Introduction
This article—drawing extensively on the research of Professor Oded Yisraeli—examines references to the mezuzah from both before and after the emergence of the Zohar in the late thirteenth century, in order to trace shifting cosmologies. To map these changing approaches, we shall examine successive periods of Jewish literature from the third century to our times, each marked by distinct emphases and developments in the evolving mystical cosmology of the mezuzah.
1) Talmudic period (200-500CE)
During the Talmudic period, the mezuzah is generally described as a Halachic or legal entity, with occasional references, as in the case of Onkelos, to its perceived value of protecting houses:
מִנְהָגוֹ שֶׁל עוֹלָם, מֶלֶךְ בָּשָׂר וָדָם יוֹשֵׁב מִבִּפְנִים, וַעֲבָדָיו מְשַׁמְּרִים אוֹתוֹ מִבַּחוּץ, וְאִילּוּ הַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא, עֲבָדָיו מִבִּפְנִים וְהוּא מְשַׁמְּרָן מִבַּחוּץ, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר: ״ה׳ יִשְׁמׇר צֵאתְךָ וּבוֹאֶךָ מֵעַתָּה וְעַד עוֹלָם״
“The standard practice throughout the world is that a king of flesh and blood sits inside his palace, and his servants stand guard, protecting him outside; but with regard to the Holy One, Blessed be He, His servants, the Jewish people, sit inside their homes [with Mezuzot] and He guards over them outside. As it is stated: “The Lord shall guard your going out and your coming in, from now and forever” [Psalms 121:8]” (b. Avodah Zarah 11a).
The Talmud records R. Chanina claiming that the mezuzah protects the inhabitants of the home, and mentions that Shmuel maintains that its incorrect placement is not only Halachically ineffective, but “dangerous,” סַכָּנָה וְאֵין בָּהּ מִצְוָה (b. Menachot 32b).
The dominant trend in the Talmud, however, is legalistic, where the mezuzah is treated as a mitzvah with precise Halachic requirements. Nevertheless, there is an Aggadic overlay that emphasises the protective qualities of the mezuza, but this serves more to enrich the mitzvah rather than define it.
2) Mechilta de R. Yishmael (c.
third-eighth centuries)
The Mechilta de R. Yishmael is probably the earliest reference to the theurgical or magical nature of the mezuzah. It directly connects the sprinkling of the blood on the doorposts of the Israelites in the Exodus story to the mezuzah, relating it to preventing “the destroyer to enter your houses to plague you” (Exod 12:23). In the Mechilta’s conceptualisation, it is the Divine Presence that stands at the doorposts, not the protective powers of angels (Yisraeli 2015:147). This is already a significant shift in the cosmology because the earlier Heichalot mysticism spoke of hierarchies of angelic beings populating the heavens.
The Mechilta is the first magical-theurgical interpretation because it speaks of “ten unique names and is applicable day and night for all generations” (Mechilta 1931:39), emphasising a magic and ritualised mechanism revolving around ten Divine names. The mezuzah becomes not just a didactic (meaning ‘intended to teach’) symbol of protection, but a specific apotropaic (meaning ‘to ward off’) device with ongoing magical efficacy related to specific Divine names. Passover night is also called Leil Shimurim (Night of Protection). The drawing attention to the Divine Presence offering protection may be the very early stirrings of what was later to become a more pronounced move away from the angelology of the earlier Heichalot mystical literature to the later Sefirotic literature of the Zohar in the thirteenth century (where, for example, the Angel of Mercy gets replaced by the Sefirah of mercy) [see: Kotzk Blog: 530) Early textual layering in Zohar and Bahir as clues to their dating]. The Mechilta may thus represent an intermediate stage where the earlier angles and angelology of Heichalot literature are replaced by the Divine Presence, anticipating—in turn—the later move by the Zohar to the Sefirot (GM):
“We may derive that, according to these [Mechilta] texts, which are among the oldest regarding the protective and defensive power of the mezuzah, its magical power is not manifest in troops of angels and spirits that stand like a fortified wall against assorted destroyers [as they are reflected in Heichalot texts], but in the power of the mezuzah to make the King present at the entrance to the house” (Yisraeli 2015:147).
