Subtitles: Holy Fire Lesson 3 Shevat 5782

The holy words of our teacher, the great Gaon Rav Berland shlit"a, delivered after the Maariv prayer on Wednesday, 3 Shevat 5782, 5/1/2022.

"Serach bat Asher, everyone should name their daughter Serach! The Horowitz family, they are all the children of Serach, who was the greatest tzaddikah of the generation."

"Why are we speaking about Serach? Everyone had sisters, everyone had daughters; everyone had 20 daughters, Zelophehad had 5 daughters and sisters. There is an opinion that they only married their sisters, because one could not marry the Canaanite women; they were all flawed, they were all already corrupted. Just as Eliezer said to Abraham, 'Where are you sending me, to a place where they are all already corrupted, all flawed?! They all sinned, they all commit sins there.'"

"He said: 'My angels! An angel will come and reveal it to you.' For with a righteous woman, an angel goes everywhere. The angel arranges the shidduch so that a person finds their true soulmate, that they find the right shidduch, the true life partner; 'The matter emanates from Hashem.'"

"Laban was a wicked man, a true villain. He was here before, I chased him away. He is a wicked villain. When the Arizal heard Rabbi Moshe Alshich say his insights, the Arizal saw Laban literally; Laban was nodding his head, 'Yes, yes, correct, correct!' Because (Rabbi Moshe told of Laban’s deceptions, how he cheated Jacob, 'And he changed my wages ten times'). That is a million! One hundred times one hundred times one hundred is 'ten times'; 'times' means a hundred, a hundred times a hundred times a hundred is a million. Every two and a half minutes he changed the terms for him."

"Now 'ring-streaked,' now 'speckled,' now 'spotted,' now a Star of David, now striped, pentagonal, hexagonal... Every two and a half minutes he changed the terms, and they were all born according to the new terms. He already saw in the womb that they had already received the right star, the right sign, so he immediately said: 'No, I want a different term!' Jacob answered him, 'Whatever you want! As far as I am concerned, whatever term you want, I do not care.' And then Jacob saw the angels ascending upon the flock, 'ring-streaked, speckled, and spotted.' Because Jacob merited the world of Akudim (Bound), where everything changes in a second!"

"Akudim is the root of the Nekudim (Points); the Nekudim emerge from the eyes, and the Akudim emerge from the ear, 'ear, nose, mouth' opposite the mouth. So Jacob merited the Akudim, so every minute everything changed, the signs changed every second! A million times in six years is two and a half minutes! Because one must multiply 1,440, which is in a day, times 365, times 6 years, and then divide by a million, it comes out to two and a half minutes."

"Every two and a half minutes Laban changes the signs. Such stars, a white gartel in the middle... they are all reincarnations of the lambs! A white gartel, such a gartel; Moses had a black gartel, there is a green gartel, such a gartel. The sheep had gartelach, they all walked with gartelach, all the sheep, and every moment he tells him a different gartel, a different sign; that is how the signs changed a million times."

"Like now, the great Nittel, because they did... with us, the calendar is precise to the second, to the chalakim! 2 minutes and 15 chalakim (the time of the molad), but they do not know how to make a calendar (Rav laughs), so they had a lag of 11 minutes per year. From the advice of Julius Caesar who made the calendar in the year 44 before the zero. In the year 1600, they saw there was a lag of 12 days in the winter. If one calculates 1600 years times 11 minutes, it is 17,600 minutes, divided by 1441. Everyone can check on all the computers on the clock, it comes out to 12.2."

"So they chose the yahrtzeit of Rabbeinu; the nations already knew it was holy even before Rabbeinu was born! So on the yahrtzeit of Rabbeinu, we will move the clock from the 4th to the 15th, October 4th, they jumped by 11 days. Until all the nations accepted this, it was only a hundred years ago. Every nation did not agree to this; only the Russian Church and the Vatican accepted it, and other churches did not agree to this change. Little by little, everyone accepted the new calendar."

"And therefore, tomorrow is the Sefat Emet. There is a book 'Shema Yisrael' that said they would evacuate the ghetto, because they were in retreat. From the 2nd of Shevat, they already knew that Germany was suffering a defeat, because it was a mistake to go and conquer Stalingrad; it was a great mistake. Everyone was against Hitler, may his name be erased, but he said, 'No, I will try to conquer Stalingrad'... they did not conquer it. The Red Star found Paulus, a Jew discovered him, the Red Star, and then they took him and then... he said, 'I will make you the greatest officer in the world,' he wanted him to commit suicide. He said, 'I will not commit suicide for this wicked person, I am not willing to commit suicide!' He was not willing, what can be done."

