Excellent video, thank you for bringing this issue to light. You've done what no one else wanted to do. I am curious though if the price has anything to do with the kosher status of the mezuzah. I assume you purchased the cheapest mezuzos from each vendor. (Even if they were the cheapest, it's still not excusable to be selling possul mezuzos though!) I would like to see a video on cheap pairs of tefillin, if possible. People need to know to spend money where it matters. For some reason, no one has a problem spending $1,000 on an iPhone or some other gadget that connects you with other people - why should you spend less money on something that connects you with HKB''H? Thank you again Rabbi Wolf.
These have been looked over by a number of sofrim already who have said they are kosher. He decided unfit based on one rabbinic opinion, there are other rabbinic authorities who disagree and based on their rulings these are kosher. For the crowed these mezuzah are geared to, one tends to rely on the more lenient authorities. It's an atrociousity that he gets away with lying and convincing everyone he's right. You thank him for his stupidity. I think it's sad.
I personally worked in one of these stores, I'm not saying which one. And my job was to roll many brand new Mezuzos a day into cases, and 100% came from Israel. Additionally, 100% were machine checked. Also, as a sofer muyself, they looked good at first glance. Again, my job wasn't to check them, but through an eye-scan they looked good. I am sorry, but I highly doubt the findings of this video is accurate and authentic. I advise people learn the basics in the halachos of ksav, and check your own mezuzah before buying them. Also, I would like to kniw how you came to find so many Mezuzos today that are worth less than $50. Even the simple ones.
ר' ישראל דוד ישר כח רב! כמה חבל שרק עכשיו הצלחת לעורר את העניין כה חשוב. .אני מעיד שהמצב הכללי בתחום הוא כזה. יותר נכון, הייתי אומר, שמחוץ לחב"ד המצב אף יותר חמור. לא הייתי אומר את זה מחשש לוערר כאן סערות של וויכוחים "פוליטיים", אלה שאני רואה בזה צורך לדייק, שלא יישאר רושם שהבעיה היא פנימית של קראונהייטס. הידע שלי בנושא נובע מנסיון רב של בדיקות מזוזות בארץ במסגרת מבצע בדיקת מזוזוה. אעשה מאמץ להפיץ את הווידאו, כי חשוב מאד ונחוץ ביותר להעלות מודעות בנושא בקרב העם.
So the dilemma(for many, at least) is one that I share. I understand that it is imperative that we have kosher mezuzot in our homes. In my particular case, I need a total of 14. It took me over a year to save the money to cover the exterior doors only. Now I still need 8. I didn't choose to live where I do, my parents passed and I took over their place. It's a big house. At the cost of genuinely kosher (sofer-prepared) klaf shelil scrolls, I'll need another two years just to be able to obtain them. That won't include the cases... And I'm sure that I am not alone. I gifted two to other people that I knew were even worse off than myself so they would at least have one on their front entrance. Is there any resource to reach out to for help with this?
Today I had my new husband to get a haircut. It looks really good. He's not Jewish. I'm thinking I might make a kosher mezuza. I can't really afford to buy one right now.
Interestingly, it goes (more or less) by price: $30-32 10/10 Posul, $42 10/10 kosher We - in Chabad house - dont use anything less then $80 - $100. and when we explain to people how a Mezuzah is made, they are surprised that its so cheap.
As for Tefillin I am very familiar with this. I know a family that orderd sets of tefilin for each male member of the family, and the straps were shedding bits, and smelled like house paint. Then I accidentally squeezed one of the boxes a bit harder than it could take, and the entire box plintered, turning out to be very cheap plastic. And the scrolls fell out, turning out to be computer printed paper
He mentioned names not to slander the companies, but to genuinely warn people about the sale of fraudulent "kosher" mezuzos! It isn't lashon hara in this case at all
i dont think its fraud the people know when you purchase a mezuzah that is mivtziom there are many frum yirei shomeim rabbanim who have practiced safrus many more years than this young rabbi, who say that these mezuzah's are 100 kosher lchatchila. however, there are other people who decide that the mezuzah are not 100 kosher lchatchila. why did you not call them and ask them for their opinion, just publishing a video and calling them a fraud is crazy. i think you owe a big apology to all the above establishments.
1.קודם כל לא מדובר על הסופרים, אלה על הסוחרים 2.לא מדובר על סופרים חסידים(רוב מזזות,אם לא כולם, כתב ספרדי) ואני לא גיזן 3.מדובר על הסוחרים שבלי הגהה מוכרים מזזות 4.אתם בעצמכם יצרתם מצב הנוכחי, תתחילו לקנות מסופרים ישירות. P. S. מעניין מי שקונה מזזות מסוג כזה מוכן לתלות אותם אצלו בבית?
