New: Lesson from Prison — the holy tzaddik Rabbi Eliezer Berland shlit"a

A new and special lesson that our teacher, the holy tzaddik Rav Eliezer Berland shlit"a, dictated to his lawyer from prison and requested to be published to the public.

"The eight days of Chanukah came to nullify the power of the eight kings of Edom."

"Chanukah is spelled with the letters 'Chanu-Kah' (they camped here). In the verse 'Shema Yisrael,' there are 25 letters, because the Maccabees ascended to the grave of Samuel the Prophet, for from there one can see the entire landscape as far as Tel Aviv; one can see the entire Shephelah. The Maccabees, the Hasmoneans, were up on the mountain and saw that the Greeks were advancing from Greece. There was nowhere to be; from Jaffa, ships were arriving, and every ship was full of soldiers—one hundred thousand Greek soldiers approaching Jerusalem."

"It took them three days to arrive on foot to Jerusalem. When they reached Latrun, the Maccabees saw them through the location of Samuel's grave. They saw that the soldiers were arriving with large elephants. The Maccabees fled; only Judah remained with another 300 soldiers. He shouted 'Shema Yisrael' many times, as the verse contains 25 letters."

"The Maccabees saw that the elephants began to rampage among them. The situation became dangerous, and the elephants that had brought the Greek soldiers killed those very soldiers."

"Latrun is a place where all the camps station themselves before they ascend to Jerusalem; Sha'ar HaGai is a narrow place."

"On Chanukah, all the Maccabees inscribed on their banner 'Mi Kamocha Ba'elim Hashem' (Who is like You among the gods, O Hashem), the acronym of which is M.K.B.Y.M (Maccabees). Mattathias shouted, 'Mi LaHashem Elai' (Whoever is for Hashem, come to me), because the moment Mattathias, the father of Judah and Eleazar, killed the Greek officer in Modi'in who brought him a pig and told him to offer it as a Passover sacrifice, Mattathias drew his sword and decapitated the Greek."

"During that period, there were Greeks in every part of Modi'in—Greeks who came from Syria and accepted upon themselves the culture of Greece. The revolt began in the year 64 BCE and lasted for three years. The first war was against Apollonius, and Judah cut off his head."

"The second war was against Seron, with whom one hundred thousand Greeks came. The third war was against Lysias, who came with a thousand elephants and one hundred thousand soldiers, and this was the great miracle of Latrun, where the elephants trampled all one hundred thousand soldiers who came with him. This was also the final battle, which lasted three years."

"The acronyms of the three wars are 'P.S.L': 'P' for Apollonius, 'S' for Seron, and 'L' for Lysias."

"The Maccabees entered Jerusalem and purified the Holy Temple from all the signs of Greece that were within it—the pig—and they lit the candles. There was one cruse of oil, and until they made new oil, it took eight days, because they had to bring olives from the Galilee, harvest them, and that took eight days. Therefore, every Chanukah, each and every year, the light is greater and greater, and one can see miracles and wonders."