[Avodah] tinok shenishba

[saul newman via Avodah]

in an offline conversation, a list member included a remark that 'the
tinok shenishba excuse is wearing thin' [in regard to hiloni behaviour
in the Holy Land]. i had previously heard such a line of reasoning,
that given the various forms of electronic media, it is impossible to
have an excuse not to know the Truth, and drew conclusions from that fact.

i feel this is a very dangerous reasoning for the following reason. one
can argue that this philosophy led to a collateral damage that probably
annihilated 2 million haredi european jews. [tell me if that number
is off]. -- as the argument easily can be made that the OTD's of europe
were not tinok's, thereby sealing their fate in a massive Divine Decree --
we can't know for certain, but it is certainly logical. to reverbalize
such an argument in our 90% OTD times, risks > 1 million hareilim in
the event of a Middle East nuclear event as a second Divine Decree.

we must realistically say that the yield of the BT machinery is quite
low -- and has the side dis-benefit of educating 1000's of Tinok's:
effectively creating a whole cadre of now culpable non-BT's: those who
were shown The Light, but reject it.

i don't know what's better for those communities concerned that the
behaviour of others to their halachic [or a-halachic] left risk Divine
wrath on the collective society -- try mostly unsuccessfully to improve
others; or to try to improve their half of the equation...