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The Fire and the Light

AfterBennyfinished his trainingcourse, he hadgood intentionswhen he tookajob ina secular company; he was sure he'd be able to influence his colleagues positivelywhilemaintaining a barrier between himself and the open world around him. But as Bennyrose through the ranks, his strong connection to yiddishkeit weakened.

' In his childhood, he had davened for hours next to the tear-soaked tallis ofRav EliezerBerland, the powerful yet enigmatic leader of the Breslov shuvu Banim community.The boy's father, who was born into a nonobservant home, was part of this group andwas close to the man who had ignited the flames of enthusiasm for yiddishkeit in thehearts of thousands of people.Even as he becamed distanced from yiddishkeit, Benny still devoted flve minutesa day to putting on tefillin and reciting the first chapter of sh"-". H" t

"pt rris .mrtttefillin bag on his desk beside the computer and the newspapers. sut one morning,something unusual happened. suddenly, his lips began mumbling the words ofpsukerd2imrah in acaptivating tune he had once heard Rav Berland sirig in Breslov.

"I couldn't control myself," he related. "I imagined the navt refllaft and foundmyself davening the way he does - slowly, savoring every word, and with a tune thatliterally melted my heart. I hadn't daven.d liku th"t for years. The force was srrongerthan me, bigger than me.,'

Yosefwas an o rder bochurwhen his *o.tdtturned dark. After his mother passed awayand his father became an emotional shell, he felt enveloped in perpetual sadness. Hisfather was shattered by his wife's passing and could barelyfunction himself, let aloneprovide support for his devastated son.Before her passing, between caring for his mother in the hospital and tending tomatters of the motherless_household, yosef began risteningto sftraauci suggestions,but in the enveloping blackness, the suggestiori-s stopped coming and he did nothingto pursue them.Yosef became a shadowofhis former self, until one desperate night, he found himselfon Hachomah Hashlishis street in Jerusalem, where Rav Eliezer Berland lived. TheRebbetz'in was sleeping, so the Rav tiptoed with the bocftur into his private study. Themiserableyoungman began spillingout his heavyload, tellingthe Ravhowwretched his

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Rav Elya Lopian with his inner circle. "Chassidus is really for Litvaks"!I

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life was and how he wished he were dead.Rav Berland was silent."Come, Iet us cry together," he said flnally.

"Let us cry, simplycry. HaKadosh Baruch Huwill listen to our weeping." And that's whatthey did. For a full hour and a hali Rav Ber-land held the hand of ayoungman he didn'tknoq and they wept together.

Rav Berland then asked Yosef to wait. Hewent down to themikveh,andreturned afewminutes later, bursting back into the room,this time encouraging and full of smiles."Forget everything. From now on, Hashemwill treat you with great kindness."

I heard this from Yosef himself, today ahappy father of three little children.

aSeveralyears ago on Chol HaMoed Pesach,

a chassidishe bocftur davening at the Koselsuddenlyfelt a crush and commotionbehindhim. Rav Berland was conducting a ceremonyI'zecher aliyah I'regel,withalarge crowd ofhis talmidim. The crowd was pushing and

19 Shvat 5773 | )anuarv 30.2013

shoving to get as close as they could to theRav, when suddenly, his eyes fixed on thebochurhe'dnever met.

"By the week of Shavuos, you will be en-gaged," Rav Berland stated. The bochurheard, but was surprised; he hadn't askedfor abrachah - and he wasn't even interestedin getting married yet.

All plans aside, on the day after Shavuos,the bochurbecame engaged. That bochurwas me.

l r rorn St 'c let Wrlr l t ls At 112 Kedu-shas Levi Street in the Jerusalem suburbof Beitar I l l i t - Rav Berland's new home- masses flock from all over the countryjust to stand outside the building. Most ofthem will not even get to see his face, butwil l suffice with being in close proxim-ity. When neighbors began to complainabout harassment, Rav Berland issued awarning that no one should dare disturbthe other residents.

