by michal lev-ram
The whole routine of driving up and down San Francisco’s hilly streets, searching for elusive parking spots and popping in to unfruitful apartment showings on an almost daily basis was starting to get old.
One apartment was too small, the other too expensive. This one had a dirt-colored carpet and that one had a too-close-for-comfort view into someone else’s bedroom.
Finally, just when I was about to give up on finding a new place to live, it happened:
I walked into a fourth-floor apartment near the Haight-Ashbury, saw a ready-to-go, fake gold-encrusted mezuzah on the doorway and felt right at home.
OK, the fact that I’m moving in next week isn’t just because of the mezuzah — the apartment also comes with garage parking and a spectacular view of the Financial District (and even a visible ¾-inch of the Bay Bridge if you crane your neck just so).
But it was the mezuzah, more than the amenities, that first drew me in to the apartment.
I know, I know — it probably would have been even more of a coincidence if none of my new apartment’s previous inhabitants had been Jewish. After all, it’s an 80-year-old, 30-unit apartment building in San Francisco, so it’s almost inevitable that at least one other Jewish tenant lived here at some point or another. (Judging by the yellowing condition — and tackiness — of my new mezuzah, my Jewish predecessor probably arrived sometime in the 1970s).
But looking well beyond the confines of the laws of probability and common sense, I interpreted the mere presence of that pre-installed mezuzah as a sign, and a deeper, inexplicable reason to move in.
A mezuzah is more than a small scroll of paper with the words of the Sh’ma. It’s a mark of the Jewish people, a reminder, and enough to make me feel at home in an apartment I haven’t yet moved into.
Most Jewish people I know don’t actually believe that a mezuzah has supernatural powers of protection. Still, I rarely meet Jews who don’t have a mezuzah perched on the side of their doorway.
Whether you choose to attribute it to social conditioning or a real inherent spiritual essence, for some reason, certain objects just take on a more omnipotent religious function than their natural properties make them out to be.
Take dirt, for example.
I once had a boss who was a Southern Baptist, originally from Florida. When she found out I was going to Israel for a couple of weeks, she was overcome with enthusiasm. She asked if I would do her a “dear” favor and bring back a jar of “holy dirt” back from the “holy city” of Jerusalem.
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.
Holy dirt? Personally, I’d rather find an aging mezuzah than a bunch of loose dirt in my new apartment, but that’s just because a mezuzah is what speaks to me and to my religious beliefs.
The basic idea, though, is the same: They’re both physical objects that have taken on a more spiritual significance.
Almost every time I visit my grandmother in Jerusalem, I come back home with some sort of new amulet — a hamsa keychain, a little card with a prayer to keep in my wallet, or a photograph of the Baba Sali, the great Moroccan rebbe.
For some people, those are just objects of factory-made material, but to me, they’re reflections of a larger picture, and a spiritual reminder.
I probably would have liked my new San Francisco apartment sans mezuzah as well, but the fact that it was there reinforced my decision to move in.
Just yesterday, when I went to the apartment to pick up my keys and checked out my soon-to-be new mailbox, the label on the box caught my attention.
“Meyer,” it said in big bold letters.
That could be Jewish, I thought.
I saw that yet another label was peeking through the wrinkled corners of the first one, and so I decided to investigate a bit further and peeled “Meyer” off.
The next one, slightly more faded, said “Blumenthal.”
Looks like I’m in good company.
Michal Lev-Ram, born in Israel, is a journalism major at SFSU who can be reached at mlevram@hotmail.com.
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