Results of mezzuzah check; made us raise our eyebrows a bit...

The results of the mezzuzot check turned out to be very interesting. We have checked all the inner rooms in the house now, and today I picked them up and dropped off the 4 outer door ones (front door/back door/two porch doors). There were two that were "pasul", or rendered invalid. One was from our room (master bedroom), and the other was from Shifra's room (who, btw, is sick again now).

They show you where the mistake, or defect was found. In the case of our room, it kind of freaked us out. [non- Hebrew speakers/understanders: please forgive me if it is not as clear as I want this explanation to be for everyone].

So, the mezzuzah scroll has the prayer "Sh'ma Yisrael" written on it. Each one is handwritten on parchment paper. Sometimes a slight difference of a fraction of a millimeter off in any given letter can change the meaning unintentionally. Essentially, accidentally creating a different letter can cause the creation of an entirely different word.

In the case of Shifra's door scroll, there were two mistakes. One in a slight of hand by the scribe, and one where the ink from a specific letter was worn off. Robert & I haven't seen significance with the particular words involved, but the instance of there being two mistakes... who knows. She did get chicken pox twice, and that is pretty rare, but it's not as mystically clear as what was found in the scroll from our door.

In the case of the scroll from the door of our room, the mistake occurred in the "ve'ahavta" paragraph. In this paragraph, we read the commands to love God with all one's heart, one's soul, and one's might. Well, the mistake was on the word "nafshecha", which means "your soul". The word soul wasn't clearly written. One may extrapolate that the healing of my soul vis-a-vis PTSD was hindered by this mistake. But, the equally, if not more interesting thing about that particular mistake is where in the word the mistake was located. It was on the first letter. The scribe slightly elongated the bottom line of the "nun" the first letter of "nafshecha", making it look like a "gimmel", thus making the word "gafshecha". What is a "gaf"? A leg. It could also be read as "gufshecha". What is "guf"? The body. The suffix "shecha" as means "your".

So, I have written in past posts about the bracha (prayer) for "בריות הנפש ,בריות הגופ", which in translation means to grant "health for the soul, health for the body". The error in this particular word could point out that these requests cannot be granted until the repair, or 'tikkun' is complete. Simply put, my leg and body may be involved as currency for the repair of my soul. Fix the soul, and the leg and body may not be taxed any more. Easier said than done.

It is just so interesting that this one little slight of hand makes the word it formed so meaningful to us.

Our new mezzuzah is now firmly affixed to the door post, and I am going to bed now. Tomorrow the secretary from the MRI lab promised to have the results ready and sent to my doctor. We'll see...