Inside a Jewish Home

Most aspects of a Jewish home would just look like any other, but if you know what to look for, you might find some differences.

The first place to look would be in every doorway. You’ll find a little decorative box, roughly the size of your hand, up in the doorway.  It’s called a mezuzah, and it contains a little scroll with one of our most important passages from the Torah, which includes “and you shall bind these words upon your doorposts and upon your gates.”  Again, this is a practice that is super literally taken from the Torah. It’s customary to touch it with your hand and then kiss your hand when you walk through a doorway.  Because I love crafts, I actually started creating and selling my own mezuzahs out of mosaics.  It’s a really fun side hobby.  I made the ones you see here!

At most or all sinks in the house, you might find a special washing cup.  There are certain times when Jews do a ritual hand washing (think no-soap), such as before eating bread or right after you wake up.  Some homes have beautiful, decorative washing cups at sinks around the house for this purpose.

The biggest difference you would find in a Jewish home is in the kitchen.  I mentioned that we keep kosher (separating meat and milk among other things).  Well, that means having two entire separate sets of dishes for meat and milk.  We have separate plates, forks, mixing bowls, you name it.  Some people have separate ovens, dishwashers, and so on.  We are blessed with one dishwasher (I feel very lucky to have one, but we do not have two, as awesome as that would be) so we only use it for our meat dishes.  It’s very common to have a sink divided into two parts, one designated for meat and one for milk.  (If you have something that is neither meat nor dairy, such as fruit, you might even have a third set of neutral dishes).  You end up needing a LOT of storage space in your kitchen!