The Talmud (Shabbat 22a) decides in favor of Shmuel, that one must place the Chanukkah Menorah at the left of the doorpost as one enters, with the Mezuzah on the right. The Rambam (Hil. Chanukkah 4:7) codifies this halakha almost verbatim. But what drove the Talmud, and the Rambam, to focus on the petach ha-bayit, the entrance to the house? What makes the doorpost or threshold so important in the Halakha? If indeed the point is that one must feel surrounded by mitzvot, why not declare that one must kindle the Menorah while wearing a tallit, or some other way to feel enveloped in the sanctity of mitzvot? (This is not dissimilar to the question posed by the Penei Yehoshua, namely, why does the Gemara posit that the mitzvah of Chanukkah refers specifically to the home, the bayit, treating this particular mitzvah differently from every other mitzvah we must perform with our bodies and which refer to us as individuals, not to our homes?) I suggest that the threshold, the petach ha-bayit, is a symbol of instability and doubt, of confusion and diffidence. On the threshold, a person stands between inside and outside, undecided as to whether he is to go in or out. The threshold as such a symbol is found often in Tanakh. In the Joseph story (Ber. 43:18), the brothers are frightened as they are ushered into the palace of Joseph. They approach the official in charge as they speak to him from the petach ha-bayit. They were hesitant, wavering between protesting and keeping silent. When Lot (Ber. 19:6) goes out to face the angry mob, he speaks to them from the threshold of his house – unsure of how to treat this unholy gathering of Sodomites, uncertain as to whether or not he will survive the encounter. Earlier yet, when Cain is irate at the divine rejection of his offering, he is told that if he will not improve his ways, sin will be crouching at his petach – again the symbol of uncertainty; man is always vacillating between yielding to the blandishments of the yetzer ha-ra or …