Rav Eliezer Berland is a mystery, and hislife in recent years has been fraught withrumors and intrigue surroundingthe powerstruggle over his institutions. Yet wrapped inhis tallis is a powerful, esoteric personalityhidden from those who seek him, the secretsofhis life too elusive to be deciphered evenby those who are closest to him.

When he speaks, his thoughts seem to roam

in other spheres. He thinks so fast that fewcan keep up with him.

Concepts from the secret world ofsodpep-per his conversations - even when discuss-ing day-to-day matters. When he speaks,his entire body moves with his lips as hiseyes seem to rise to the Heavens. In Breslovtheycall this nishmas peleh, chiddushb'doro,awondrous soul that is an innovation in hisgeneration.

He was born in Haifa in 1937 into a na-tional religious family, spending his youth inBneiAkiva in the earlyyears of the state. Helater slaked his thirst for Torah in the Lithu-anian Torah world, as he spent entire daysbent over his seforim in Yeshivas KnessesChizkiyahu in Kfar Chassidim, and later inKollel Ponevezh and Kollel Volozhin in BneiBrak. His influences were Rosh Yeshivah RavEliyahu Eliezer Mishkovsky, Mashgiach RavEliyahu Lopian, the Steipler Gaon, and otherleading Torah giants in Bnei Brak ofthe lastgeneration.

And then he discovered the teachings ofRebbe Nachman and the endless fount fromwhich he was able to draw a different sort ofwisdom. Itwas through this path that RavBerland has drawn thousands ofpeople tomitzvah observance. It began with a hand-firI of talmidim, which became a yeshivah,which became a community, which grewinto a movement.

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It's 5:30 a.m. A hanclful of chassidim arestanding outside, yawning, battl ing theirexhaustion. "What are you doing here?,, Iasked them. "Maybe we,ll be zocheh to seethe tzaddik," they reply. Ar-rd for that faintpossibility, they sleep in the street, spend_ing nights under the bare sky, learning out ofsmall seforim under the streetlights.

Rav Berland hasjust returned from ajour_ney to Amukah in the Galil, and in this ore_dawn l"ime. has granted us two hours, duringwhich we are perrn itted a fl eeting glance intohis riveting inner world. Upon his return, hesaid, "I told the people atAmukah _ therewere hundreds of people there _ .Don,tyousee the fire and the light? Tzaclclikim aregreater in death than they are in life. Thereis a tremendous, awesome light here.',,

The door to Rav Berland,s room opens: heis already wrapped in ta l l is and tef i l l in. l t sobvious that he has been fasting for manyhours. Bul . aI74,may he l ive and be wel l , hedoesn't try to get olTeasy in any ofthe ritu_als he's taken on himself. He begins birchoshashaclrur in a captivating tune that growssteadily louder. ' .Rabbeinu says that onemust sing the fefllos for them to ascend uoon H igh," Rav Berland teaches. H is shoul_ders sway, his eyes are closed and his entirebody conveys the message: 1 am here to serveYou with my entire soul.

In bombed-out Lebanon, courd they have found the missing sordiers?

l i i t 'si : i i ,q [ \ ; r l, Rav Berland,s scheduletranscends time and space. One rninute hecan be at hor-ne, and a moment later he canbe en route to kivrei tzadctikLnr in the Northor in the Shomron. He sleeps only two hoursin a 24-hour period, usually after flnishingShacharis. Nighttime is for.Torah st udv. Histable is piled with yellowed pages - personalfeytllos he composed, letters to his Creator. andchiddushim thaL he has written down.