The shift represented in the Mechilta marks a transition from the earlier Heichalot angelology toward a focus on the Divine Presence. Yet, the magical‑theurgical dimension remains dominant, expressed through the invocation of the Divine and its “ten unique names.” At this stage, the conceptual framework has not yet reached the Zoharic development of the Sefirot, but we can discern the trajectory that leads in that direction.
3) Chassidei Ashkenaz (12th-13th
centuries)
Then an interesting phenomenon occurred. During the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the Chassidei Ashkenaz (German Pietists) emerged, and—in what seems like a return to the ancient mystical system of angelology—the names of angels are now written and inserted into the parchment texts of the Mezuzot:
“The Ashkenazic custom sought to reinforce the protective power of the mezuzah [as per the Mechilta, but] mainly by adding names of angels…[I]nstead of the Lord standing at the entrance to the house to defend it…it offers a picture of the King and his entourage [of angels]” (Yisraeli 2015:148).
The Chassidei Ashkenaz may be seen as both a regression and a progression: on the one hand, a step back toward the angelology characteristic of Heichalot mysticism; on the other, a step forward—not yet to the Zoharic doctrine of the Sefirot, but toward an intensified awareness of the Divine Presence. In this sense, their teaching of Chassidei Ashkenaz resembles the Mechilta, where the mezuzah affords protection through the Divine Presence itself, though here it is mediated in conjunction with the angels.
4) R. Yosef Gikatilla (1248-c.1305)
R. Yosef Gikatilla then appears to somewhat mitigate the return to angelology by the Chassidei Ashkenaz, although he does not yet abolish them to the degree the Zohar was prepared to go. Gikatilla was “a kabbalist who was close to the Zoharic circle, if not one of its creators” (Yisraeli 2015:149). He writes—in a work attributed to him, titled Sod haMezuzah (Secret of the Mezuzah)—that although the protection of the mezuzah is from the Sefirot (in keeping with the Zoharic emphasis on Sefirot), there is still a place for the “camps” of protecting angels:
“Now then, the mezuzah always stands in the place of those things that were done on the night they left Egypt, and the mezuzah guards at the entrance against all the external forces of impurity, so that they may not enter the house. Likewise, when a man goes out the door of his house, those camps of sanctity and purity [i.e., the angels] that are attached to these two passages ‒ namely, Shema and Vehaya Im Shamoa ‒ they all go with the man who has a mezuzah in his doorway…and those angels that are appointed for those two passages [in the Shema]…protect a man when he goes out the door of his house” (Gikatilla, cited in Yisraeli 2015:149-150).
Thus, while Gikatilla adopts the Zoharic approach, which effectively substitutes Sefirot for angels, he also remains somewhere between Heilchalot angels and Zoharic Sefirot because he:
“makes an unexpected exegetic shift by [re]introducing ‘camps’ of angels into the guardian mechanism of the mezuzah…[which is] a slightly faded reflection of the familiar [Chassidei] Ashkenazic mythos of the mezuzah where angels surround the Lord, but, whereas the Ashkenazic mythos became embodied in the custom of adding names of angels to the parchment [of the mezuzah], here the motif of the angels remained as an unrelated vestige with no hold on the practical aspect of the commandment” (Yisraeli 2015:150).
5) Zohar (published 1290)
According to Yisraeli, the Zohar is composed predominantly in Aramaic[1] and adopts a Talmudic style to situate itself in the second century and associate its authorship with R. Shimon bar Yochai. However, “the Zohar’s content easily discloses its medieval context” (Yisraeli 2015:137). One of the clues pointing to later origins of the Zohar is its involvement with the relatively new (from a thirteenth-century perspective) literary discipline of discussing the reasons for the commandments (Taamei haMitzvot). This discipline emerged during the Medieval period, and its protagonists included Kabbalists like the circle of Nachmanides and R. Yitzchak the Blind:
“At the end of the 13th century and the beginning of the 14th, the genre of reasons for the commandments appears amongst the kabbalists close to the circle of the Zohar” (Yisraeli 2015:138).