זלמן, לא כל אחד יש לו גישה, אפשרות וידע לקנות ישירות מסופר. כמו כן את המזוזות הפסולות הרי כתבו סופרים, ומה קני מידה לאדם שלא מבין בתחום לדעת את יראת שמים ורמה מקצועית של סופר? לכן רוב העם בתמימותם סומכים בעיניים עצומות על הסוחרים שהם יודעים "להבחין" בין טוב לרע . והכן הם יודעים להבחין, רק שרדיפת בצע לעתים גוברת, ודעתם נוטה "להכשיר" דברים כאלה. בלשון חסידות זה נקרא "רצון מטה את השכל" .
@@lzalmanl אמת הדבר. אינני מתווכח עם זה. רב האחראיות הכן מוטלת על הסוחרים המנצלים את בורות העם בתחום ואמונתם התמימה ב"יראת שמים" שלהם. אלא שעובדה זאת לא מסירה את האחראיות מהסופרים הכושלים שלא מסוגלים אפילו להכל את גודל האחראיות! חז"ל אמרו שחזקה לחבר שלא יוצא דבר שלא מתוקן מתחת ידו. בוודאי בשר ודם יכול לטעות מדי פעם. אך סופר שכותב באופן קבוע עם דיבוקים (לדוגמה) - אי אפשר לתלות דבר כזה רק על "הסח הדעת" שלו. בעיניי ברור כאור היום שסופר כזה מודע היטב לבעיה ומוציה במודעות גמורה דבר תקלה. על מה הוא מסתמך? שמגיה יגלה את הטעויות ויתקנן? אבל גם המגיה הוא בשר ודם! לאור האמור אני רוצה לאמר שכל היפי נפש למינם הלוחמים כאן על כבודם של "הסופרים החסידים" פשוט מנסים להכשיר שרץ! זה לא יהדות" זה לא רצון ה' ובוודאי אין בזה שום דבר משותף עם חסידות!
Instead of making general comments - I'd love to see responsible Poskim/Sofrim evaluate each "posul" Mezuza and explain how/why they deem it Kosher enough for THEM to buy (if they can). A larger Powerpoint view of the Mezuzas is available at TinyUrl.com/MezuzaProjectSlides. So they can give each Mezuza their own grade, independent of Wolf's results. Instead of name-calling and innuendo, I think focussed responses will be more helpful to everyone than broad-based criticisms.
Well thats actually what this video did!! Generalizing and name calling. This video took one opinion, and deemed them all Posel. However, other opinions like the Rashba, the Radach and more say that touching letters and even some cracked letters are still perfectly Kosher. This is not a place to have a Halacha discussion, talk to your rabbi, i doubt any Rabbi's agree with this mans claims
@@lengelhart the rabbi's did and see nothing wrong, so he should take down the videos until more experienced and higher rabbi 's rule on the matter. until then this is all slander and disgusting
@@moben1231 how can you say that, Rabbi Raskin from machon stam says we cannot rely on such opinions they are not good enough, and he knows better than the jews knew for the past thousands of years. shame on this video for posting things negged halacha and blaming it on the rebbe
@@mendyweiss9505 how can You say he knows better then everyone else, better then the Rashba? Its not good enough for people who follow the baal Hatanya, but there are still opinions who say its kosher, so maybe not to great, but still Kosher. Maybe not to be relied upon, but definitely not Mezuza Fraud!!!
Anyone in the business knows it is virtually impossible to write kosher mezuzos at such prices (30$) . The sofer would probably be making less then 8 $ an hour. Simply unrealistic.
What about 4j. I dont understand how it's more kosher then the rest. It has many of the same issues. Namely missing crowns on the nun of עיניך and terrible spacing. look and first line of second paragraph שמ ע or later on ושמ תם so how did it pass as 100% kosher? Let's be real, all inexpensive mezuzahs have many problems that can be easily overlooked by even experienced sofrim, and even the sofer who made this video. So now you see how bad the problem really is... as no one selling or checking them is really immune. my problem with this video primarily is that I believe it applies to all cheap Mezuzahs all across the globe, and to single out crown heights as the source of all this is wrong. Let's tackle this head on, all judaica stores, all sofrim, all across America. No more cheap mezuzahs. Like the other commentator said so beautifully, you spend alot of money on a phone to connect to a friend why can't we spend alot of money to connect to hashem?
He mentioned why he chose Crown Heights. Let's face it, a lot (if not most) of kiruv work is being done by Chabad houses across the world; these Lubavitchers get mezuzos for their community from places in CH and they end up being possul, chas v'sholom
I did not hear him say or even imply that Crown Heights is the source of the problem. He did mention that it is a widespread issue. I've dealt with a handful of Sofrim in Boro Park and Lakewood and the cheapest they all had was 60-70 and each strongly suggested to buy the ones in the 90-120 range.
