mezuzah

From post-Biblical Hebrew מְזוּזָה‎ (məzûzâ, “doorpost”), with reference to Deuteronomy 6:9.

• IPA^(key): /məˈzuːzɔː/

mezuzah (plural mezuzahs or mezuzot or mezuzoth)

1. (Judaism and occasionally Christianity) A piece of parchment inscribed with Pentateuchal texts and attached in a case to the doorpost of a house, in accordance with Jewish law, that says that “the Jews must remember the Tenth Plague and the blood on the doorposts.”
   • 1973, Thomas Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow:

     Slothrop gives him the mandala. He hopes it will work like the mantra that Enzian told him once, mba-kayere (I am passed over), mba-kayere…a spell against Marvy tonight, against Tchitcherine. A mezuzah. Safe passage through a bad night

   • 1988 September 2, Florence Hamlish Levinsohn, “A Special Connection With God”, in Chicago Reader‎:

     Lubavitchers, Penansky says, believe mezuzahs need no adornment and simply wrap them in cellophane.

   • 2006, Howard Jacobson, Kalooki Nights, Vintage 2007 ed., page 20:

     When Manny or either of his parents went through their front door they put a finger on their lips and then to the mezuzah on the door frame.

mezuzah on Wikipedia.Wikipedia