Manuscripts begin to emerge, reflecting a growing preoccupation with uncovering the reasons behind the mitzvot. These include Sefer haRimon by R. Moshe de Léon, Sefer Taamei haMitzvot by R. Yoseph Mishushan Habirah and another work with the same title, Sefer Taamei haMitzvot by R. Menachem Recanati. As Moshe Idel notes, Kabbalistic literature placed particular emphasis on seeking the reasons underlying the commandments:
“Indeed, the bulk of 13th-century kabbalistic literature was dedicated to taʾamei ha-mitzvot [reasons for the commandments]ˮ (Idel 1988:xii).
The foundational mystical work, the Zohar, was no exception to this literary trend, placing particular emphasis on the magical-theurgical dimensions of the reasons underlying the commandments.
This stood in marked contrast to the rationalist schools, which sought to ground the mitzvot in logic and reason. On the topic of mezuzah, Maimonides, the rationalist, vehemently opposed the common contemporaneous practice of writing the names of angels in the mezuzah scrolls, for ‘extra’ protection. This sparked a great debate over the permissibility of tampering with the mezuzah scrolls and over the ‘protective’ purpose of the mezuzah.
The Zohar was the first mystical work to attempt to describe the mezuzah in mystical dimensions. Surprisingly, no previous mystical texts, including the Bahir, had dealt with mystical reasons behind the mezuzah. As we shall see, the Zohar did not accept the prevailing custom stemming from Chassidei Ashkenaz to write angelic names into the mezuzah (even thought the Zohar was influenced by Chassidei Ashkenaz).
The Zohar's refusal to accept the permissibility to write the names of the angels into the texts of the mezuza was in sharp contrast to many earlier manuscripts that had endorsed the practice of writing angelic names in the mezuzah. These included Sefer haPardes and Machzor Vitry, which were from the school of Rashi, as well as Sefer haEshkol, Sefer Yereim and Sefer Raaviah. This indicates that the custom of inserting angelic names into mezuzot was quite mainstream and widespread:
“Not only did the rabbis see no violation in adding names of angels to the mezuzah, but they provided detailed instructions about how to arrange these names in the best and most effective way” (Yisraeli 2015:140).
Maimonides strongly objected to this custom. Evidence from the Cairo Geniza indicates that the practice of inscribing angelic names into mezuzot had reached Egypt, where Maimonides was based. Maimonides writes in his Mishneh Torah:
“It is universal custom to write the word Shaddai on the other side of the mezuzah…As this word is written on the outside, the practice is unobjectionable. They, however, who write names of angels…within the mezuzah, are among those who have no portion in the world to come. For these fools not only fail to fulfill the commandment, but they treat an important precept that expresses the Unity of God, the love of him and his worship, as if it were an amulet to promote their own personal interests, for according to their foolish mind, the mezuzah is something that will secure for them advantage in the vanities of the world” (Mishneh Torah, Laws of Phylacteries, Mezuzah and the Scroll of Law, 5.4).
Amazingly—but not atypically—Maimonides seems to contradict his own view elsewhere in the same Mishneh Torah (citing the rabbis):
“Our ancient teachers said: He who has phylacteries on his head and arm, fringes on his garment and a mezuzah on his door may be presumed not to sin, for he has many monitors – angels that save him from sinning” (Mishneh Torah 6.13).
Maimonides' 'ambivalence' is reflected in the Zohar
Yisraeli (2015:142) points out that this ambivalence or “fluctuation between different trends” is not only found in Maimonides but also within various pericopes (sections) of the Zohar. This again reinforces the notion of the Zohar reflecting the discussions and trends within the thirteenth-century Jewish society.
Remarkably, the mezuzah pericopes in the Zohar indicate different influences from both the mysticism of Chassidei Ashkenaz, as well as Maimonidean rationalism. And the Zohar appears to vacillate between the two trends.
a) Chassidei Ashkenaz influence on Zohar
While Chassidei Ashkenaz had exerted a significant influence on the Zohar, It must be remembered, however, that by this time, the Zohar had totally abandoned the Chassidei Ashkenazic custom of actually inscribing angels’ names into the mezuzah:
“One may discern a complex standpoint that would like to repress the perception of angels in the mezuzah but not completely relinquish it” (Yisraeli 2015:151).
