THE HOUSE ENTERENCE - FROM WHERE?

THE HOUSE ENTERENCE – WHERE FROM?

A strange question? certainly not!

According to conventional architecture, there is no special definition for the location of the front door, but it varies according to convenience considerations, such as proximity to a main road and the likes.

According to the holistic view of the 'Light in the Home' program, the entrance to the house is not another minor detail in the general construction, but an essential matter in the design of the house:

The question of where to place the front door of the house is, in fact, also corresponds with the question of where to place the front of the house, spiritually, so that there will be a fit between the location of the facade and the division of the interior rooms of the house.

After we have defined that the living room and kitchen are located in the south and the bedrooms are located in the north (see "Basic interior division"), surely the front door will not be located on the north side, because then the intimacy of the ‘private section’ of the house will fade and disappear.

The best location for the front door is on the east side, as follows:

The model of a house according to the 'Light in the Home’ program parallels our 'Global House' - the world that God created in the six days of creation.

If so, where did God place the entrance?

On the east side, as the verse says "from the east of the sun to its entrance": the sun enters the world through the east side, and exits through the "exit" on the west side.

Also, the Torah calls the east side “Kedem” (ancient), meaning the east side is the face and front of the world, and therefore it is appropriate that the front of a person's private home be located on the east side.

Another reason for the location of the front door on the east side, is based on the basic division between the two parts of the house:

The bright and open part called the ‘Dira’ (apartment) where the living room and kitchen are located, separated from the darker and more intimate section of the bedrooms, called the ‘Bait’ (home).

The ambition is for the door to be in a balanced place, between the open part and the intimate part.

The east side serves as a good average between the two different parts of the house, and this can be learned from the wisdom of Kabbalah:

According to the Kabbalah the south side is parallel to the Sefira of Chessed (grace), while the north side is parallel to the Sefira of Gevurah (heroism) and the east side reflects the Sefira Tiferet (glory), which is called the ‘middle-line’, because it balances the two opposing forces of Chessed and Gevurah.

The location of the door should be in a place that is not too closed off but also not too open, as the door itself sometimes opens and sometimes closes, and this position is on the east side of the middle.

Indeed, in the Torah, one can find a wonderful example of choosing to enter from the east. When the children of Israel came up out of Egypt, they entered the land through Jericho which is in the east. This is despite the fact that Egypt is located south of the Land of Israel. That is, instead of entering the land directly through the south, the children of Israel surrounded the land of Israel until they reached the east side, which is the ultimate entrance side.

Entrance to the house from the south, west and north

However, what do you do when there are constraints, and it is impossible to place the front door on the east side?

Like for example, when the road comes from another direction?

The following preferred options are according to sunrise:

If it is not possible to place the door in the east, the next best is to place it in the south. If it is not possible to enter from the south locate the door to the west.

We will also refer to the situation of entering the house from the north, although this is the side that is least desirable to enter the house from.

The first preferred option after the east is the location of the front door on the south side, as follows:

This option is preferable to the others, because the southern part of the house is the open public part, so it is better that the entrance to the house be from the public area of the house, within the part called ‘Dira’ (apartment), and not from the west or north, which are the more hidden areas. This option even has one advantage over the entrance from the east, since the front door comes directly to the living room without having to go through a hallway from the door to the living room.

Once the door is already located on the south side, an entrance foyer can be built.

The entrance to the foyer will be through the east side, and thus even in this situation one gains entry to the house through the east side, as can be seen in the following drawing:

The third option is to enter the house through the west side:

In this option, too, you enter the living room directly. Admittedly, the privacy of the western courtyard, which is supposed to be more of a backyard and enclosed courtyard, is violated (See “House location within the plot”).

But this option is of course preferable to the locating the door on the north side, while infringing on the privacy of the interior of the house, and certainly better than switching the internal location of the bedrooms and living room-kitchen.

And what if the access road is north of the house?

The worst option is to place the front door on the north side, because this upsets the balance that needs to prevail in the house between the private rooms the living rooms, as explained in the article "Basic Interior Division".

In order to maintain the correct energetic location of the rooms of the house - the bedrooms are placed in the north and a living room and kitchen in the south - so an external passage must be created that will bypass the entrance from the north and reach the entrance to the house via the east (see illustration). After the bypass path is built, tangled vegetation must be planted between the path and the nursery windows, in order to maintain the privacy of the rooms.