Why you need a Tav Teken

I recently bought an electrical splitter from a local hardware store. I specifically wanted a cordless one, and one with the maximum possible number of outlets. Usually you only get up to three points on a cordless splitter, so I was very happy to find one with four points.

But hold on a second. My electrical engineering instincts told me that something was amiss. Didn't I once encounter one of these splitters before, many years ago, in the context of a minor electrical explosion? Well, let's open this baby up and see what sordid sins are hiding behind that clean facade...

Have you spotted the problem? Let me enlarge and annotate this second picture for you...

Well, the earth (green) looks OK. Now take a look at the live circuit (brown). As you face the socket, live should be on the right. And on the right had side of the splitter, the right hand socket is brown. But look at the left hand side: the positions of the live and neutral points have been reversed!

I took it back to the store and got a refund. I showed this faulty wiring to the shop attendant, who assured me that it's perfectly OK to switch around the live and neutral points; it makes no difference which side they're on - and he promptly put this michshol straight back on the shelf.

I presented him with my credentials as an electrical engineer (sort of true - I got the degree then went to work in programming), and attempted to explain that while it may be OK to switch the live and neutral for your unearthed radio/tape player, the minute you plug in an appliance that needs to be earthed, you are going to create a moderately large explosion. The earth and the neutral need to be at the same voltage (or close), while the live oscillates between about +330V and -330V, creating a Root Mean Square voltage of about 220V. (Wow! I remembered that from university, 15 years ago!) If you start sending oscillating voltages up your neutral wire where there's an earth connected, you are going to create a big, fat 220V short-circuit into your earth. That makes a nice big spark, possibly destroying the appliance you were unfortunate enough to plug into this socket.

Yeah, yeah. Whatever. And the splitter stayed on the shelf for the next unwitting victim.

If I'd had more time, I would have been more forceful. Perhaps I should have been, anyway - this may be a case of hashovas aveida, to prevent damage to anyone else who might buy one of these nasty little jobbies.

Anyway, the moral of the story is: make sure that when you buy electrical stuff, it should have the tav teken. Otherwise there is no guarantee that what you bought is anything better than seriously dangerous.

The worst form of evil - and how to fight it

As an optimist, I always like to preface negativity with some positivity. So let me start by saying there are a lot of really good people out there. People who love their fellow Jews. People whose observance and learnedness of Torah has brought them to the highest levels of perfection attainable by a human being.

And then there are some pretty nasty people out there. There are the Amalekite types - non-Jews who just hate Jews lishma. Then there are the Achav/Menashe types, also known as mumar l'hach'is (MLH) - real self-hating Jews whose share Amalek's goal of eradicating Judaism, if not the Jews themselves. And we have the more benign (and very common) mumar l'teiavon (MLT) - Jews who don't keep the Torah because it's inconvenient, they are unmotivated, they cannot control their desires, etc. Have I covered everyone?

Apparently not. There's another kind of baddie out there. This one is a talmid chacham. He is G-d fearing, pious, learned and scrupulously meticulous in his performance of mitzvos. He is passionate and fiercely committed to Yiddishkeit. And he is responsible for more death and destruction ר"ל to the Jewish People than any of the previous categories of sinners. Let's hear more about him from the Netziv, Rabbi Naftali Tzvi Yehuda Berlin, in this extract from his introduction to Sefer Bereishis from Ha'Amek Davar (translation mine):

[The Jews at the time of the destruction of the Second Temple] were righteous, pious and labored in Torah. But they were not straight (ישרים) in their conduct. Therefore, because of the causeless hatred (sin'as chinam) for each other in their hearts, they suspected anyone who acted differently from their view of fearing G-d of being a Sadducee and an Apikoros. This led to extremes of bloodshed and the most terrible evils in the world until the Temple was destroyed... Hashem is straight and does not suffer "tzaddikim" such as these... even though their intentions may be for the sake of Heaven, [these "tzaddikim"] cause the destruction of Creation and demolition of settlement in the Land [of Israel].

Yup, this "tzaddik" is responsible for nothing less than the destruction of the Temple, and every pogrom, expulsion, massacre and holocaust that has followed. And worse than the MLT, worse than the MLH, he can never do teshuva; he can never repent. He cannot, because it is physically impossible; he has nothing to repent for - because in his own mind, he is right, and everybody else is wrong.

Do you know anybody like that? I do. I met him online yesterday morning - or at least, I met his blog, after he spammed me (and many others in the Jewish cyberworld, as a subsequent Google search told me). Go ahead and take a look - but be warned: have an antacid and/or a stiff drink at hand, because this site is liable to do something serious to your metabolism. Here it is.

Notice how this guy meets all the criteria of the Netziv. Firstly, with brazen chutzpah, he titles his blog "Authentic Judaism" - in one fell swoop relegating anyone who doesn't agree with every word he says to the status of "non-authentic" and therefore an apikoros. (That's not speculation, by the way - he says so explicitly.) And he doesn't just disagree on issues - he loudly and proudly proclaims his own visceral hatred towards anyone who disagrees with him. He ridicules and insults gedolei Torah in the most despicable terms. All this he does this under the veneer of "hating Hashem's enemies", which everyone agrees is a mitzva. But he makes the logical non sequitur of jumping from "I am for Hashem" (true) to "Anyone who disagrees with me is against Hashem" (false). The site is so crammed with half-truths and non sequiturs, that it doesn't even merit specific critique. It is self-evidently sheker of the darkest, most vindictive variety. This is the yetzer hara with a yarmulke. This is truly the Face of Evil.

So what's a healthy approach to people like this? My first reaction after visiting his site was a powerful urge to vomit. Having calmed down a bit, I find myself filled with a kind of morbid fascination at the psychosis that has possessed this yid - and an icy fear at having felt the heart of darkness, and realizing that there is a very large proportion of "frum" society that shares it.

How do we deal with it? What hope is there for Am Yisrael if this malignant tumor of sin'as chinam has become so deeply rooted in our people that hatred has now become a shita, and aveiros of the worst order are considered mitzvos? We see it frequently, and I don't think I need to enumerate all the ways in which this vile philosophy is manifesting - hameivin yavin.

My Rav quoted to me, "A little light dispels a lot of darkness." Well, we have a lot of darkness out there that needs dispelling. I'd like to say that especially coming up to Rosh Hashana, we should take very great care to love and respect our fellow Jews, especially the ones with whom we have disagreements - but I don't think that's enough. The sin'as chinam machine is working powerfully and grinding away at our society, and I am afraid it's a weak and feckless response just to turn the other cheek and talk about brotherly love. As Edmund Burke said: “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”

I think our society needs a bigger tikkun. How about this: get a bunch of banners printed for people to hang off their balconies: "V'ahavta l're'acha kamocha"; "All Jews welcome in our neighborhood!" etc. Offer a nice sign to be put up at the new mall in Ramat Beit Shemesh (or wherever) to the effect that everyone is welcome, and there will be a zero-tolerance policy towards intimidation and physical or verbal violence; perpetrators will be ejected, by the police if necessary.

What ideas do you have? How do you think we should relate to crackpots like "Rabbi Authentic"? How can we counteract their poison and make a real tikkun olam?