What Happens After the Friday Mikveh? • The Daily Lesson from Rabbi Eliezer

Here is a summary of the topics from the daily lesson as it was delivered by The Rav, Rabbi Eliezer Berland shlit"a—yesterday after the Ma’ariv prayer, Thursday night, the night of 12 Shevat 5786, Parshas Beshalach:

1. Rebbe Nachman, in Torah 30, speaks about the donkey’s horn—how they want to harvest with a sickle. Rabbi Nosson adds that the ram with which we blow on holy Rosh Hashanah has a holiness that breaks through the forehead—through the horn. But a donkey has no holiness at all.
2. Avraham called Eliezer a “donkey,” because if after 120 years a person still doesn’t see “fire” (spiritual burning and awakening), then he is a donkey. Yaakov cursed Reuven because he confused and disrupted the souls.
3. Yaakov cursed Reuven for “mixing up the beds,” because the moment a woman goes to the mikveh, souls already begin to descend—one only needs to make sure everything is in holiness. And now the souls of Ephraim and Menashe had already descended; and if he had not mixed up the beds, then the souls of Moshiach ben David and Moshiach ben Yosef would have come forth.
4. Esav said: “I won’t cause my father pain by killing Yaakov. So I will take Machalas, the daughter of Yishmael, and afterward Yishmael will kill Yitzchak—and then I will be able to kill Yaakov.”
5. Rashi says, “There is no house that does not have a dead one”—meaning five children; and afterward, “We are all dead”—meaning ten children who died in the Plague of the Firstborn. However, it can be explained that they all came through a kosher woman who married ten times.
6. Every day I would sit in the Great Synagogue and learn; aside from learning Gemara, I didn’t recognize anything else.
7. The sugya of “Rabba slaughtered Rabbi Zeira.” The question is: why did he wait until Shushan Purim? Because the special spiritual advantage is specifically on Shushan Purim.
8. Another question: is new kiddushin required, since he “died”? But the Shem MiShmuel brings a proof from Matan Torah, when their souls flew from them.
9. And the very fact that Eliezer was called a “donkey” is what gave him the merit to repair all the blemishes and to ascend with his body to Gan Eden.
10. Eliezer saw Esav, and then he saw “mecharish” (one who plows/silences)—whose gematria equals “Yaakov Esav.”
11. Aharon argued with the Satan and told him: “The Tzaddik will explain to you what Hashem wants.”
12. A story: a murdered man came on his feet, and then Rabbi Heshel of Krakow said, “From now on, I will no longer permit agunos.”
13. Every day for three years, I would go out from Bnei Brak to Shechem דרך Kalkilya.
14. It is written that when one comes out of the Friday mikveh, on the right shoe is Metat, and on the left shoe is Sandal, and they escort him the entire week.
15. The brothers also wanted to be a “shoe” for the Shechinah—and this is the secret of “for the sake of shoes.”
16. Yosef argued with the brothers in halachah about what is considered ever min hachai. And in truth, they did not eat.
17. Each person should learn with his wife the mitzvah of “Be fruitful and multiply,” Hashem.