There is an odd tendency amongst Jewish people of various persuasions to like small mezuzas for their doorposts. I say odd because it seems to be a rather obsolete tendency. There are halachic persona from the Middle Ages and onward that discuss various options for hiding the mezuza so it won't be destroyed or stolen by hostile non-Jews. More recently, anti-Semitism has provided a good reason for people to want as discrete a mezuza as possible. But today, in most places in the world, particularly in the modern State of Israel in which I live and check mezuzas, it seems absurd to try to "hide" the mezuza on the doorpost. What do you think, nobody's gonna notice that you have a mezuza? And if they don't see a mezuza, chances are that they'll be less inclined to be nice to you. People around here are suspicious of gentiles! Therefore it always breaks my heart when people bring me teeny-tiny mezuzas that aren't kosher, simply because they're so small.
The truth is, the small mezuzas are usually not kosher to begin with--either they were written in a terribly careless fashion (often by non-Jews, who are not halachically qualified to write mezuza in any case) or even printed by machine. (Sometime I'd like to address all these issues separately, but at the moment I'm more focused the size of the mezuza. If someone were to remind me, I'd be more likely to write a column just about why the non-Jews and the printing press aren't kosher for such tasks...)
But today, somebody brought me two tiny mezuzas (2.5 and 2.75 inches in height) that at first glance seemed rather well written. The letters were straight and aligned on the scoring (שרטוט), most of the letters that get crowns (תגין) actually had them, all in all they looked good. But when I got down to actual proofreading them, letter by letter, I quickly discovered that their miniscule measurements had down them in. In the same word, in the same letter, both mezuzas were condemned to burial. By the writing it's clear that they were written by two different scribes, yet they both had trouble fitting all the words into the 16th line of the mezuza, and therefore squeezed the letter Kaf until it turned into a Nun. Look at the word "נפשכם" , second from the end on the first line.
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| This Kaf could pass for a Nun |
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| This one couldn't even try to be a Kaf |
And thus, two mezuzas, each one containing 10 ineffable names of God, made their way to the geniza (burial). I plead with you, dear readers, don't waste your money and your future scribal checker's precious time with these tiny mezuzas! Buy only mezuzas 4 inches and taller. And if you have in your home, you workplace, your synagogue, small mezuzas, replace them ASAP. They've got a 95% chance of being non-kosher, too.
