* Translation by Yehoshua Siskin
Did anyone ever get excited about installation of safety bars on their apartment windows? Or feel any spirituality when putting up a guardrail around their roof?
This week's Torah portion includes 74 mitzvahs, more than any other Torah portion, but let’s just focus on one mitzvah that is not sufficiently spoken about: "When you build a new house, you shall make a guardrail for your roof, so that you shall not cause blood [to be spilled] in your house, that the one who falls should fall from it.” How simple, how easy to understand: Put a guardrail around your roof in order that no one will fall off and be killed. It's a mitzvah.
Our commentators expand this mitzvah to include any potential danger for which we would be responsible. It's interesting that we consider affixing a mezuzah to our doorpost to be the climactic moment when entering a new home or office. Yet passing a safety inspection before entering a new dwelling is an equally important mitzvah. So too is fastening a seat belt and checking tire pressure, oil, and water levels in a car. Likewise when it comes to safety measures taken for workers at a construction site, and when erecting a fence around a swimming pool so that children do not fall in and drown, heaven forbid.
When we move into a new home, we ascribe enormous importance and holiness to the mitzvah of affixing a mezuzah to the front doorpost. This week’s Torah portion is a general reminder that there is also holiness in erecting guardrails and, by extension, taking all safety precautions necessary for securing our safety and wellbeing.
