“And This Happens Every Chanukah—That We Defeat All the Enemies”

Presented here is the complete daily lesson as delivered by The Rav, Rabbi Eliezer Berland shlit"a, on Sunday night, the eve of 25 Kislev—first candle of Chanukah—after the Maariv prayer:

Sunday night, the eve of 25 Kislev, Miketz, after Maariv

So it is written: “And the yoke shall be destroyed because of oil” (Isaiah 10:27)—the oil of Chanukah. The oil of Chanukah burns up all the nations, leaving no trace of them. Just as King Chizkiyahu said, “Sit at My right hand” (Psalms 110:1). It is brought in the Zohar 101: Hashem said to Avraham, “Sit quietly—stop running wild. You went to Shuvu Banim, so you’re running wild all day. Why are you throwing sand and it turns into ruins? Why are you throwing straw and it turns into arrows? Who told you to do this? Why do you need to throw sand and it becomes ruins? Why do you need to throw straw and it becomes arrows? Sit quietly—‘Sit at My right hand.’ Be silent. Stop running wild. Stop running wild. Sit calmly and say Tehillim all day. Say Likutey Tefillos. You will see—an angel of Hashem will come and strike them all. Like King Chizkiyahu—learn from Chizkiyahu.

The Gemara says in Sanhedrin 97b: just as they came against Chizkiyahu—two hundred thousand myriads, meaning two billion six hundred million. So too they came with the Four Kings who came to conquer the Five Kings. So too they will come with Gog and Magog—because it is exactly the same number.”

The Megaleh Amukos explains in Parshas Noach: a person has ש"ע ריבוא אורות (sha"ar ribo ohr—“three-hundred-and-seventy myriads of lights”). Every person has “E-l” on the right—the peyos begin with “E-l, compassionate and gracious” (Exodus 34:6), meaning beneath the peyah. The peyah itself is “Hashem, Hashem.” “Hashem, Hashem” is above the Thirteen Attributes of Mercy. After that comes “E-l, compassionate and gracious,” which begins from beneath the ear—the narrow place beneath the ear: the peyah under the ear, the hairs beneath the ear—this is called “E-l,” and it exists both on the right and on the left.

“E-l” in its expanded spelling—Alef, Lamed, Peh—equals 111. Peh is… Alef-Lamed is exactly seventy-four—one hundred eighty-five; twice one hundred eighty-five is ש"ע ריבוא נהורין (sha"ar ribo nehorin), which Chavah had. For Chavah possessed all the ש"ע ריבוא נהורין. But after the Tree of Knowledge, it was diminished.

But all of our avodah—“Who performed miracles”—the Arizal says that when we say “Who performed miracles,” we should intend the ש"ע ריבוא נהורין that return on Chanukah. Every Chanukah, the ש"ע ריבוא נהורין that Chavah had return.

Adam did not. Adam was—“Do not look at the container” (kankan)—kankan—ק' נ' ק' נ'—he only had a third of ש"ע. Chavah had three times what Adam HaRishon had—ש"ע ריבוא נהורין. She shone from one end of the world to the other. Adam could not look at Chavah’s face. Even though his heel dimmed the orb of the sun, her face was already such light—endless light, the light of the Seven Days, as it says: “And the light of the moon shall be like the light of the sun, and the light of the sun shall be sevenfold [like the light of the seven days]” (Isaiah 30:26). We will read this Haftarah in Miketz.

Next year, not a single person will read Miketz—not one. I am warning you: not one person will read Miketz. Next year there is no such thing as reading Miketz. I am against it. I personally oppose your reading Miketz. Manage without it. I don’t know which parshah you will read, but not Miketz—this is the last opportunity you have to read Miketz.

But the Haftarah is the same Haftarah: seven lamps and seven lamps, and seven spouts and seven spouts—seven times seven times seven: 343—49 times 7. This is the gematria of “B’shagam he is flesh” (Genesis 6:3)—of 343 lights.

The Tzaddik shines not only like the light of the sun—he shines three hundred forty-three times the light of the sun! The heel shines like the light of the sun, but the face shines 343 times the light of the sun. This was Chavah’s face before the sin—she was radiant, because she received directly from Arich Anpin.

For a man must pass—ascend from Malchus to Hod, and from Hod to Netzach—from Malchus to Yesod, from Yesod to Hod, from Hod to Netzach; from Netzach he ascends to Tiferes; from Tiferes he ascends to Gevurah; and from Gevurah to Chesed; and from Chesed to Daas; and from Daas to Binah; and from Binah to Chochmah; and then he merits Kesser.

