Today I did a Mezuzah HouseCall and found seven upside down mezuzos! An upside down mezuzah doesn’t fulfill the mitzvah. I often see a single upside down mezuzah, but seven? How could this happen? The homeowner told me that he bought all of them in Eretz Yisroel from the same person. In addition to being only barely acceptable as far as kashrus goes, the person who sold them didn’t even know how to put them into the case! I hope the conclusion that you draw from this will be, “Just because it comes from Israel doesn’t mean it is kosher”. So many people have this idea in their head that if it comes from Israel it must be good. Not true. I will say that a large percentage of the tefillin and mezuzos that I sell do come Israel, but they are coming from people that I know and trust. I’ll tell you another thing this person told me. His son who is presently in Israel lost his tefillin. He instructed his son to go buy a new set. His son went to Meah Sh’arim and bought a new set. The total price was $300.00. I told him he should definitely get them checked as soon as possible. Since he had just purchased a new set for another son and spent three times as much, he very much agreed with me that they need to be checked.
Let me know what you think: Do they need to be checked right away or not?
By the way, here is a good tip for making sure your mezuzos are right side up: When you are ready to put up your mezuzos, place all the cases on the table in front of you with the tops away from you. Next, place all the mezuzos on the table with the tops away from you. Now double check that all the tops of all the cases and all the mezuzos are away from you. If you place all the mezuzos into the cases when every thing is set up like this, it is almost impossible for you to make a mistake.