You can watch it here, hopefully much more smoothly:
There are still some minor ‘issues’ going on, but slowly, slowly, with God’s help, I will go back and fix it.
In the meantime, I’m really enjoying myself.
And honestly, this is a great tale from Rebbe Nachman.
Enjoy!
I’m going back now to redo the first parts of the story, in the same style, but see what you think about #3.
Each segment, I’m figuring the tech out a little better, BH, so hopefully by the end of the story, this will be really good!
In the meantime, Part 2 of Rabbenu’s tale of the Burgher and the Pauper:
Enjoy!
I know I am.
Usually, I get to read Shivivei Or etc on Shabbat, and then come here and translate some stuff that speaks to me. The last few weeks, I have barely had time to do that, as we’ve been having a ton of guests.
So, today I was going to try and translate a piece from last week, where the Rav was talking about the little 5 year old boy, Moshe Galinski, who got killed in a horrible bus accident in Modiin Illit a couple of weeks ago.
The Rav said his death was another of those that atoned for the nation, and ‘sweetened’ the very harsh decrees of destruction that are still hanging over Am Yisrael (like Leah Singer’s did, when the war really did stop…)
It’s actually very funny.
And in typical ‘Rav’ fashion, it brings the parsha alive in ways that no-one else can manage.
So, enjoy!
==
So, everyone should say ‘Amen’ [during the Ma’ariv davening at the Rav], ‘yehai shmaya raba’, barchu – this brings wealth!
Just the ‘Amens’.
Now, I have a very sad story, that I’m ashamed to say it, that I had a great argument with Moshe Rabbenu. I wanted a slice of onion, because I can’t eat salad without some onion, it’s an allergy, maybe it’s one of my defects, I don’t know.
==
[I said to him]: A slice of onion! Bring me an onion, tomorrow! Remember!
Tov, so this was already arranged, good. So, I request forgiveness from everyone. B’kitzur, I went to Korach, and I told him the whole story, that Moshe Rabbenu had hurt my feelings, personally.
[What did I want from him?] I wanted a slice of onion. I said to him: Bring onions down from the sky, what’s the problem?! You are bringing down water, you are bringing bread from the sky, the clouds of glory – bring down an onion!
He said to me: Under absolutely no circumstances, no! This, I am not going to do!
I can’t tell you the reasons why, I don’t know. Maybe, he wanted to take revenge against me, I don’t know what, exactly.
==
But, I had onion seeds.
When I left Mitzrayim, I had seeds. I said to myself: Let’s sow onions, here in the desert!
So I wanted to take a little water from Miriam’s Well, just a little water, what do you care?!
[Moshe Rabbenu said:] Don’t you dare touch Miriam’s Well! I don’t give you permission! This is not for planting onions, this is just for drinking! Not for sowing onions!
So, how am I meant to grow onions? In the end, I went to Korach, and I told him my whole problem, and how much I’d been hurt.
He said to me: What, you were hurt by that?! See, me, he cut my payot off! He cut off my beard! Did he also cut your payot off? You aren’t a Levite, there’s no problem.
But Isaac[1] is a Levi. Who here is a Levi? Are there Levites, here? So, then you don’t have a problem. Baruch Hashem, they didn’t cut your beards off. But for those who had their beards cut off – Hashem yerachem! (Hashem should have mercy).
==
[Korach said]: My wife left me, she ran away from the house. She said: ‘I am not coming back to the house’, until my beard grew back again, and I regrew my payot. I didn’t eat for three days, already, that’s what he told me.
I think there was someone’s bris, so then I ate a little bit, but in the evening there was no-one to cover me up.
==
In Sinai, we are talking about Sinai, we aren’t talking about Eretz Yisrael, and not about New York, and not about San Francisco, and not about Los Angeles, we are talking about Sinai.
The temperature goes down in the winter, -40, and in the summer, it’s -20 [at night]. People freeze to death from the cold. People go for a tiyul, they make a mistake in the mountains, they simply freeze. And it’s impossible afterwards to revive them.
He said to me: There was no-one to cover me, there was no-one to make the bed. That’s what he did to me!
==
B’kitzur, he started to cry, mamash, he cried a river of tears, he was full of tears.
