My Gentile Father’s Jewish Legacy

When my father died in May, he left behind a house filled with stuff accumulated from nearly nine decades of living -- furniture, tools, photographs, an old briefcase, my late mother's wedding dress and more. He had in fact done a good job of paring down his possessions, but it still took much of the summer to disperse what remained. Among the last items to go were three mezuzas, small oblong cases containing a parchment with passages from the Torah. They came with the house -- nailed to the frames of the front door, the back door and the garage door -- when my dad bought it three years ago from the estate of a Jewish woman. She was maintaining a traditional Jewish practice, fulfilling the commandment of Deuteronomy 6:9: "Write them on the doorposts of your houses and on your gates."