Tefillin & Mezuzos on Ebay: I’ll Teach You Why You Should Stay Away!

Did you ever notice that whatever you google you will see an ad for it on eBay?  Try tefillin and mezuzos and you will probably see something like this:

Visit eBayfor great deals on tefillin and mezuzoth. huge selection of items. Shop eBay

The Question is: Are they really great deals or is there more than what meets the eye when it comes to tefillin and mezuzos? Having spent quite a bit of time studying the tefillin and mezuzah offerings on eBay, I believe I have found some patterns that you should know about.

When You see a price that is lower than my $39.00 Mezuzah, there are three main possiblities:

1) The mezuzah that they are selling is a S’faradi mezuzah. There is nothing wrong with a S’faradi mezuzah, but if you are Ashkenaz, you should not be buying S’faradi mezuzos. There are slight differences in how the letters are made in S’faradi mezuzos. They are also easier to write, hence the less expensive price.

2) The mezuzah that you see in the picture is nota sample of a mezuzah that they are actually selling to you. This is easy to tell when you see the same seller selling two or three sizes of mezuzah, and they use the same sample picture for all the three sizes. Believe me, it wasn’t one sofer who wrote three sizes. Of what use is a picture if it’s not what you are actually getting?

3) The seller is not a sofer. He knows little about safrus and is isn’t qualified to sell tefillin and mezuzos. Take for example this sellers explaination for why he sells mezuzos:

“This mezuzah scroll has a lovely story behind it…
I came across a Sofer Stam teacher who heads a whole school of Sofrei Stam in Bnei Brak, The Teacher recounted that in his school for sofrei stam many students complete their studies and become sofrei stam but find it hard to sell their scribe, I in turn told him of my eBay store, and now we are working together…

Therefore in my store you can find all mezuzah sizes and in all scribe styles: Holy Ari, Ashkenazi and S’faradi…”

He is basically telling you, “I’m not a sofer, but I do know how ebay works, so I decided to add few more items even though I know nothing about safrus.

If you would take a look at his other items you will see what I mean: Cell Phones, Watches, Paintings, etc.

If I haven’t convinced you yet, think about this: Which soferim does he take his mezuzos from? You got it, soferim who can’t find anybody else to take their mezuzos. He said it himself. When I offer you a mezuzah it is because I know, and trust the sofer who wrote it. I choose to offer you that mezuzah because thats the mezuzah I like, and thats the sofer I like, not because some sofer couldn’t find a buyer.

Here is a picture of a mezuzah for sale on Amazon.com. The seller offers this mezuzah for $34.50. Its actual worth is zero because it is not kosher. Unfortunatly I was not able to make this photograph big enough to show you that it is not even a good attempt at selling a kosher mezuzah. While this posel mezuzah is the only mezuzah they sell, they have pages and pages of mezuzah cases, and they even have a cross for sale! How could a person buy a mezuzah from somebody who sells mezuzahs and crosses? It is absolutly absurd!

 

4) If the price is lower than $39.00 they make up for it with the shipping. My shipping for orders over $100 is free, and less than $100 is $5.00

5) It will take a long time to get your order. Most mezuzah orders for my $39.00 can go out same day.

Refund Policy

If for any reason you are not satisfied with something you bought from Rabbi Michaels, you will receive a full 100% refund (excluding shipping , custom orders, and orders that are returned in damaged condition). Even rolled up mezuzos and completed tefillin sets will be accepted for refunds.

Last sofer who checked these tefillin ruined the battim and the parshios!

I recently opened a set of tefillin to check the parshios. When I took out the first parsha of the shel rosh, I found several holes in the klaf. My first thought was, “Did I damage them while taking them out of the battim?” While it is possible to damage parshios while taking them out of the battim, it seemed to me remote that I would’nt have noticed that I was damaging them. I studied the holes for a long time. I questioned myself, “Five Holes, how could you make five holes?” I took some scraps of klaf and made some test holes so I could see how much force it would take to make five holes. My conclusion was that it would take much more force than I could possibly exerted without being aware of doing it. Could they have been like that all along? But then why didn’t the last sofer who worked on them notice such an obvious problem? I turned the problem over in my head again and again. The next morning my battim machir (battim repair specialist) called me on the phone. “Melech, the battim are posel! They have a hole in the compartment for the fist parsha.” I was trying to comprehend. After going over this new aspect to the story I was starting to get it. Apparently what happened was that the sofer who last checked these tefillin was drilling out the holes that are used to sew the battim together. This is done to clean out any leftover bits of giddim (thread made from the sinews of a cow’s ankle) and paint so that the needle will easily pass through the holes. Unfortunately the drill went off course, pierced the bayis, and went through the parsha five times! When my battim macher was cleaning out the holes, his drill bit followed the course of least resistance: through the path of the original hole that the last sofer made.

Both the parshios and the battim are now possel. For the past four years the customer has been wearing posel tefillin and has not properly fulfilled the mitzvah. He informed me that since he is S’faradi, he only makes one bracha on tefillin so he was not making a bracha l’vatala (a blessing in vain).

Several things that can be learned from this incident but perhaps the most important lesson is that even with the best intentions mistakes will happen. If a sofer tells you he has never messed up, find yourself a new sofer who is more honest with himself and with you. The thing is, when something happens, we have to be responsible enough to not just assume everything is OK. We have to find out how far the problem goes. In this case the sofer had to know he made a hole, because the hole was filled in and painted over. It didn’t get filled in and painted over by itself. I guess he just told himself, “It probably didn’t go through the parshios, and it probably doesn’t possel the battim”. I think you would agree, ‘probably’ doesn’t cut it when it comes to your tefillin, does it?