He said to me: And on top of that, I have other complaints.
I don’t want to tell you all of the complaints [of Korach], but one complaint is from the parshat hashavua, a very difficult complaint. He said: See, Moshe doesn’t know halachot, he doesn’t know Shulchan Aruch, he doesn’t learn Rambam.
[The Rav turns to someone next to him]: You do learn Rambam? What halachot escaped Moshe Rabbenu’s mind, in the parsha? It’s good that you don’t know, that’s the best. You do know, what halacha escaped him? That they took his head off. Whose head did they take off? You also don’t know?!
What, so what are you learning in yeshiva for? Even a simple Rashi. Except, I don’t learn Rashi, because he hit me in the cheder, when he learnt Rashi in the cheder [the teacher hit him]. He gave me such slaps, that now I can’t even touch a Rashi.
But you, he didn’t hit, so what do you care, to learn some Rashi?!
All of this, Korach explained to me…open the parsha! See what’s written there.
==
Excerpted and translated from Rasisei Tal, #74.087
==
[1] It’s not clear who the Rav is talking about here.
Part 2 to follow shortly, BH.
Enjoy!
Excerpt of a shiur to Bat Yam, June 22, 2026
“The water became as a wall for them” – this is written twice, because Datan and Aviram split the sea a second time.
Datan and Aviram said, for sure, we are greater than Moshe Rabbenu!
After all, the sea split for them, too. They didn’t want to leave [Mitzrayim with the rest of Am Yisrael]. They said, we aren’t going to go with Moshe, we aren’t ‘chassidim’ of Moshe, we aren’t Shuvu Banim, we aren’t crazies. We are normal. We aren’t going to the desert. Who is going to bring them water?!
==
A person all by themselves doesn’t go to the desert.
There is the desert of death in Nevada, the desert of death there, in Los Angeles, Death Valley. People enter, they don’t know how to leave it. Even now, bein hazmanim, in a little while it will be bein hazmanim, the 2nd of Av – it’s forbidden to go on tiyulim.
They go to Ein Gedi, and they make a mistake about the way – there’s a desert there, where people simply die in it. Only if there is an helicopter accompanying you. The helicopter should accompany them the whole night, he’ll tell them where they are located.
==
Just now, a pilot fell in the war.
Now, Trump said there will be no more war [with Iran], gomarnu, we’re folding.
Qatar and Bahrain influenced him, give the Iranians what they want! They deserve it.
In the end, they are smarter than Trump. They made an agreement with them – they got everything. It’s forbidden for the Jews to return fire. They fire in the morning, they fire on Shlomi[1] and Metulla.
==
Shlomi – the Rabbanit was there for a whole year.
She over-turned the whole of Shlomi, it was already all just chilonim, because they took all the children.
They drove to Shomera – this is after Shlomi, even more North, they wasn’t a single religious person there. I transformed the whole place.
They used to come from the kibbutzim with trucks and buses, to take the children on Shabbat for tiyulim, or to soccer games. They took the kids, the kids that came from Morocco, they came from Tunisia, from Algeria.
They came from all different places – and they drew them away. The parents saw that they they’d taken their kids away, gomarnu.
==
There was one man, Dubrovnik, he brought down in the book “Ha Ish Al HaHoma” that there was a journey of the rabbanim, that began on Chayei Sarah.
It was 30 days, they went to Afula, they went to Yavniel, they went to Kfar Tavor. And they went on foot from Kfar Tavor, they went on foot to Yavniel. And they rode on horses – the big rabbis, HaRav Yosef Sonnenfeld, and the Rav Kook.
Everybody rode on a horse, they went along the whole Jezreel Valley, Balforia, and the whole of Eretz Yisrael from Rehavia – all the moshavim.
And they spoke, and everyone was already without kippas, they’d become chilonim and they’d thrown everything away.
They went to the moshavim – there were no rabbis [there], they’d thrown everything away.
==
And then, there was such a great awakening.
If you do a journey like that, everyone will become religious. Just when they got to Degania, Moshe Dayan was born. Moshe Dayan was born precisely when they got to Degania, [R Sonnenfeld and R Kook] were at his bris.
He writes in the book there, we were at the bris of Moshe Dayan in Degania, when he was born.