From the time he was little, Rav EliezerBerland was drawn to spirituality. ..I livedin Haifa, and was the only one in my schoolv;ith a hat. They threatened to beat me up ifI kept coming in my hat, but I kept *"u.ingit.The menahelyelled at me, whydid I insiston being different, it wasn't a d'Oravsa.I told

him I insisted on wearing the hat."My brother Rav yechezkel Berland, the

ray in Nehorah, followed me and startedwearing his tzitzis over his shirt. I took himout ofhigh school and put him into Rav yaa_kovEdelstein's yeshivah in Hod HaSharon.He had never learned Gemara in his life, butwhen Rav Edelstein tested him, he understoodit all. He had a brilliant, analytical mind; tothis dayhe still does.,,

Rav Berland spent three and a halfyearsin Kfar Chassidim. from age tZ. There helearned under Rav Eliyahu Eliezer Mishk_ovsky ztz"l.Yeshivah old-timers recall howas a bochur, Rav Berland would learn almost2O hours a day.

"But Rav Mishkovsky told me I had to take

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a break, go out a bit to the flelds, be myself."This was perhaps a hint of things to come,

although the Rav says he knew nothing ofBreslov or the idea ofhisbodedus at thetime.

"I didn't know there was any such thingas Breslov. I came from other places. I didn'teven know there was such a thing as Chas-sidus. But my roshyeshivahtold me to go outto the flelds every day for two hours. Ifyoudon't do that, he said, either your head willexplode or a vein will pop.

"People make a mistake and think Breslovis dancing in the streets. That's not true. Aperson who does not learnGemarab'iyun,Rebbe Nachman says, is called a/ess et kish-kes, abarrel ofinnards. It saysinSiach SarfeiKodesft, (Volume 2:257) that Rebbe Nachmansaid, Ich vil mein zach zohl gein oif litvishehertzer,' or in other words, Chassidus is re-allyfor Litvaks.

"The Maggid [of Mezritch] was first a Litvakand then a chassid. Everyone was. After youare litvish, Rebbe Nachman says, then cometo me. Rav Mendel of Nemirov, who first grewup in Germany and wore a short jacket beforecomingclose to the Maggid and daveningwithenthusiasm that raised him to great heights,was once asked: 'What did the Maggid do foryou?'He replied,'When I was in Germany, Ihadto hold mysoul down to make sure it didn'tfly otrlsheloyifracftl; when I came to the Mag-gid, my soul blossomed lparacfl."'

Rav Berland's voice takes on a note oflong-ingwhen he speaks of his close relationshiptothe mashgiacft, Rav Elya (Eliyahu) Lopianztz"l. "For lhree and a half years Rav Elyawasmy mashgiachin KfarChassidim. He drewmevery close and predicted, 'You'll become a bigroshyeshivah.' I was just 2O then.

"Rav Elyawas averyhumble, modest per-son. I will never forget how he davened, withpower, with tears. He would literally cry. AtIhe mussar seder I would sit on the first benchnear him, and in between us was another bo-cfturwhose name I don't remember. Whenhe learnedSft aarei Teshuvah,the mashgiachwould sob loudly. I would crywith him. Thewhole yeshivah trembled.

"Rav Elya once told me, 'The Chazal that a

19 Shvat 5773 Januarv 30, 2013

person who repeats something in the name ofthe originator brings Geulah to the world -refers to HaKadosh Baruch Hu. A person hasto know that everything belongs to Hashem:my wisdom, my brains, my strength, every-thing. Someone who recognizes and lives withthat constantlybrings about a redemption forhimself and for the world."

Rav Berland came to Kfar Chassidim amonth after the passing ofRosh yeshivahRav Noach Sh rmonowitz ztz'? "I never methim," RavBerland says longingly, even afterso many years. "He passed away on S Iyar,and I was in Kfar HaRoeh at the time. It wasYom Haatzmaut, and everyone went to getwild and drink; but I just couldn't - I justhad to stay inside and learn while they rev-eled outside. I was in the sftrur room in theyeshivah in Kfar HaRoeh when the newsarrived that Rav Noach Shimonowitz hadpassed away. I began to cry like a small child,although I didn't even know him. To thisday I don't know why I cried.... Every timeI remember it, I start to cry. Everyone elsewent out to party and I stayed to learn andto cry about Reb Noach's passing."