However, the Zohar (3:266a)—while rejecting the Chassidei Ashkenazic practice of physically inscribing angelic names in the mezuzah, and inclining instead toward the substitution of Sefirot for angels—nonetheless retains a nuanced and ambivalent attitude toward the protective role of the angels.
Thus, R. Abba is said to hold that when evil entities approach the entrance of a house, they encounter the letter shin (ש) of the mezuzah facing outwards. This shin signifies the divine name Sha-dai, which is “crowned” by all the letters comprising the inner text of the mezuzah scroll. This counterintuitively suggests that the mezuzah’s primary protective power resides not in the inner script itself, but in the outwardly visible shin! Confronted with the shin and its angelic “crowns,” the destructive entities retreat. R. Yitzchak then inquires of R. Abba, “If so, then a person should inscribe [only] this name at the entrance of the house and no more, [so] why the entire text?” R. Abba replies that while the main protecting force is indeed the outside shin, it is only effective when it operates in conjunction with the other letters of the internal scroll (Zohar 3:266a).
This passage of the Zohar is striking: Although the outer shin possesses no intrinsic Halachic status and represents a later addition, the inner text—which alone constitutes the mezuzah’s Halachic validity—is here relegated to a secondary role, serving merely as an adornment to the outward shin. Yisraeli explains this peculiarity by suggesting that this was a speculative move of the Zohar to:
“preserve the age-old paradigm [of angelology] without necessitating any addition of angels’ names in the mezuzah” (Yisraeli 2015:151).
This particular pericope of the Zohar, like Gikatilla cited above, represents an intermediate stage in the transition from Heichalot angelology to a Zoharic and Sefirotic framework. Both this Zohar and Gikatilla seem to be influenced by the approach of Chassidei Ashkenaz, who had reintroduced angelology into the mystical narrative surrounding the mezuzah. Only now, the Zohar and Gikatilla were:
“hiding the [Chassidei] ‘Ashkenazic’ angels behind the letters of the mezuza [but without the need to write the angels into the scrolls]… There is no doubt, then, that this discourse presents a pronounced [Chassidei] Ashkenazic tendency in the Zohar” (Yisraeli 2015:152).
This is in keeping with the research by Jacob Katz and Yisrael Ta-Shema, who show that the norms reflected in the Zohar show a direct influence from Chassidei Ashkenaz. However, the influence from the mystical movement of Chassidei Ashkenaz represents but one of the voices of the Zohar. There are other voices as well, one of these—remarkably—is Maimonides the rationalist:
b) Maimonidean influence on Zohar
Maimonides (1138–1204) rejected magical‑theurgical interpretations, viewing the mezuzah solely as a symbolic reminder of G-d and His commandments. He died about eighty-six years before the publication of the Zohar. Yet, despite his role as the father of Jewish rationalism, the mystical Zohar sometimes exhibits elements of Maimonidean influence—if not direct continuity of his thought. The Zohar has many nuances, and “[t]hese evidently represent other spiritual orientations in the Zoharic ‘academy’” (Yisraeli 2015:152), be they rational or mystical.
Considering the clearly mystical and often theurgical approach of the Zohar, together with its rich influence from Chassidei Ashkenaz, the Zohar does not refer to writing the names of angels in the mezuzah scrolls. In fact:
“it is impossible to find in the Zoharic literature even one allusion to the custom of inscribing the names of angels on the mezuzah parchment” (Yisraelt 2015:142).
A pericope in the Zohar (3.263b), in an unusual departure from its general magical-theurgical attitude, describes the mezuzah rationally as paralleling the mitzva of tziztzit (fringes):
“[A] person should never forget the remembrance of the Holy One…and this is like with tzitzit, as it says, You will see it and remember, and so on (Num 15:39). Since the person sees this reminder, [he] himself remembers to do the commandments…” (Zohar 3:263b).
This Zoharic periscope appears to be a direct reflection of Maimonides’ Mishneh Torah (6.13), including his comparison to the tzitzit, both of which serve as non-magical ‘reminders,’ as opposed to ‘protectors.’
