My bookcase became too small. It wasn’t that we had so many sefarim, it was more that the bookcase was small. If I wanted more space for my sefarim, I would have to buy a small set of shelves that could be hung high up on a wall, close to the ceiling. In the meantime, until those shelves would hold the sefarim, I carried the dream in my heart. I hoped that very soon I would be able to buy the new shelves and put the sifrei kodesh on them with the respect they deserve. In the meantime, I somehow managed. I placed some of the sefarim in the back of the shelves, behind the outer row of sefarim, some of them I placed lying on top of the other sefarim, and some of them were in cartons.
Soon! I would think when looking at the sefarim that were all cramped together. Very soon they would have their proper places. I did not wish menuchah for them, because these are sefarim that are meant to be learned; their purpose is not to lie useless on shelves, even on hanging shelves high up on a wall.
Elul came, and I fulfilled the custom of checking mezuzos. I found that the mezuzos in my home were kosher but not mehudar. This bothered me. I want to do mitzvos be’hiddur, and this mitzvah of mezuzah also safeguards us from harm, so I wanted to do it in the finest way possible. The solution for this was, of course, to buy new mezuzos, but this solution brought on a new problem. Where would I find the money to buy them?
So now I had two large expenses that needed to be covered – the hanging sefarim shelves and the mehudar mezozos. You can understand, therefore, how happy I was to receive an envelope from my mother, may she be well, in honor of my birthday – a nice amount of money to purchase something significant – one of my two dreams, either hanging shelves or new mezuzos. Which was preferable?
This was a difficult question. I talked it over with my wife, and together we thought about what to do. Should we use the money to buy the important shelves, or should we use it to be mehader in the mitzvah of mezuzah? Ultimately, we decided that with all the importance of buying the shelves, there was some space for the sefarim now, and it was preferable that we first purchase mezuzos with the money and put off buying the new shelves.
I asked my friend in kollel, who is also a sofer sta”m, if I could purchase mehudar mezuzos from him, but before I even paid him, he told me excitedly that near the kollel there was a set of hanging sefarim shelves that looked almost new.