Rav Berland stayed in Kfar Chassidim un-til his marriage at age 2t to Tehillah Shaki,daughter of the late Rabbi Shalom-Avra-ham Shaki, who served in the Knesset asa National Religious Party member in the1960s. He then moved to Bnei Brak, to theyeshivos of Ponevezh andVolozhin. "InPonevezh there were the geonim Rav BenZion Bamberger, Rav Yechezkel Levenstein,and Rav Chaim Freidlander ztz"l.I learnedb'chavrusawith Rav Chaim and slept in hishouse. Rav Shmuel Heller, one of the rab-banim of Haifa, remembers that they toldme on Purim to go out and dance. I said Icould not bring myself to leave the Gemara.They wanted to spill water over me, but Icould not close that Gemara."

Today Rav Berland teaches thousands thepath of Rebbe Nachman. Is anything left ofthose years in the lzTvzshe yeshivos?

For Rav Berland, the intense learning ishis legacy from that time. He still learns 18hours a day. "If a person wants to mitigatehis negative thoughts, he must learn Gemara.

People think that it's enough to just go toUman, but the bad thoughts don't go awayif one doesn't learn Gemara.

"When I traveled to Uman on forged pass-ports, in the years before the Iron Curtainfell, I met the heads of the government inKiev, who told me: 'We know why you Jewsare the smartest nation in the world. It'sbecause you have the Talmud. That's whyyou are so strong."'

After his wedding, Rav Berland becameclose to the Steipler Gaon ztz? and to his son,Rav Chaim Kanievsky sft lita. " We learnedb'chavrusa every day for an hour. We ex-changed sft'erios and /esftuyos in writing. But itall got lost." At the end of the shivah for Reb-betzin Kanievsky last year, Rav Chaim waitedfor Rav Berland, who had just arrived on theplane from America, before getting up.

"The Rebbetzin a"ft was a teacher in theOhr HaChaim high school, an d,my rebbetzinfb1'tft also taught there. Rebbetzin Kanievsky,who woke her children up at three in themorning and took them to Lederman [Shul]and then taught high school girls from eightin the morninguntil four in the afternoon,said she got ch izukand.yiras ShamayimfromRebbetzin Tehillah Berland."

Rav Berland's first contact with the Steiplerwas when he was still in Kfar Chassidim. "Isent him letters and he would answer me. Iasked him what was more important, to cutoff the tchup fforehead bangsl, or to grow abeard. I had a huge fcftup, no one could com-pete with it. The Steipler replied that I shouldfirst cut offthetchup,andthat I should growa beard after my wedding."

Al l of This Is Hers How did th isLitvak turn into the leader of masses ofBreslover chassidim? Rav Berland sayshe owes his transformation to his wife.

"When the Rebbetzin was lb, she beganIearning some Breslover seforim that herbrother received for his bar mitzvah. Be-fore we married she asked me if I knewwhatBreslov was. 'It doesn't even interest me,' Itold her. But she was adamant that I startlearning the seforim."

"We got married on 28 Adar, and for an

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M SHPACHA 49

IThe Fire and the Light

entire year I pretended that I was learningBreslover seforim. Onlyayearlater, on CholHaMoed Pesach, as we traveled on a trainback from Haifa, did she discover my ruse.She began asking me questions about thesefer Sippurei Maasiyos. She was shockedwhen I told her I wasn,t familiar with it. SoI had no choice. And then, when I actuallybegan to learn, I discovered awesome thingsthere, all the wisdom in the world.

"One can say of my Rebbetzin that sfte1lv'shelachem,all that is mine and all that isyours is really hers."

[ ,ost in Sidon I t was the summer of1982, during the First Lebanon War. Thesmell of f ire and su lfu r hung over Sidon asa group of 12 Breslover chassidim led byRav Berland made their way through thenarrow alleyways in a dilapidated van.Just a few days earlier, soldiers ZecharyaBaumel, Yehudah Katz, Tzvi Feldman,Chezi Shai, Ariel Lieberman, and ZoharLifshitz had been captured in the battleof Sultan Yakub, where the IDF faced offwith the Syrian army.