But a woman merits Kesser directly: “When you raise up the lamps” (Numbers 8:2)—the woman is “A woman of valor is the crown of her husband” (Proverbs 12:4). She merely thinks thoughts of teshuvah, and already it is like Yom Kippur, Kol Nidrei—immediately she shines with all the ש"ע ריבוא נהורין. She only needs to go out in the morning to go to the dances—they take her by force to the dances.

I personally protested against the dances, because my mother did not dance on Yom Kippur, and neither did my grandmother, and neither did my mother’s grandmother. Where did this custom come from—to dance on Yom Kippur? I don’t know such a thing! The Marian family invented it. They dance on Yom Kippur—girls—we never heard of such a thing!

And the police go and take all the girls out of the houses, pull them out of their beds—they have to go and dance. No one understands why. I made signs—everyone in Shuvu Banim went out to demonstrate: we are against dancing on Yom Kippur. Then someone came and showed me that it is a Mishnah—I didn’t know.

It is a simple Mishnah at the end of Ta’anis (4:8): that on Yom Kippur all the daughters of Israel go out with dancing and circle-dances.

And after that there is another tragedy, another catastrophe: suddenly everyone arrived—every girl arrived—two million girls arrived—and suddenly a loudspeaker announces to change the dresses. Truly shocking—a catastrophe! Girls traveled to London, traveled to Manchester, traveled to Switzerland, traveled to Sin. There are women who prepared dresses worth millions of dollars, with “ruby, topaz, emerald… leshem, shevo, and achlamah… nofech, sappir, and yahalom”—all the diamonds in the world. Suddenly they tell them to change—they didn’t grasp what was happening.

Suddenly an announcement comes out from the tents: each one should enter a tent and give her dress to the one from Shuvu Banim who walks around in rags, who walks around with a dress she found in a puddle of water—by a frog she found a dress. And everyone is crying, everyone simply… the ocean rose by a hundred meters, and there was flooding in Miami and there was flooding in New York; people fled their homes… and it was a catastrophe. I don’t know why they said this, but they said: not one girl may come with her own dress. Each one must go with her friend’s dress—take from the neighbor.

And everyone has to change dresses with crying and screaming, with “gevalt”—everyone is shouting “gevalt,” everyone is shouting “gevalt.” Why? Because each one made…

But why dancing? This still remains a question—why do they dance. On Yom Kippur we don’t dance—forgive me, I don’t know what this custom is based on. What is this custom to dance on Yom Kippur—did you make this custom? No, no—you didn’t. You’re fine. So where did the custom come from to dance on Yom Kippur?

Rather, the Yerushalmi says—also in the sixth chapter of Yoma, and it says it in the sixth chapter of Shabbos—that every woman would place her red scarf on the window before Kol Nidrei, or even her red dress, and put it on the window. And then… at the moment they say Kol Nidrei, everything turns white. Every moment another child comes from the women’s section: “Mom, by us everything already turned white.” Everything turns white.

Because for a woman, all sins are atoned for in a thousandth of a second. She only says Kol Nidrei; she only sheds one tear—and everything is already atoned for; everything already turns into merits. The more sins a person did—the Gemara says—the more merits there are. How? It is impossible to understand what ba’alei teshuvah are. How can one leave all the impurities, all the filth, everything the Sitra Achra offers them—how can one leave it at all… no one… I would not have been capable of leaving.

I don’t know—like they tell about Ronen Dvash: his kippah fell off his head, and he goes back—back to prison. Completely insane—I would hospitalize him in Eitanim. Now I asked him on Thursday: tell me, are you crazy? Why are you going back because of a kippah? He said: I’m going back to prison—I don’t have a kippah. His kippah fell on the way—he goes back to prison. Simply crazy, simply deranged.

But… I’m sorry to say this publicly, but what can I do—I would not do this, no way. If I had escaped from prison in India, and I climbed the wall and saw I had no kippah, I would jump straight into the street—finished—we’re already out. He says no—without a kippah I don’t move.

They told him in prison: cut off the peyos. The prisoners told him: cut off the peyos. He refused to cut off the peyos. And then when he escaped, all the streets had his pictures—but the pictures were without peyos, from when he entered prison. Meanwhile he grew peyos and they could no longer recognize him. Policemen walk—five policemen linked arm-in-arm, blocking the road, looking at each person. And he even asks them for a cigarette—maybe it’s possible to receive a cigarette respectfully. They see someone with peyos—who knows what sheikh arrived from Tibet, from Nepal—who knows who this is; what is this hair, what are these braids—he has braids from the ears.

