“He was quoting himself.”
I don’t see what difference that makes.
DY: “but the bottom line is that he is NOT saying it’s okay to violate Hashem’s commands for your own needs. He’s just not realizing that that’s what it sounds like.”
I’m not completely convinced. Again, he wasn’t just talking about the molesting case. He gave other examples. And this topic has also come up in the past, and he implied the same thing.
Maybe he really thinks that according to halacha, it is always mutar to speak badly online about people who were oiver on bein adam l’chaveiro because there could be some benefit to it. Which is not the same as saying that one doesn’t have to follow halacha, but it is also pretty bad. There are many, many, conditions necessary before you run to ruin peoples’ reputations. And he very clearly stated that you don’t have to ask a sheilah.
Maybe he was only talking about cases in which it’s obvious that it’s the right thing to do. But then he should say so. And it’s still a bit shvach because you always have to find out exactly what you are allowed to say. And you certainly should ask before you say something online.
I also still feel that an apology to Yekke2 might be necessary.
You are probably right that he didn’t completely realize what he was saying. I think that happens a lot in the CR. But I still feel a retraction is necessary.
I’m not sure to what extent one can say that someone is not responsible for their words if they don’t understand what their words mean. I have been wondering a lot about that since I’m in the CR. There is definitely some room to be “dan l’kaf zchus” that people don’t understand what they are saying and perhaps can’t always be held responsible, but it still seems to me that they have a responsibility to retract once it has been explained.
Bottom line – I don’t know what can and can’t be expected of anyone else. But I definitely think my responsibility is to respond to certain types of comments regardless.
I do think that it’s great that you are so “dan l’kaf zchus”. Maybe I need to work on that. And it does seem like ZD is a very nice person, so it is probably true that he doesn’t really mean what he is saying.
ZD – I apologize if I came acros too harshly. You probably really didn’t realize what your words meant, and I apologize for not being dan l’kaf zchus enough. At the same time, I did feel a need to stand up for both the Torah and Yekke2 when I felt they were being attacked. But I apologize if it was too strong.