His mother was called Rivka. They really were at the bris.
==
And exactly then, two people were killed.
Two watchmen, they were called notrim (watchmen). They Arabs managed to kill them, like Alexander Zaid.
Alexander Zaid – he has a huge statue in the Jezreel Valley. He was the first watchman, he organised the watchmen, and the guards, he organised everything.
Alexander Zaid.
==
There is Beit Yosef, Yad Yosef – every place where it’s written ‘Yosef’, it’s after Yosef Trumpeldor.
Now, 11 Adar, was his yahrtzeit. He died in 1920, because the Circassians delivered up Tel Hai.
They brought Circassians to guard the new settlers – and they delivered up Tel Hai. They opened the gates, and the Arabs entered and murdered everyone. Not a single person remained alive.
And like this, they wanted to destroy the yishuv.[2]
==
Because there was the Balfour Declaration.
The Balfour Declaration was on November 2, 1917, and then the English tried to take it back. They said that it was a mistake.
This isn’t correct, James Rothschild loaned him a lot of money. The Rothschilds lent Balfour a lot of money. Ben Sasson explained this to me, so then they gave the Declaration to James Rothschild[3].
They gave the Declaration, that they are obligated to found a ‘national home’ [for the Jews] and to obtain agreements to do this.
==
Excerpted and translated from Shivivei Or # 463.
==
You can read Wiki on Joseph Trumpeldor HERE.
And about Alexander Zaid (died 1938) HERE.
This is old footage from 1932, showing Alexander Zaid at home, and also settlers of Kfar Giladi:
==
[1] A small village on the Northern border.
[2] I.e. the organised, land-owning Jewish presence in Eretz Yisrael.
[3] It was actually given to Lionel Rothschild, according to conventional history.
Maybe, it’s a good sign.
Maybe, it’s actually a reaction to the enormous amounts of ridiculous stress we’ve been under here in Israel, for 3 years of war, and 3 years of Covid before that, finally starting to ease, a litte.
There’s an election coming, after all… funny how wars can get turned off, when incumbents are fighting for votes.
==
And to do ‘dumb’ stuff, like going bowling.
Or, buying new cook books.
Or, actually decluttering my office from the three thousand bits of paper floating around, all over the place.
Until I get to Uman, BH, and then hopefully I also get the spiritual re-boot I am desperately in need of, right now.
==
(BTW, I’ve been listening to some more Crappy Childhood Fairy, as my music is off because of the Three Weeks. I found this one really helpful:)
==
(Unless they just got back from a two week holiday to Thailand…)
It’s really been a long, tough haul, and it’s going to take a bit more time to process it all, and start to rebuild again.
Hopefully, they won’t come and flatten us all again, just as we get back on our feet…
==
They just sent me this, that they will pray for anyone who needs a shidduch on Tu B’av, a very auspicious day for finding a match, for a very small donation.
My contact told me that spiritually, Tu B’Av begins the construction of the New Year, already, it’s building how the New Year is going to look.
The gematria of shana tova in Hebrew is 377.
If someone donates 377 shekels to the Kollel, they can ask them to prayer for an unlimited number of names, to get a shidduch.
If a person just wants them to pray for a single name, they can donate: 26 shekels, which is the gematria for ‘zivug’.
==
Here’s the link:
26 nis – one person’s name for a shidduch
377 nis – unlimited list of names for a shidduch
And may we all just hear good news.
Here’s another snippet from one of the Rav’s shiurim, from last week:
==
[The Rav has been speaking about Togo, the Japanese army leader in WW2, who apparently didn’t believe that the ‘nukes’ were real, and told Hirohito that he could destroy the American fleet in the pacific in a few minutes, by using 5,000 kamikaze planes against them.]
There were 400 ships in the [Spanish] Armada.
Each ship had a thousand soldiers, this is 400,000 soldiers, that came to conquer England.
There was such a storm, all the the ships sank. He (i.e. Togo) said, like at the time of the Armada, this was in 1588.
And then, they founded the State of Virginia. ‘Virginia’, because she [Queen Elisabeth I] wasn’t married. Then, it was Elisabeth, she didn’t want to marry, because her husband died when she was 17 years old.[1]
==
She was a widow, at the age of 17.