Two of the missing - Ariel Lieberman andChezi Shai - were returned from captiv_ity after two and three years, respectively,while it was learned only in October l98Sthat Zohar Lifshitz had been killed in thebattle. But the fates ofyehudah Katz, TzviFeldman, and Zecharya Baumel remain amysteryto this day.

MIA Yehuda Katz's father yossi Katz cameto Rav Berland in tears. They had gotten toknow each other after yossi,s other son be_came close to RavBerland. Now, he needed toexercise every connection he had to Hashemto locate his son Yehudah.

"Come with me to Lebanon and we,ll res_cue Yehudah Katz," Rav Berland told someof his close chassidim. But he qualified onecondition: "Believe with all your hearts thateinodMilvado."

What happened while theywere in Sidonremained a secret for manyyears. But what isknown is that to this day, Katz, Baumel, andFeldman have never been found.

Over the years, those 12 Breslovers who

took part in the daring mission offered bitsand pieces of information. And now, threedecades later, Rav Berland has decided toshare the details.

"We tried to cross the border into Leba-non secretly. It was parsftas

-Ezkey, where itsays'Kol makom asher tidrof raglechem bolachem yihyeh, min hamidbar v'haLevanon- every place your feet tread will be yours,from the wilderness and Lebanon,", RavBerland remembers. .,We entered Lebanonand reached Sidon, driving through villageslooking for Yehudah Katz. The driver wasone of the talmidim of the yeshivah, BaruchSharvit.

"The entire area was full ofroadblocks.At first, they thought we were diplomats.When we came closer to the roadblockswe donned the kaffiyehs. Then, when weapproached Sidon, we changed to regularclothes. They thought we were clergymen.We passed all the roadblocks. Suddenlytheyrealized that we were Jews and the terror-ists began shooting at us. It was a miracle wegot out ofthere.

"We were able to reach the lookout atRashia Al Fuchar, two kilometers fromwhere Katz and his friends were capturedin northeast Lebanon. And from there wewere able to see the exact spot where theabduction took place.

"That night, we were in the Rashia camo.and I gave a sftrulrfor SO soldiers in the dininsroom. The commander, who was also listen-ing, said to me: 'I don,t knowwhywe have tofight this war. Soldiers are killed everv dav.'

"I told him,'If you don't defend us here.theywill capture Metullah.,He said,.I don,tcare, let them capture Metullah., I replied tohim, 'Theywill get to Haifa.,The commanderdidn't care. Even when I said they would getto Tel Aviv he didn't care. .Why should mysoldiers get killed here in Lebanon?'

"I told the commander, 'If you don,t defendus here they will get to Jerusalem.'And thenhe said,'Jerusalem? Oh, no, we won,t giveup Jerusalem.'

"The next day, when we tried crossing theborder back into Israel, IDF soldiers caughtus and wanted us prosecuted. Theyhandedus over to that same commander. But thecommander gave other orders. ,Give thesepeople immunity. Don't do anythingto them.Let them into the dining room, feed them,and let them sleep. Give them the best ofwhat we have."'

Does Rav Berland think any of the MIAsare still alive today? "RonArad is certainly notalive," he says of the IAF navigator who wasshot down in 1986. And the others?

"Yehudah Katz - it's been B0 years sincehis capture. Yosef HaTzaddikwas missingfor22 years. I told his parents that until 22 yearsthere's hope. Today, after B0 years, there's nohope anymore.

"But I'm sure thatwhen we crossed theborder, he was still alive. When Chezi Shaiwas returned on a plane from Lebanon toGermany, one of the soldiers guardinghimasked his friend, 'Is this yehudah Katz?,Thesoldier replied, 'No this is Chezi Shai., Basedon this exchange we know that he was alive.

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We did a lot to bringhimback. We got the RedCross on the case, met with the Austrianprime minister. We did alot."