So all this is to say that for women, in one second everything is atoned for—one tear and everything is atoned for—and then all that remains for them is to dance. Each one puts on a red scarf, puts on a red thread, puts on a red sweater—and by morning everything becomes white; everything whitens, until dawn everything whitens. They only need to go out dancing now.

And so it was in the First Temple—throughout the First Temple; and so it was in the Second Temple. And so it will be in the Third Temple: the women will go out dancing. The men will sit in the synagogue, at the Kosel, and cry and prostrate themselves on the ground; and the women will go out dancing in all the streets, in the vineyards outside the city, so that they will not be seen.

So when Chanukah arrives—it is the final seal. Now we are sealed within a seal, for the final sealing is on Chanukah. Hashem waits until Chanukah—He waits for each person until Chanukah—to see how he lights the candle, with all the niggunim.

The niggunim alone are half an hour, because for half an hour it is forbidden to do anything—one may not cook, one may not do anything for half an hour. So the niggunim are exactly half an hour: they say “LaMenatze’ach” with melodies seven times, “Ana B’Koach,” and everyone sings slowly, slowly, “Rannenu tzaddikim baHashem.” In all communities they practice this; some even add more chapters, more niggunim. It comes out exactly half an hour, during which it is forbidden to do anything while the candles are burning.

Now they light the candles twice, because it is permitted to light candles even a hundred times. Even in Butchash they would light the candles a hundred times—the same shamash would go from room to room; for each candle he would light a Chanukiah with blessings. A person can light as many times as he wants—for more homes, for more women, for more people.

But if the woman lit, then the man can no longer light. If the man is now specifically in Uman, he must light before the woman—he at four, she at four forty-five.

So now we return to the matter of Chanukah—to the oil of Chanukah: “And the yoke shall be destroyed because of oil.” Hashem says to Avraham: stop running wild; stop throwing ruins; stop throwing arrows—enough of these foolish things. Sit and say Tehillim. Say Likutey Tefillos. You will see—an angel of Hashem will come, like King Chizkiyahu: an angel of Hashem came, and within a second the soul flew out of two billion six hundred million.

And this happens every Chanukah: we defeat all the enemies, we defeat all the haters, all the Arabushim.

Now we traveled to Shechem on Motzaei Shabbos that passed—they threw a thousand grenades at us. But everything turned back on them; the poor things all evaporated, became air.

As it is written in the Gemara on Sotah 36: when they went to the Land of Israel—how did they reach Shechem? How is it possible to pass through a thousand villages—through ten thousand villages—without slaughtering them all? Would the Arabs be silent? Would the Arabushim be silent? How is it possible to pass?

So what does the Gemara say in Sotah 36a? That they all flew in the air—the entire camp! Billions of people. Each man had four wives; each woman had forty children—that is one hundred sixty children per man. Multiply six hundred thousand by one hundred sixty and you reach almost a billion. A billion people flying in the air!

And simply, from the Gilgal they take out twelve stones from the Jordan, and they must carry them. Each stone is forty se’ah—forty tons. Each stone forty tons; each person lifted forty tons alone. And they walk with them—twelve in the Jordan, twelve on Mount Eival. We saw this on Motzaei Shabbos that passed—Mount Eival opposite [Mount Gerizim]. It has remained desolate until today—three thousand three hundred years since the Exodus from Egypt, it is still desolate.

And there they established the altar, and there they wrote—they managed to write everything in one day; the sun stood still for sixty hours. They plastered all the stones with lime and wrote in seventy languages. And Yehoshua wrote in seventy languages—he had the “oath of the quill,” he could write the entire Torah. All five books of the Torah were written in seventy languages.

Nations came and peeled it off, and then they all became liable to destruction—because you see the holy Torah, you see the miracles: “And no spirit arose in any man” (Joshua 12:1). Even Rachav says: “No spirit arose in any man”—you crossed the Sea of Reeds.

Then Korach said: it was an optical illusion; there was no Sea of Reeds; it was all nonsense—Moshe fooled you… and everyone believed him! People in a second believe the one who argues on the Tzaddik! Of course, they were all swallowed into the earth immediately—because whoever argues on the Tzaddik, in the end he is swallowed into the earth!

Except for one man whose wife bought him champagne. At least he gained champagne—that’s what he gained from arguing on the Tzaddik: he got a bottle of champagne, fell asleep well, slept well, and he wakes up and sees everyone swallowed into the earth.

So any woman who has a husband who argues on the Tzaddik should buy him a bottle of champagne, so he should sleep very, very well until the end of his life.