today i'm so excited because i'm inviting you to come on a tour of our orthodox sephardic jewish
home i will also share with you five things that you will only find in an orthodox jewish house
as well as many many other secrets that you can find in our home if you're new here hi my name
is Sara Malka and on my channel i share all facets of my orthodox sephardic jewish life
as a full-time working mom with small kiddos so don't forget to leave a big thumbs up to the video
and subscribe to our channel let me put on a pretty tichel (headscarf) and let's jump into it
when you arrive to our house the first thing you will see after climbing a few stairs will be the
mezuzah in its case on the right side of the door a mezuzah is a scroll that we have fixed on every
door post of our house and i will talk to you about it and even show you one a little bit
later in the video when we come in we are in our mudroom i have designed it using ikea storage that
i have repurposed for the children to have little cubbies for their coats on top of the cubbies we
have pictures of rabbis to remind us what we should strive to be then we have a blessing of
the house or Birkat HaBayit it is a blessing for the inhabitants of the house and for the visitors
then on the doorpost we have a mezuzah and it is customary for us to kiss the mezuzah when we are
passing it or when we are entering a room then we come inside to the foyer on the cabinet is where
i light our shabbat lights as well as during the week it is where i keep our tzedaka box or charity
box we put money in it before doing a mitzvah or commandment or at any time we have many art
pieces in our foyer including this beautiful painting that reminds us of my father-in-law
on the other side of the cabinet we have the letterboard on which i write at what time shabbat
begins and ends for the current week we also have another Birkat HaBayit or blessing for the house
with translation it is customary to receive art forms with this blessing on them as a
gift when we move to a new home this is why we are so blessed to have so many of them
in the lower part of the cabinet is where my husband and son will put their Tefillin bag
with its content which is the first of the five items you will only find in an orthodox jewish
home the Tefillin bag holds their Tefillin and the prayer shawl that is also called a talit gadol
the talit gadol is a large prayer shawl with petilim or strands/strings that are knotted
together on the four corners of the shawl and this is how our men put/wear them during prayer
then we have the Tefillin they are a pair of black leather boxes containing Hebrew
parchment scrolls a set includes two Tefillin one for the head called Tefillin Shel Rosh
and one for the arm called the Tefillin Shel Yad that is put on the arm and strapped from the arm
to the hand each consist of three main components the scroll the box and the leather strap note that
the leather strap is much longer for the arm's Tefillin and much shorter for the head Tefillin
the Torah commands jewish men to bind Tefillin onto their head and upper arm every weekday in
fulfillment of the verse "you shall bind them as a sign upon your hand and they shall be for you
a reminder between your eyes" the Tefillin is an incredible powerful mitzvah or commandment and the
experience of putting on Tefillin has changed many people's lives on the wall facing the cabinet we
have another artwork this one is about the Eshet Chayil hymn which would be translated as a woman
of valor which is a praise of the qualities of a jewish woman my husband recites it every
friday night on shabbat and it is such a beautiful moment when we move around the corner we have our
living room in this glass cabinet we have a shofar which is used for Rosh Hashana and also Yom Kippur
i also have in our glass cabinet a music box shaped like the central synagogue in New York
that was built in eighteen seventy two i also have another Birkat HaBayit or blessing for
the home as well as my favorite item of the whole glass cabinet
the candlesticks holders that my grandmother used to use to light her shabbat candles
and then we have this kiddush fountain it is very practical when we have guests my husband will make
kiddush on the main cup and then we'll pour the wine into the fountain and here is the article
number two that you will only find in an orthodox jewish home a Mayim HaChachonim keli and bowl
it is used at the end of the meal for the participants to wash their fingers ritualistically
next to the glass cabinet we have a painting representing the presence of G.od at the Kotel
or wailing wall in Israel when we turn around you can see we have quite a collection of books thank
G.od and these books are called Sefarim they are books on different topics on judaism like
commentaries on the Torah self-help books chinuch or child education books as well as books for
children and as you can imagine we are big readers in this family thank G.od every year we all try
to pick at least one book that we will study throughout the year as part of our Rosh Hashana
or new year's resolution for us to always strive to better ourselves then we have the glass cabinet
in it we keep our candlesticks holders for shabbat in our family we light five lights one per family
member for shabbat and the holidays we also have a menorah that we use only for Hanukah it has eight
lights and one shamash light or one guardian light i also keep mezuzah in their case that are not in
use like this one the mezuza is a scroll that is kept in a protective case and the protective case
can be as simple or as elaborate as we want when we remove the scroll from its protective encasing
we see that the mezuzah is a small parchment upon which the Hebrew words of the Shema prayer are
handwritten by a sofer who is an expert scribe who is trained in the many laws involved in writing
a mezuzah including the requirement that it be written with special intention and that the words
be written in order every single letter in the mezuzah must be properly formed a single crack in
the parchment or any omission can invalidate the entire scroll like in this mezuzah which is passul
or not valid because there's a word missing in the Shema i'm curious to know can you find what word