I am not going to get married again…
By the non-Jews, if the husband dies, they don’t remarry. She walks around in black [mourning], she didn’t agree to be the head of the government.[2]
Benjamin Disraeli was a Jew.
Translated from Shivivei Or #463.
==
[1] Once again, the Rav is touching on something that is not obvious from conventional history. However, Elizabeth was in a relationship with the married Thomas Seymour aged 15, and he was executed on the grounds of treason two years later, after his wife had died in childbirth, when it was said he was planning to marry Elizabeth I. See here: https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofEngland/The-Love-Life-of-the-Virgin-Queen/
[2] The Rav is now talking about Queen Victoria, who wore mourning permanently after the death of Prince Albert. Disraeli was the Prime Minister of England during Queen Victoria’s long reign, and one of her favorites. He was a Jewish-born convert to Christianity, at a young age, after his father left Bevis Marks synagogue after a dispute about being asked to become a parnas there.
==
I am not so in the loop these days, so maybe I missed it…
If I did, happy for someone to let me know what the Rav said.
In the meantime, I got sent this over email:
==
Did the Rav really say Moshiach in 200 years? I seem to remember that what he said was Milchemet Gog Umagog in 200 years. Personally, I think Moshiach’s arrival (revelation) is even more imminent now than then. The war against Iran/Amalek… that began on parashat Zachor etc. Listen to Kav Hageulah Viyeshuah (US number is 716 232 2416, I don’t know the Israeli number). Hear the original in Ivrit from R’ Elimelech Himmelfarb by pressing 7 or English abridged translations by pressing 0 then 1. He mentioned in the name of the tzaddik nistar (from whom most of the messages come) that Rav Amos was Mashiach Ben Yosef and his murder was a Korban on behalf of Klal Yisrael to bring the geulah even closer.
The date was July 2012.
The world was going to hell in a handbasket – here in Israel, we had the ‘dream team’ of Bennett and Lapid who would collaborate with Likud after the early 2013 elections, going after the Torah world mercilessly, and literally stripping frum parents of child benefits, closing down yeshivas anyway they could, threatening forced army service…
Wars being threatened on every border…
You can go to the ‘Year in Israel 2012’ Wiki page HERE, for more details.
Bibi was still PM
Peres (!) was President.
Gantz was heading the army.
The Tal Law had just expired.
There were attacks on the Egyptian border, the Syrian border, ‘Operation Pillar of Defense’, the stabbing intifada…
==
Bkitzur, what’s really changed, since then?
Everything, and also, precisely nothing.
==
One would be murdered.
One would go into exile.
One would undergo soul-destroying ‘disgrace’ and bizayon.
In the end, the Rav ended up doing both those last ones himself…
==
It’s probably no coincidence, that R Amos Guetta, ztzl, got stabbed a few days ago in circumstances that are so similar to the Baba Elazar.
And the Rav?
I don’t know. Maybe’s he’s taken on enough bizayon and exile the last 14 years, that no more is required.
I hope so.
But here we are again, another ‘big’ election looming, the Bennett-Lapid dream team still going after the Torah learners, still chaos and threatened ‘wars’ on all of Israel’s borders…
Tell me again, exactly who and what are we meant to be voting for here?
==
And the ‘madness’ began in earnest, with the Rav, and Breslov generally.
BH, I am hoping this is the ‘book end’ for 2012 – maybe, just maybe, leading to the outcome we hoped would happen 14 years ago.
I guess, we will find out.
==
THE SELF-SACRIFICE OF THE TZADDIKIM
Shortly afer these three Gedolei Hador made their Heavenly pact
to do everything they could do, spiritually, to sweeten the terrible
situation facing the Jewish people that was looming on the hori-
zon, the first act of self-sacrifce on behalf of the Jewish people
occurred.On the evening of July 28, 2011 (26 Tammuz 5771), Rav Elazar
Abuchatzeira (who was also ofen referred to as the Baba Elazar)
was stabbed to death in the waiting room of his yeshivah in Beer
Sheva at the end of his routine visiting hours when members of
the public would come to him for advice and a blessing.His killer, A.D., was an outwardly observant chareidi man from
Elad who had come to speak with the Baba Elazar many times
before. Eyewitnesses said that the Baba Elazar seemed to have
known in advance what was about to happen and rushed over
happily to meet his attacker, who then drew a knife and repeatedly
stabbed him.Te Baba Elazar was rushed by ambulance to the Soroka Medical
Center in Beer Sheva, but was pronounced dead on arrival. Te
murder of this holy man shocked the nation to its core, and many
thousands of people attended his funeral the following day, when
he was buried on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem.
