Why Blown glass Mezuzot?
When I was very young we had silver mezuzot with a glass beads embedded in them on the all of the kids bedroom doors. Mine had a blue sapphire stone in it which represented my birth stone as was popular in the 60s. My mother told me that the mezuzah had a parchment inside it which contained the prayers we said every night before bed. As soon as I was old enough to push a chair to the door frame, and get a butter knife from the kitchen drawyer, I pried the mezuzah off the wall to examine the scroll destroying both the mezuzah and scroll in the process. As an adult The first piece of Judaica i made was a Glass mezuzah so i could see the scroll whenever i looked at it.
All of our blown glass mezuzot are hand made glass with custom made silver or copper end caps. They Mount with brads or small screws. The mezuzah comes with a photo- mechanical reproduction of a parchment which is not kosher. if you're buying this as a gift the recipient traditionally buys a parchment from there local Hebrew book store or even better, directly from a scribe-(sofer stam). Many scribes have large families who they are trying to support from various scribing. Considering how long it takes to learn how to be a scribe, and the cost of glasses that they have to wear from making little tiny letters all day long. I think it's nice to support them.
About mezuzahs From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A mezuzah (Hebrew: ?????? "doorpost") (plural: mezuzot (??????)) is a piece of parchment (usually contained in a decorative case) inscribed with specified Hebrew verses from the Torah (Deuteronomy 6:4-9 and 11:13-21). These verses comprise the Jewish prayer "Shema Yisrael," and begin with the phrase "Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God, the Lord is One."
A mezuzah is affixed to the doorpost of Jewish homes to fulfill the mitzvah (Biblical commandment) to inscribe the words of the Shema "on the doorposts of your house."(Deuteronomy 6:9) Many families place a mezuzah on the front door only, but observant Jews fix one on every doorway in the home apart from bathrooms, and closets too small to qualify as rooms.[1] The parchment is prepared by a qualified scribe (a "sofer stam") who has undergone many years of meticulous training, and the verses are written in indelible black ink with a special quill pen. The parchment is then rolled up and placed inside the case.