Generally, it's either the writing or the material (klaf) itself. Giveaways are the material - feels like paper or cardboard or film rather than parchment. Color is too 'perfect' - if it's absolutely white (like printer paper) it's fake. Parchment is a natural material and should be a bit off. It should also feel slightly rough - it isn't a milled surface like paper. Lettering should all be exactly the correct heights and should be evenly spaced. Too close together, touching, too far apart, not exactly straight lines... these are all good clues that it should at least be looked at or questioned.
Rabbi Wolf has explained to you that he has removed your comment because it contained foul language; just remove the words and repost your comment we'd love to see what you have to say
Let's be fair. All of the samples have been posted on-line for anyone to see and comment on. If you want to dispute the findings (to say that they are actually Kosher) why don't you review them and comment on an item-by-item basis - they each have a code-name label.
These have been looked over by a number of sofrim already who have said they are kosher. He decided unfit based on one rabbinic opinion, there are other rabbinic authorities who disagree and based on their rulings these are kosher. For the crowed these mezuzah are geared to, one tends to rely on the more lenient authorities. It's an atrociousity that he gets away with lying and convincing everyone he's right.
The total cost for this project was minimum $2887 and that does not include the shipping to the first Chabad House and then to you and the cost for the checking. Who paid for the purchase for these Mezuzos and the checking?
What difference does that make. The fact is the majority of the stores in Crown Heights sold him possul Mezuzois which is a fact, and a problem of DECADES.
its an important issue to address, but an even more important issue to address is the meshichist/elokist scourge in chabad. for some reason everyone seems to be ignoring that, i guess hoping that it will just go away or die out, but i dont think it will. within a few generations they will take over completely and at that point chabad will totally break off of judaism and become its own religion, same as christianity did. it may seem ludicrous to say, but anyone familiar with the histories of both can plainly see that where chabad is now is the same place christianity was shortly after the death of jesus. christianity as a separate religion didnt emerge until a few generations later. until paul came and changed things, they were just another sect of judiasm, only they thought jesus was the messiah. they still kept kosher and shabbos, etc. (jesus didnt change that, paul did.) sound familiar? forget kiruv on unaffiliated jews, chabad needs to do kiruv on itself before it is no longer considered a part of judaism. at that point, kosher mezuzahs wont matter anymore. im sure you think im crazy, but mark my words, it is happening. its not a matter of if, its a matter of when...
Wow, so a chabad guy bringing awareness to have better mezuzahs makes you leave your ridiculous comment. Thanks for the laugh. What a joke. You are as clueless as an ant in the middle of the highway dont pretend to talk of a subject you clearly have 0 knowledge about.
@@yerachmielg7031 lemme guess, youre lubavitch...? ive felt this way for a long time, and as far as i can tell no one is addressing it. i happened across this video and felt that it was as good a time as any to try to get a discussion about it started. the only thing i might be wrong about is whether anyone is addressing it. as far as whats going on, ive seen it myself, and heard stories firsthand from people that have experienced things. there is definitely a huge problem with avodah zara in chabad, and if its not addressed, they absolutely will no longer be considered a part of judaism within a few generations.
@@yerachmielg7031 ok, so youre not chabad. that doesnt really matter much, my main point still stands. that your experience is different than mine does not disprove me, it just means that you happen to know the ones who still have normal beliefs. i know for a fact that there are those who do not. just as one example, i once saw a lubavitcher standing in the back of the shul davvening to a picture of the rebbe with his back to the aron. are you trying to tell me that thats ok...? theres multiple things wrong with that, starting with having the picture of the rebbe inside the shul in the first place. most people, even some/many lubavitchers recognize that there is an element within chabad that has gone off the deep end. the only disagreement is how large that element is. my point is that left unchecked, that element will take over, and within a few generations they will become its own religion that people will finally see is no longer judaism. the sooner they are forced to break away, the less of mainstream chabad that will join with them.
Not at all. Since I am the only one in my house who observes, and because I live in a place where there are no other Jews of any sort (at least within a little over an hour away), I don't have to worry about anyone else touching them.
You don't kiss the mezuzah, you touch your fingers to your lips, then touch the mezuzah. Unless you drool on your fingers, I don't think there's much of a problem--we haven't exactly been dropping like flies due to mezuzah-transmitted microbes over the millennia.
@@israelilife someone who is willing to sell possul mezuzahs is not what i would call a "yarei shomayim". unfortunately there are crooks in all walks of life, even in supposedly holy endeavors.
The Rabbi who made and posted this video did a WONDERFUL THING! Anyone who runs a business selling "Kosher" things that are not Kosher should be called out!
I saw your nasty comment... in fact I reported it, because not only did it contain foul language, it also was a very personal comment that could easily be called harassment/bullying.