"So Stalingrad fell, and for the Jews, there is a book 'Lech Lecha Bni,' Lomza Yeshiva, 'You will flee from here, you will stay alive, I have children, I have nowhere to flee.' The heroines were those who went with the children to the ovens. Now, at Kibbutz Lohamei HaGetaot, the Ghetto Fighters near Nahariya, they said, 'We are the heroines who went with the partisans to the forests.' The heroines are those who did not leave the babies and went with them into the ovens. They were the true heroines, in whose merit we are now alive."

"This is Serach bat Asher, who was a true heroine, whom the Torah mentions out of all the daughters and granddaughters of Jacob, for every tribe had holy sons and daughters, grandsons and granddaughters, and nevertheless, the Torah mentions Serach bat Asher, who was willing to die. No one agreed to tell that Joseph was alive; whoever says 'Joseph is alive' will die on the spot."

"Therefore it is written in the Baal HaTurim, 'Blessed of sons is Asher,' that Asher was under a ban. They said, 'How does she know, from where does she know? After all, she was not in Egypt, she did not meet Joseph.' When the brothers returned, they did not reveal to anyone that they had found Joseph, they did not reveal it, it is forbidden to reveal! One does not reveal that they sold a brother. After 22 years, they reveal it?! 'I said, a beast has torn him,' surely he is 'torn to pieces.' You go to Dothan, you lose me a child, you go to Egypt, you lose me a child (because Joseph imprisoned Simeon). He did not know that he had just released him."

"Because Simeon was the most zealous of all, therefore Levi merited Moses and Aaron, and Simeon annihilated Amalek. He stands on Mount Gerizim, because Simeon is the second child, born with such holiness that he could not tolerate any crime, any flaw. He said, 'They committed such a crime, I am killing the whole city.' A 13-and-a-half-year-old boy wiped out the whole city. Levi was 13, half a year difference."

"So an entire city! Jacob says, 'There is no such halachah!' They tell him, 'We follow the Rambam.' Today everyone follows the Rambam. The Rebbe said that in the future to come, the halachah will be like the Rambam. He says if a crime is committed in a city and the city does not protest, then one must [deal with] the whole city, wipe it out without exception. Just as an entire tribe, Benjamin, there was some crime, an abominable act (the concubine in Gibeah), they killed the whole tribe, they did not leave anyone, not babies, nothing. Six hundred escaped, among them Saul, 'son of a perverse, rebellious woman.' He says to Jonathan, 'Who are you? You do not even know who you are, I know who you are, 'son of a perverse, rebellious woman'! Why are you following the son of Jesse!?' But he is the true tzaddik."

"A slice of bread he did not bring. Always bring a slice of bread so that what happened to Jonathan does not happen to you. So David was seized by his hunger, for three days he did not eat! Bring one slice, that is enough. That one left him in the field for 3 days and forgot to bring him a slice of bread. If he had brought a slice of bread, the Holy Temple would not have been destroyed and all the disasters; therefore he was liable for death. Jonathan did not bring him a slice of bread. So he went to eat holy bread. He arrived at Nob, the city of priests."

"Enter the house of Achsa, the house of Hananiah, why are you entering Nob, is this a city of Jews? They will slaughter you. Arabs, they are good, merciful; if you had entered an Arab city, they would have given you a pita and falafel for free. Why did you enter Nob, what do you have to do with Nob?! The sword of Goliath is there, how did you get to Nob? So David became liable for death (because Doeg killed all of Nob, the city of priests, by Saul’s order because they helped David). Hashem asked him, 'Do you want your sons to die?' He says, 'No, my sons, may they not die under any circumstances, no, I am willing to die!'"

"Are you willing to die? So he got on the mule, it dragged him to Gaza, to Ashkelon, there Ishbi-Benob caught him. There are two Nobs, one near Jerusalem and one in the Golan, that is where Ishbi-Benob was then. It is not in Gaza, not in the land of the Philistines! Rather, it is all because of the sin of Nob. He took the beam of the olive press with which they crush the olives and wanted to crush him (David), to make shawarma out of him, but he was not crushed; he crushes and crushes, he is not crushed."

"So he lifted the beam, he saw that a depression had formed in the lower beam and he entered into the depression. Now he threw him a hundred meters! That is ten seconds per second, that is ten meters, a hundred meters is exactly ten seconds. David has 10 seconds to live, and then Abishai was bathing in honor of the holy Sabbath in tubs, like the House of Israel, they bathed in tubs, in bowls, there were no showers, maybe one shower for twenty people. So they would bathe in bowls, take a netilah, pour, that is how they were until they made showers for everyone; in the meantime, there were bowls. So he was bathing in a tub, suddenly he sees the tub filling with blood and saw a hawk preying on a dove. He said, 'This dove is the Congregation of Israel' (and then he flew and saved David)."