In the writings of Moshe de Léon—who is considered by many scholars to have been pivotally associated with the production and publication of the Zohar—such as his Sefer haRimon (which deals with the reasons for the mitzvot), he similarly adopts a specifically Maimonidean and non-magical stance concerning the mezuzah. He writes:
“And a person will see and remember his creator and not forget him upon arriving or departing” (Moshe de Léon, Sefer haRimon, 1988:231-233).
This rationalist approach by Moshe de Léon should not be surprising because he:
“was given to Maimonides’ influence in his early career, and this influence did not cease even after he turned to theosophical Kabbalah” (Yisraeli 2015:154).
This incorporation of some aspects of Maimonidean rationalist thought, once again:
“illustrates the Zohar’s pluralistic complexity and its power to contain disparate voices side by side” (Yisraeli 2015:157).
Chabad today
It is interesting to note that, despite the ambivalent approach the Zohar appears to take regarding the protective nature of the mezuza, in contemporary times, the mezuza is often framed primarily and fundamentally as a protective device. What follows are some extracts from “The Protective Power of Mezuzah - Chabad.org”:
“The Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, explains that, unlike other mitzvoth, such as honoring one’s parents, for which the Torah promises longevity, the protection afforded by the mezuzah is not a reward for the mitzvah but rather an immediate and essential result of its observance, as the Sages teach us that: ‘The very purpose of mezuzah is the protection of the house and its inhabitants’…”
“The principal book of Kabbalah, the Zohar, states that if a Jew affixes a mezuzah to
his or her door, the Almighty denies harmful and destroying agents (mazikin) any
access to the home, even at a time when the Destroying Angel is let loose.”
“It must be clarified that Maimonides did not dispute the protective property of the mezuzah, nor did he object to the auxiliary use of it for this purpose alone, as was the practice during the time of Mishnah…He strongly objected to practices that halakhically invalidated the mezuzah…he objected to the degrading view of the mitzvah of mezuzah as a mere amulet, since this mitzvah, though its main purpose is protection...”
“In one of the Rebbe’s letters, he recommends to his correspondent, who complained of nightmares, to keep a kosher mezuzah near her bed. To another correspondent suffering from migraines, the Rebbe suggested that she keep a kosher mezuzah wrapped in a cloth with her at all times (besides Shabbath when carrying outside is prohibited) promising that it would improve her health.”
“Countless stories are told and retold in Jewish folklore about people who became well, regained lost jobs, and about barren women who became mothers, after fixing or replacing non-kosher mezuzoth. Some of these stories have been documented and published.”
Conclusion
In our times, it seems that the ideas and associations surrounding the mezuzah have acquired an enduring afterlife that disregards the ambivalent voices of the Zohar itself, and reshapes its original pluralistic intentions. Whereas the classical rabbinic debates over its protective qualities have largely faded into obscurity, the contemporary discourse—exemplified in Chabad’s teachings—foregrounds the mezuzah almost exclusively in its protective dimension.
What was once contested has become resolved, so that the mezuzah now stands as a symbol of divine safeguarding, its protective power presented not as one possibility among many, but as its defining feature.
Bibliography
De Leon, M., 1988, Sefer Ha-Rimon, The Book
of the Pomegranate, Edited by E. R. Wolfson, Scholars, Atlanta, 231–233.
Idel, M., 1988, Kabbalah: New Perspectives, Yale
University Press, New Haven.
Katz, J., 1986, Halakhah and Kabbalah: Studies in
the History of Jewish Religion, Its Various Faces and Social Relevance, Magnes,
Jerusalem (Hebrew).
Mekhilta de-Rabbi Yishmael, 1931, Edited by H. S.
Horowitz and I. A. Rabin. Kauffmann, Frankfurt.
Ta-Shema, I.M., 2001, HaNigle SheBanistar: The
Halachic Residue in the Zohar; Hakibbutz Hameuchad, Tel Aviv (Hebrew).
Yisraeli, O., 2015, The Mezuzah as an Amulet:
Directions and Trends in the Zohar, Jewish Studies Quarterly, vol. 22,
no. 2, 137-161.
[1] There are some Hebrew sections in the parsha of Shemot in the sixteenth-century Cremona edition, see: Kotzk Blog: 530) Early textual layering in Zohar and Bahir as clues to their dating.
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