I am unbelievably shocked at the cross-examination that is going on here. Do users here have nothing better to do than to hunt around looking for ways to discredit those who have different views? Have we learned nothing from the “multiple personalities” situation? Everyone was utterly convinced that GMAB was logging in under seven different usernames, and then it turned out that there was a logical explanation.
Let’s just say, hypothetically, that zevi8 did post on Shabbos. So what? Is that any of our business or concern? No, of course not; it is between him and God. But I don’t think that zevi8 posted on Shabbos. If he says he is in Hong Kong, then I believe that he is in Hong Kong. He should not have to justify himself to anyone here. I myself am from Baltimore, but am spending the year in Eretz Yisrael. If somebody on this forum asked me, “Do you live in Baltimore?” I would probably answer in the affirmative simply out of habit. Yes, I am actually living in Israel for the year rather than just touring for a few weeks, but I also view Baltimore as my home. As much as I would like to live in the Holy Land permanently, for now it is only temporary, so I would still use the word “live” to describe my relationship to Baltimore.
Whether or not zevi8 was mechallel shabbos, it is a huge chilul hashem to post something of that nature on this forum. Zevi8’s credibility is now being called into question, and anybody who views this topic may believe that zevi8 was in fact mechallel shabbos. It doesn’t matter that these are screen names, it doesn’t matter that we are online- this is a form of loshon hara, and furthermore, it is a tremendous embarrassment to zevi8. One who embarrassed a person is as if he killed him.
Last summer, I attended a weekend reunion of a program I had gone on the previous year. On Friday night, after dinner, we had a late-night improv game session. One of the games involved us speaking for a short period of time about a subject thrown out by one of the other players. One person threw out the subject of cheese, which made for a humorous monologue. On Shabbos afternoon, we had a program called Sichot- conversations. We were paired up and given a list of questions to ask each other, the idea being that we would make new connections and get to know each other better. The third question on the list was “How do you eat your cheese?” One woman there said to me, “This means he must have typed up the list over Shabbos, because the cheese monologue happened when it was already Shabbos, so how would he have known to put that question there?” I didn’t believe that the man in question would have been mechallel shabbos and tried to think of an answer, to be dan l’kaf zechut. Since he was both the person who typed the list of questions and the person who threw out the subject of cheese, I decided that he must have added the cheese question to the list to be funny, as a way of breaking the ice, and thus already had cheese on his mind when Shabbos came in. This meant that on Friday night he threw out the idea because it was fresh in his mind. I don’t know if this is what really happened; I never asked him, because I don’t think it’s any of my business. But it’s much better to try to think of things like that than to just assume that the person is in the wrong.