9:41 AM
Chaviva Gordon-Bennett
While I stood yesterday at my favorite Jewish-ish diner in the South Loop of Chicago -- Eleven City Diner -- waiting for one of my best friends from high school and her newish husband to arrive for lunch yesterday, I discovered a perplexing question I had no answer to, as I watched people shuffle in and out of, well, a revolving door -- the choice of entryway for many Chicago establishments, to keep the cold in and the heat out. The question?
Do you affix a mezuzah to a revolving door? Is there any responsa about revolving doors and whether it is necessary to affix mezuzot to them?So, if anyone knows, please let me know. Otherwise, I'll find a rabbi and ask, like the Orthodox community websites for Brandeis and Penn tell me to!
2 comments:
Hi, this will be my second time trying to answer this.
My educated guess would be the following. Although this is a revolving door, a mezuzah is always placed on the right side of the door jam or door frame from where one would enter that space. In the case of the revolving door, it would still go to the right of the door housing or framing. The right when facing INTO the place. A mezuzah is always affixed to a room; however, a room does NOT need a door to be considered a room. For example, a local rabbi has a semi-enclosed space for a front porch and although there is no official door, the mezuzzah is affixed to the framing of that space.
Hope that makes sense and helps.
Thank you Tamara! Likewise, Schvach tried to answer earlier today but had some trouble with the blogger comments window. So here is his e-mail to me!
Hello again Chavi:
I enjoyed your latest blog about placing a mezuzah on a revolving door - very funny. Just try to find the door jamb that's built so that the mezuzah won't be knocked off by the revolving door. It's a humorous proposition.
I would have left this as a comment to your blog, but I'm not able to access the comment
window on your site (dunno!).
Be well, and just in case I've missed your point about the revolving door, go to 'Ask Moses.com' (Chabad.org website) for an answer.
-Schvach
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