For a number of years in the United States, there has been a feeling of frustration and failure that has plagued the religious Zionist movement (Mizrachi). Partly it is the result of organizational and institutional reasons. Partly it is political, as we are aware of radical changes in the policy of the Mafdal (National Religious Party) in Israel. In addition, there are also psychological and existential elements: confusion, embarrassment, ambivalence. We are in the midst of a major, disturbing identity crisis. As we go to sleep at night we ask ourselves: What is Religious Zionism? Where is it leading? The answers are not easy. We dare not permit this spreading malaise to push us over the brink into the abyss of despair, thus crippling our initiative. We can correct the mistakes, and we not only can, but we must avoid such intimations of hopelessness. Permit me to illustrate my point from a halachic source.Lighting the Way: The Rambam rules that Hanukkah candles should be placed outside the entrance to one's house, a handbreadth on the left hand side entering the house, so that the mezuzah will be on the right hand side and the Hanukkah candles on the left side. It is difficult to understand from where Rambam (and the Gemara) derived this halacha. Why the entrance to the house? If the main requirement is that the one who lights (the candles) be surrounded with mitzvot (commandments) aside from publicizing the miracle, why should he not light the candles near the window while he is covered with a tallit (prayer shawl). In any case, he is surrounded by mitzvot and the miracle is publicized.I submit that the entrance to the house is a symbol of instability, the lack of self-confidence, a result of standing on the threshold, on the borderline between the inside and outside, when one cannot decide whether he is going in or staying out. The straddling at the entrance is symbolic of self-doubt, hesitancy, diffidence.Further regarding Hanukkah, the Rambam writes: "It is kn…

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 …