is missing let me know in the comments below and i will give the answer at the end of the video on
the reverse side of the scroll the scribe writes one of G.od's name the three letters of this name
form an acronym for the Hebrew words that mean "Guardian of the doorways of Israel" the mezuzah
are there on every doorpost of our house to remind us that G.od is everywhere and we are always
connected to Him next to the glass cabinet we have the dining room with even more books including our
siddur or prayer books everyone in the family has one and this one is my favorite one i use it every
single day with my little bookmarks to easily find the different sections of the prayer book
whether on the weekdays shabbat or the holidays and if you want for me to do another video on
how i pray every day and what i study every week please let me know in the comments below
just underneath our siddurim we have plenty of birkat Hamazon or grace after meal prayer books as
well as our Aneni prayer book filled with special prayers for success we also have a Tefillat Chana
a special prayer book filled with prayers only for women and of course we have many Tehillim or
psalms here is the third item you will only find in an orthodox home a lectern or commonly called
in yiddish shtender we store it on top of the bookcase and when we want to study we take it out
we unfold it and finally we put our sefer or holy book on it which makes studying much
more comfortable we have a smaller one for the table and we also have a bigger one that we use
for prayer when there is a Torah class in our home or for yom kippur when my husband and son
stay for long hours standing during the yom kippur prayers then we go in the other
section of our home with all the bedrooms and bathrooms that we find on the main floor
the first room will be our son's room which of course has a mezuzah on the doorpost the room is a
typical boy's room with a bed a desk and for him a lot of lego as you can see he is a big fan of lego
especially the architect series in his closet we will find the fourth item that you will only
find in an orthodox home a talit Katan or small shawl that the orthodox boys and men
wear under their clothes at all time this also has knotted petilim or strings at each corner of
the talit the strings and knots of the talit are a physical representation of the Torah's 613 mitzvot
or commandments he also has some kippah that boys and men wear on their head at all time the Halacha
or Jewish law requires boys and men to cover their head as a sign of respect and reverence to G.od
especially when praying studying Torah saying a blessing or entering a synagogue the practice has
its root in biblical time when the priests in the temple were instructed to cover their head
the next room is our bedroom and on a side note next to each bedroom doors we
keep these magnetized pocket lamps in case of a blackout or emergency G.od forbids
so we can see where we're going and of course you guessed it they come from the dollar store when we
enter our bedroom you can see that there are two beds as when i am nida we sleep in separate beds
this separation makes our heart grow fonder and keeps the spark alive when we can be together
again after a few days on each night tables we have the shabbat lamp as we already discussed
it in our orthodox kosher grocery visit and i will leave the link to the video in the description box
above and below the video on the right side of our bedroom we have our ensuite bathroom
it is a very simple bathroom with minimalistic and clean lines which i find so relaxing and zen what
do you think next to our bedroom we have the girls bedroom which is the last bedroom of our main
floor we also have a basement with a kids playroom and my office when i do telemedicine appointments
with my patients and i will keep this part of the house for another tour for the girls bedroom
we prefer for them to have bunk beds as they are thank G.od best friends and often they will sleep
in the same bed instead of their respective bed just to spend more time together we made a little
reading corner in the room and thank G.od they have quite a library as they are big readers BH we
have sections from different genre as well as beautiful books all about the different jewish
holidays as well as good middot or character traits that we should strive to emulate and
also books for children on different subjects like science and such then we have their shared closet
i have already shared how i organized their closet in my passover cleaning video and i will leave the
link above and in the description box below for this part of the main floor we have our second
bathroom and i really love it because it is cute and cozy and it makes it super easy to maintain
and clean i have already shown you a little bit on how i maintain and clean this bathroom in a
past video for my friday shabbat prep routine and i will leave the link above and in the description
box below then we go back where we came from and we go in the kitchen where we find the fifth item
that you will find only in an orthodox jewish home a kosher kitchen where you find two of everything!
here we have two sinks one for milk and one for meat two sets of pots pans and dishes all to keep
separate milk and meat since as orthodox Jews we follow the commandment in the torah that tells us
not to mix meat and milk together i will leave the link to the video in the card above and in
the description box below as i have already made a complete tour of my orthodox Sephardic kosher
kitchen in a previous video as promised here is the mistake in our mezuzah scroll that makes the
mezuzah non-kosher or invalid our baby daughter Naomi will sing the Shema to point out the mistake
the word HaYom which means the day was missing thank you for being here it means the world to me
know that in my book you are absolutely essential and my world would not be the same without you
if you are still with me until the end please write in the comments I LOVE JEWISH HOMES so i
know i was not alone and if nobody told you today know that YOU ARE LOVED and YOU ARE
ENOUGH just the way you are until next time stay safe stay blessed and don't forget to FRUM IT
UP:)