Father Ray Suriani recently delivered a sermon entitled, ‘Keeping our spiritual mezuzahs straight.’ Yes, you probably can already sniff out that something just isn’t going to be kosher. On November 4th in a church in Westerly, Rhode Island, he told about how one of his congregants pointed out that the steeple of their church became crooked as a result of hurricane Sandy.
So the preacher, in his homily, asked his flock, (and this is not the lead- in to a joke) “Is your mezuzah crooked like the cross on top of our church?”
He went on to relate the fact that mezuzahs are always hung crooked. This got him wondering, so he went online to find out why. He said that it was because of a disagreement among Rabbis. Some thought the mezuzah should be hung vertically and some thought it should be hung horizontally, so they compromised. He said that to him this crookedness has spiritual significance.
He taught his congregants that their own spiritual mezuzahs should be straight, not like the rabbis, and that the next time they visit a Jewish friend and see a mezuzah affixed to their doorpost, they should remember that they are sinners and they need to confess and repent.
Maybe someone should tell the good Father that the word mezuzah sounds suspiciously like the word meshuggah!