Bind them [Torah words] as a sign upon your arm and
let them be an ornament between your eyes.
Teach your children to discuss them, when you sit in your home, while
you walk on the way, and when you retire and arise. And write them on the doorposts of your
houses and gates. (Deuteronomy
11:18-20)
KUZU sets God YHVH in Motion
On the inside of this mini-Torah scroll is "Hear O Israel, God YHVH is our Lord ELOHAYNU, God YHVH is One" (Deuteronomy 6:4)
K-U-Z-U is spelled with each of the Hebrew letters that
follow Y-H-V-H. K follows Y; U follows H; Z follows V; and U follows H.
It is as if we were to write GOD as HPE, H being the letter
following G, P the letter following O, and E the letter following D.
KUZU is written to teach that God, YHVH (Is-Was-Will be),
cannot be experienced as a static object, but rather as dynamic process.
KUZU is written up-side-down to invite us to learn Torah
with our children from multiple vantage points as part of the flow of life.
Miriam created home size and synagogue size mezuzah housings
in her ceramics studio in our former home in Teaneck, NJ.
She made a silver mezuzah housing as a medusa with
tentacles that move when touched. The word mezuzah is related to zaz
(move).
In Guatemala, Mel carved a mezuzah housing from
mahogany wood spiraling around a test tube capped with a 13 petal rose.
A Jew spirals a leather strap around his arm flowing out
from the tefillin box. He then
forms the branching Hebrew letter shin on his hand.
Spirals and branches symbolize living systems, from
spiraling palms to branching cedars and from DNA to our circulatory and nervous
systems.
It [Torah] is a tree of life to those who grasp
it. A righteous person will flourish
like a date palm, like a Lebanon cedar he will grow tall. (Proverbs
4:2, Psalm 92:13)