or an evil spirit. To return a person to being right with G-d. Not every one is authorized to perform this ritual because it is a specialized, niche practice.

Twice in my own rabbinate, I have had people think they need something like this. After consulting with other rabbis, in both cases, I helped the family hang a mezuzah. It seemed to work. The family felt they were listened to, taken seriously, part of a community and back to being right with G-d. It works.

Some believe that the mezuzah has a certain protective quality. It works as an amulet of sorts. There are even car mezuzot now to protect you in your car. Some have thought that checking the mezuzot could help prevent terrorist attacks in Israel, or avert a health crisis. We saw this most recently when there was a campaign to deliver a mezuzah to every Jewish house in Pittsburgh after the attack at Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh.

I have had friends who had their mezuzahs checked when a child had a serious and undiagnosed health crisis and others who had them checked when facing infertility.

Don’t get me wrong. I am not the kind of person who thinks that if something bad happens you should check the words in the mezuzah and make sure nothing has been rubbed out. And even back to the Middle Ages, Rambam ruled that while writing letters (like the Shin) on the outside of the mezuzah, still the custom today, writing angelic names on the inside would cause the scribes to lose their place in the world to come.

And yet…

The mezuzah offers something. It is reminder that when you cross the threshold that you are crossing between public space and private domain. It marks liminal time, the time in between, even if just for an instant. Some people have the tradition of kissing the mezuzah when exiting or entering, just to remind themselves of G-d’s loving presence, even in the liminal. Especially in the liminal.

To be effective in this world, you need to move between the inside and the outside, between the private and the public. That is part of what the V’ahavta teaches, to place these very words on your doorposts and to talk about them when you lie down and when you rise up, in your home and on your way. The word mezuzah comes from zuz, to move.

The function of the mezuzah, then is to change the culture, the very fung shei of the house. It heals the inside and the outside world as you cross over the threshold. It causes you to remember the exodus from Egypt.

Changing the fung shei seems an appropriate topic as we get closer and closer to Passover. Recently I began reading Marie Kando’s book, The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up. It’s a New York Times Best Seller. And it has much to say about Passover cleaning. Now ordinarily I will tell you—you don’t need to wash your walls for Passover or clean the dust bunnies under the refrigerator. You weren’t planning on eating them…I hope. We’ve made Passover cleaning very complicated.

And yet…

I explain Passover cleaning as New England Spring Cleaning on steroids.

On the other hand…we all seem to have too much stuff. It is an American societal problem. So this year…all year, we’ve been participating in a project called 52 Bags in 52 Weeks. Our hope is that we would be more organized, less cluttered and feel lighter, happier. It would be freeing. Really, I don’t need those torn jeans that are too big.

Jews are not alone in this wanting to clean in the spring. Every wonder why some people eat pancakes before Lent? They are cleaning out the chamatz, even if they don’t call it that! Some people have a newer Lent tradition of called 40 Days – 40 items, and it’s premise is just what it sounds. During the Lenten season you commit to giving up one item each day for 40 days to donate to charity..

Marie Kondo would tell you that is the wrong approach. I am not yet sure I agree. For her, the “tidying up” will in fact change the fung shei, but rather than doing it a little at a time, you should do it all at once. By category. So she starts with clothes. Then books. She thinks you should only keep 12 books. That’s where it breaks down for me. But her idea that you should touch each item and see if it still brings you joy—and if not thank it for its service and then donate it. That part works. It literally makes us freer, lighter.

Mezuzah. Our doorposts. Helping us to remember. Helping us to cross over. To Passover. Helping us to get our relationships right, with G-d and with the public and private spheres of our life. Healing us.