==
Speaking a few days afer the event, a distraught Rav Shalom
Arush told the public that a kabbalist had called him up shortly
before the Baba Elazar had been murdered and told him that a
terrible thing was about to happen, but that it would bring the
geulah, the redemption of Am Yisrael, closer. But the true story
behind the Baba Elazar’s murder would remain hidden for a little
while longer.THE RAV’S EXILE BEGINS
During Chanukah 5771 (December 2010), Rav Berland’s exile
from Jerusalem and the Shuvu Banim Yeshivah began. From
Jerusalem, the Rav went up to the Galilee for a period of time be-
fore deciding to live in the city of Beitar Illit, located to the south
of Jerusalem.The first part of Rav Berland’s deal to save the Jewish people had
been set in motion, and over the coming years, his exile would take
him from Israel to many different locations, including Morocco,
South Africa, and Holland.The next part of the deal—being publicly shamed, insulted, hu-
miliated, and losing his good name—only began a little while
later. The second volume of this book will introduce the diferent
groups of people who were persecuting the Rav, and the different
motivations they had for doing that. But the most important thing
to remember is that Rav Berland himself agreed to be shamed and
exiled, in order to atone for the Jewish people and bring the redemption the sweet way.Even many years ago, he knew that he would be shamed and ex-
iled, and spent a lifetime preparing himself—and his yeshivah—to
pass the test.==
WHAT THE TZADDIK TAKES UPON HIMSELF, TO ATONE
FOR THE GENERATIONOn many occasions before his exile and persecution began, Rav
Berland publicly spoke about how the tzaddikim were obliged to
take upon themselves difculties and sufering, and to travel all
over the world from place to place, to return all of Am Yisrael to
the path of Torah observance and belief in Hashem.
He explained that the tzaddikim want everyone to be “sealed in
the book of life”—even the evildoers.In Likutei Moharan Lesson 228, Rebbe Nachman teaches that,
when Hashem sees a person who can bring the world to do te-
shuva, Hashem Himself makes sure that this person is constantly
beset by machlokes so that he will never be at peace. Tis way, any-
one who continues to follow this person will assuredly be doing it
only from pure motives, and not to gain honor.Elsewhere, Rebbe Nachman explained why the Tzaddik is subject
to such harsh persecution and controversy. He likens the Tzaddik
to a tree and likens machlokes to water, and explains that, just as
a tree cannot grow without water, so too a Tzaddik cannot grow
without controversy.Speaking about the terrible slander and persecution he was en-
during at this stage, Rebbe Nachman continued: “Believe me, if
I wanted to I could end all the mochlokes against me, and there
would not be a single person against me. But what can I do?
There are levels that cannot be reached without controversy”.Elsewhere, Rebbe Nachman explained that even people who
didn’t actually know him were against him, because the Tzaddik
needs controversy even to this extent.
==
Ad kan, from OIAG I.
I guess for myself, the main difference between then and now is that then, I really, really did think Moshiach was imminent, any second.
Now… I don’t know.
Maybe, it is going to be another 200 years, as the Rav says.
And if so – then we have to focus on bringing the koach of Moshiach down into our own dalet amot, primarily, by overcoming our own bad middot, and lack of emuna.
Everything else is out of our hands.
And even Moshiach is not going to do that, for us.
He was a big public supporter of Rav Berland, and all this feels so similar to what happened with the Baba Elazar, and the ‘deal’ the Baba Elazar struck with R Dov Kook of Tiberius, and Rav Berland, to split up the terrible issurim due to Am Yisrael between themselves.
I will BH post up something from OIAG 1 tomorrow, which recaps that.
I don’t know what’s going on, but for sure, R Guetta’s murder just sweetened something huge for Am Yisrael.