Alone in Shechem Driving a clunkervan into the heart ofthe Lebanon battle-field might be considered foolhardy formost, but Rav Eliezer Berland and hisShuvu Banim chassidim are known forliving dangerously. Their monthly ex-cursions to Kever Yosef in Shechem havebeen a thorn in the side ofthe IDF sinceIsrael gave up Shechem in accords withthe Palestinian Authority.

Rav Berland says that the extent ofmesrrusngftsft one must have for /clyrei tzaddikimisto travel once a month, on Friday. A chassidquoted him as saying, "The moment youundertake a practical endeavor that entailsa certain risk, it connects you with the tzad-dik on a higher level."

Rav Berland remembers how he wouldtravel to Shechem afterthe citywas capturedin the 1967 Six DayWar. "I would go everyday. Then, there was tremendous fear oftheJews. I lived in Bnei Brak at the time, so onJabotinsky Street I'd get a bus to Kfar Saba.It cost me three liras. From there, I contin-ued to Kever Binyamin ben Yaakov. I wouldspend an hour alone there, and then travelto Kalkilya in a taxi with seven Arabs. Theyoften made signs of slittingtheirthroats andI did it right back to them.

"I wouldwalk for five minutes through theCasbah in Shechem until Kever Yosefalone,alone ... today I come and I see people withMl6s. I askthemwhytheyneed it....

"'Lelamed es bnei Yehudah kashos, to teachthe sons ofYehudah to use abow [and arrow].'The Midrash Shocher Tov saysthat everyar-rowshould have the Shem HaMeforashwrit-ten on it and each one would penetrate onethousand enemies. If we have faith, we don'tneed such weapons. Then, when they'd see aJew, they'd see a tank in front of them."

Wake Up navBerland says he has one mainmission in the world: to bringAm Yisrael todo teshuvah. "NowAm Yisrael is in a state ofawakening," he says. "It is impossible to stem

19 Shvat 5773 | lanuary 30,20'13

this awakening." RavBerland divulges anotherpiece of information: "The planet Pluto hasjust drawn closerto Earth. This is a rare oc-currence that onlyhappens once everyfewhundred years, and has ramifications in thespiritual spheres." He continues a complexastronomical explanation, bringing sourcesfrom the Ramb am, Zohar, and Kabbalah as tothe significance of this positioning and how itbodes for the nations and the Jews.

'Am Yisrael's heart is awake, and it is onthe wayback to its Maker. The waythe mediaportrays the secular public as hating thosewho observe mitzvos is an absolute lie.

"There is a chain of restaurants, Aroma,and in the past Justice Procaccia ofthe HighCourt ruled that they could sell chometz onPesach because, she ruled, chometz inside arestaurant is not considered to be 'in public,'which would be against the law. The ownerof several Aroma franchises, Oren Sasson,would bring donations to our yeshivah, buthe felt bad and asked me, 'How can you ac-cept donations from a place th at seIIs chometzon Pesach?' I told him, 'In the merit of thesedonations you'll stop selling chometz onPe-sach.'And that's what happened. Twentybranches were koshered and in the last twoyears their revenues tripled."

aThe sun is alreadyshiningas I take leave

of the Rav. He accompanies me outside, hishand holding mine. His hand is thin, butwarm and overflowingwith a spiritual energythat's unbounded. He still has much to say,as he jumps from one topic to another, fromapasulr in Tanach to a RambamtotheZoharto the words of Rebbe Nachman. I wonder ifanyone can keep up.

"Meibsos haShamayim al teichasu, ki yei-chasu hagoyim meiheimah- Do not be fright-ened bythe signs ofthe Heavens, though thenations are frightened bythem," the Ravconcludes with a comforting quote from SelerYirmiyahu. "Everything that we said aboutPluto coming closer has an effect only onthe gentiles. Am Yisrael is above mazel," heexplains. For Rav Berland it is another signthat the time has come to draw thousandsmore to teshuvah.

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