The Doorpost Blessing
As we watch the very difficult transition now taking place within the nation of Israel, we can’t help but be moved by the emotional scene of the Jewish settlers as they are having to leave their homes in accordance with the State’s order to withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.
How heartbreaking it must be for the residents after 38 years of occupation while living in a land that they have come to love and call their own. Now they are being uprooted and told they must leave.
As I watched the national news coverage and observed the tearful residents as they protested— some peacefully and some not so peacefully—I could not help but think about a very profound statement that I had once heard and how those words seemed to be unfolding right before my eyes.
“And if a house be divided against itself, that house cannot stand” ( ).
It is obvious that the people of Israel are divided in their decision, and many are being torn with incredible disbelief as they attempt to try and understand how their beloved motherland could be reduced to having one Jewish brother expelling another brother. It is very hard to watch as they are forced to leave the very land that had been promised to them by way of a covenant centuries before. Many rent their clothes in two as a spiritual sign of mourning.
As the news broadcast broke away to a commercial, I glanced out of my living room window, across to my neighbor’s house. As I looked inside the doorway, I was reminded of a very small vial that had been incased within the frame of their doorpost. The cylinder, made of sterling silver, is called a mezuzah and can be found embedded as a sign and reminder of their faith.
You see, my neighbors are a precious Jewish family that have lived alongside us for quite some time. Susan and I had become good friends, and one day, while having coffee, I noticed the small case, angled slightly within the door frame, and asked her about it. She explained to me about the tradition and the rich significance that it held. I found it to be most fascinating that this tiny cylinder contained a scroll-like parchment with the writings taken from the book of Deuteronomy. To be exact, it’s and 11:13-21.
I decided that morning to turn off the television and to re-read those particular passages. There was one small portion beginning at verse 20 that seemed to stand out to me.
In the last half of the Scripture it says this:
“Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates, so that your days and the days of your children may be many in the land that the Lord swore to give your fore-fathers, as many as the days that the heavens are above the earth” (Deuteronomy 20-21).
As I closed my Bible and looked again across the fence to the doorway of my neighbor’s house, I thought to myself, Perhaps it’s time to pray that those promises will once again be written on parchment as a symbolic mezuzah that will be embedded deep within the doorpost over the nation of Israel as their Jewish declaration of faith!
This day, our heartfelt prayers go out to that small but mighty country, the one referred to by Jehovah as “the apple of My eye,” as we continue to pray for the peace of Jerusalem and stand on the promise that was made to all of us by the prophet Isaiah long ago.
“I will judge between the nations and will settle disputes for many peoples. They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they learn of war anymore” ( ).
Shalom to you, O Israel!