==
In the meantime, this is from OIAG III:
THE DISGRACE OF THE TZADDIK
The month before the tragedy in Meron, on March 23, 2021, Israel had yet another round of elections- and yet again, it appeared that neither side had the 61 mandates required to ‘become king’ and form a new government.
As the squabbling and horse-trading and arguing continued in the corridors of power, it seemed as though Israel was fast heading to yet another election – the fifth in less than two years.
At this time Rav Berland continued to sit in jail, and very troubling rumors started reaching the Shuvu Banim community that the Rav was being treated in a horrendous way.
He wasn’t recieving even the the type of basic care required for an elderly man with myriad serious medical issues, including being given low-grade food that was very bad for his health; being left in the same clothes for weeks at a time, and generally receiving the same type of ‘care’ that had come very close to killing him the first time he was imprisoned.
On May 14, 2021, the well-known kabbalist from Netanya, the late Rabbi Amos Gweta, ztzl, publicized a message with a very harsh warning, via R’ Chanan Vaknin, the gabbai of Kollel Olga.[1]
R’ Vaknin had been invited on to Radio Kol Chai by broadcaster Moshe Ben Lulu – but the journalist clearly didn’t know what message R’ Vaknin was about to give over.
Ben Lulu began the segment by saying to R’ Vaknin:
“You are known as someone who is close to the kabbalist Rabbi Amos of Netanya. It’s known that you are close to great Tzaddikim: Rabbi Dov Kook [from Teveria), Rav Stern [from Bnei Brak], Rav Golan from Alma – all the great Tzaddikim. Do you have a message from Rav Amos?”
R Vaknin replied:
“Yes. I have an important message from him! We are close to Netanya and go to him a lot. Rabbi Amos said one thing now which needs to be said, about what is happening now:
For a long time the Jewish people are silent, great rabbis are silent, the entire world is silent — about the disgracing of a great Tzaddik, the Tzaddik of the generation, who is Rabbi Eliezer Berland shlit”a, whom they are disgracing from morning to evening!
You know, the Shas party, everyone…, when you say to them about Bibi [Netanyahu], that he still hasn’t been tried, they answer, Bibi is a ‘tzaddik’ — he’s presumed innocent.
But Rabbi Berland shlit”a – they’re torturing him for a year and a half in prison — and he still hasn’t been tried, and everyone is afraid to protest! Now, they brought the Rav to the district court in a mobile intensive care unit! He needed to have intensive care inside the courthouse!
What they annulled for Bibi [i.e. to appear in court], for Rabbi Berland, they don’t annul! The kabbalist Rabbi Amos said that if people don’t protest the affront to the Tzaddik… For a year and a half, he’s not with us: there was no Uman, there was no Rabbi Shimon — there was a tragedy by Rabbi Shimon.
This year, Rabbi Berland screamed: ‘I want to go to Rabbi Shimon. I want to sweeten the decrees!’ They didn’t allow him…And the Sages of Israel — forgive us, we are dust at their feet — are not protesting. Not one protests. This Tzaddik is now in an ambulance, Reb Moshe.”
R’ Vaknin continued:
“There was never something like this — they take an 84-year-old Jew in an ambulance to the district court to try him for things that he has absolutely no connection to. Rabbi Amos screamed — he’s on video — he screamed: “If people don’t protest the insult to the honor of Rabbi Eliezer Berland, there will be a tragedy 1000 times greater!
We need to wake up because of this. There is a presumption of innocence for everyone, yet everyone is silent!”
==
At that point, the presenter Ben Lulu brought the segment to a close by saying the following:
“Ok, listen Channan. I’m going to tell you something. I have an order here [at Radio Kol Chai] not to talk about Rabbi Berland, but because you said that the kabbalist Rabbi Amos said this, I was silent, and I know what I’ll ‘receive’ after the program [for allowing him to continue to speak about Rabbi Berland]. But here you spoke. Thank you very much.”[2]
[1] https://ravberland.com/kabbalist-reveals-reason-for-4th-intifada-and-warns-of-tragedy-a-1000-times-greater/
[2] To hear the original recording in Hebrew: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJstTHcwyT0