Transportation officials affixed what is believed to be the world’s largest kosher mezuzah to an interior entranceway of Israel’s Ben Gurion International Airport, capping a years-long effort by a village rabbi to impart a hefty dose of spirituality in the country’s biggest passenger hub.

Chabad-Lubavitch Rabbi Yitzchak Karichali, a ritual scribe in Kfar Chabad, spent three years handwriting biblical verses on the mezuzah’s oversized parchment interior. He painstakingly labored over the tiniest of details to ensure the script’s conformance with the font used by the First Chabad Rebbe, Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi, in the 18th century.

The completed parchment and case together measure more than a meter in length. A previous record-setting mezuzah – written by Rabbi Reuven Margolinof the National Scribal Center of Ukraine in Dnepropetrovsk – measured in at 40 centimeters in length.

“Ben Gurion Airport is the gateway to Israel so it is a suitable place for a special mezuzah,” airport official Kobi Mor told the Hebrew-language daily newspaper Yediot Ahronot. “Especially before Rosh Hashanah, it is very symbolic and meaningful [for arriving passengers].”