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We picked raspberries!

We being me and L from JTS, who knows where to find raspberries. We went to the park in Inwood at 215th St, and walked along a windy path, and there were many raspberries. We climbed off the path and onto a steep south-facing slope, and there were raspberries in splendid abundance. They are bright red and shiny, more like redcurrants than ordinary raspberries. One wants to pick them simply because they are so red and shiny, just for the pleasure of owning them, like pebbles on a beach. Fortunately they also taste nice, an advantage over pebbles.

The soil there is very interesting - very very rich, loose and crumbly, as though it had been freshly ploughed, except of course it hasn't been ploughed at all, what with being on a 45-degree slope. You sink into it up to your ankles, it's rather lovely, except when it's so loose that you step into it and find yourself moving down the slope in a stately sort of way without moving your feet at all, whereupon you grab a passing tree and hope like heck you don't fall into the brambles. I wonder how it comes to be like that. I would expect such soil to be sparser. And I saw a snake, deciding that it wanted to be somewhere I wasn't.

Moving along the slope, we spied a path that looked rather as though it went all the way to the water. It proved to be a dry steam bed which indeed went to the water, so we went with it. The water was awfully inviting, with a nice lot of rocks for climbing and sitting and a shady sort of overhang, so we got in. It was extremely pleasant, so much so that it's got to be against the city ordinances, or why isn't everyone doing it? I paddled. L became a hippopotamus and wallowed joyously in the wash from passing boats.

We got filthy dirty and a nice lot of raspberries and I haven't had so much fun in ages.

How Not to Hang A Mezuzah

As with most ritual activities, there are ways to hang a mezuzah and ways not to hang a mezuzah. This link takes you to stam.net's comprehensive directions on how to hang a mezuzah. This post has some examples of how not to hang a mezuzah.


It's a good idea to wrap the scroll in something before putting it in the case; it protects it from dust and other airborne yuk, and to some degree from moisture. R' Askotzky at stam.net recommends wax paper. Some sellers will roll them up for you in plastic wrap.

This applies particularly if the case is openwork, even more particularly if it's going to get painted over. On the whole, it's better to take the mezuzah down before painting.

In this particular case, paint had trickled down inside the roll, so that some of the letters were completely obliterated.

Oops.

And it had stuck to the case.

Oops.

And when it was finally extracted from the case, see what had happened!

This is a spectacular example of why coated mezuzot are not a good idea. The parchment of a coated mezuzah is covered with white paint before the scribe starts to write This makes the surface much smoother, so the mezuzah is easier to write and the scribe can fit more into his day. This means they can be sold more cheaply.

Unfortunately, paint is more brittle than parchment, and it has a tendency to crack and flake. Here, moisture from wet paint has affected the surface - steamy kitchens, hot radiators, and humid weather can have similar effects. The paint and the parchment react to moisture and heat at different rates, and they pull apart because they're doing different things. The mezuzah very easily becomes pasul (invalid). Uncoated mezuzot are certainly rather more expensive, but they're much less likely to go pasul.

Left: it's not nice to roll it with the writing on the outside. Neither is it nice to roll it top to bottom. It's supposed to be rolled side to side; if you roll it top to bottom and then hang it, the writing lies sideways instead of being upright.

At right: upside down. The three words כוזו במוכסז כוזו are supposed to be at the top, and they're supposed to look upside down. When those words look the right way up, the scroll is upside down. (Further reading: Mezuzah in the Jewish Encyclopaedia, scroll down to the section on Superstitious Conception.)