"The dove of Noah, 'May He greet us with good blessings,' because Tevet is the Hidden Light, the month of Tevet. We are already in Shevat, these are the melodies; all the melodies in the world are revealed in the month of Shevat. Now it is a month of melody and song. The almond tree blossoms on Tu B'Shevat, and then everyone sings the song of the almond tree. And then they compose songs in honor of the almond tree and the saplings of Tu B'Shevat. Tu B'Shevat is the New Year, and the halachah is according to Beit Shammai that it is on the 1st of Shevat."

"And now the month of Tevet, the month of goodness, 'Here is a place with Me,' this is the cleft of the rock. The month of Tevet is the cleft of the rock, it is the Hidden Light, it is only through the study of the Gemara that a person finds the light, only through the study of the Gemara. In the month of Tevet, one must finish the entire Shas, and whoever has not finished, let him finish in Shevat. By Tu B'Shevat, one must finish the entire Shas. So everyone now, from 21:30 until 5:30, must finish the entire Shas; 8 hours is enough. There are no yeshivas now, there is nothing, so a person should go home, eat dinner in five minutes, and study until 5:30, after that stand for the 18, and then he can sleep for a few hours."

"So a person must know that in another 8 hours we are already starting Vatikin, and it is written 'Ma'aleh Akrabim' in Parshat Masei, the border of Israel. Ma'aleh Akrabim is a nafka mina (practical difference) that one can bring first fruits from there, only this speaks because the fruits are withered, the fruits are shriveled, but he once traveled to Eilat, the twists are Ma'aleh Akrabim. The Arnon brooks saw the place where everyone was crushed, became pizzas; once there were also pizzas, the mountains made pizzas out of the Amorites and Canaanites, crushed them, made pizzas out of them for Melaveh Malkah. Rashi says that everyone turned into pitas in the Arnon brooks."

"And now we are speaking about Serach bat Asher, who has no body, she entered Gan Eden with her body. The Rebbe says that one cannot achieve anything except through studying Shas, because many in Breslov make a mistake, they think it is dancing, it is 'I was in Uman, I merited.' In Uman, they do not pray and do not study anything, all the time they lie in beds for several weeks, months, they do not move from the bed. So that is also something, they travel in the Aravot, they travel in the heavens, there are seven heavens to travel. So a person for seven hours travels in all the heavens, in the eighth hour he is already above the seven heavens; after Aravot, there are also heavens above, above. So the woman arrives at 16:00, she already got up at 5, dressed the children, sent them to the chedarim, and he is still sleeping, sleeping, traveling in Gan Eden."

"The Pri Tzaddik asks, 'From where did she know Gan Eden?' It is written that the Shunammite, everyone should travel there, whoever travels there will be blessed with children immediately, near Nahalal there is the village of Shunem. Until today, for 3,000 years, Arabs live in Shunem, now people have cleaned it, they say Tikkun HaKlali there and are saved immediately. Whoever arrives in Shunem is saved on the spot with a male child, in everything. The house of the Shunammite is a segulah for all the salvations in the world, they put the Shas there, everything."

"So the Shunammite would smell the scent of Gan Eden. It is written, 'How did she know what the scent of Gan Eden is, perhaps it is perfume?' So it is a sign that she would ascend every night to Gan Eden. It is written in the Pri Tzaddik, Parshat Beshalach, by Rabbi Tzadok HaKohen of Lublin, that the fact that she smelled the scent of Gan Eden, that she said to her husband, 'It has the scent of Gan Eden,' is a sign that she would ascend every night to Gan Eden. In sleep, a person can travel in Gan Eden, and the women of old would travel in Gan Eden in their sleep, travel in the heavens, see the Havayah before their eyes, fly to the Holy Temple and return, because the whole point is to fly to Jerusalem."

"Whoever lived in the Galilee, in Tzippori, in Metula, they would fly to Jerusalem, from Meron to Jerusalem. It is written, 'He has hedged me about, that I cannot go out,' this is a chapter in Lamentations, that they would fly to Jerusalem. And Serach bat Asher was a prophetess, how did she know that Joseph was alive? After all, she was not in Egypt, it is a sign that she was a prophetess."

"And may we merit the complete Geulah speedily in our days, amen."