Yesterday, I put up a post for 5 minutes, called ‘Anyone else smelling a rat?’

It was about the elections in Israel, or more precisely, all the scary official warnings that ‘Iran’ is going to try to disrupt them.

Whatever.

The point was, not to buy into all the fearmongering, not to buy into all the angermongering, not to buy into all the hatemongering, going on via the MSM, and also on social media.

Because our bad middot give the Evils the ‘koach’ required spiritually, to try to pull off all their horrible plans for humanity.

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Of course, easier said than done, right?

Easier said than done for me, at least, because since the end of Elul, I feel like the small ship Rivka has been tossed on the wildest waves, out at sea, for weeks and weeks.

Some of that stuff you know if you read my blog – the bed bugs things, the red ants thing, the being totally and utterly exhausted to the depth of my soul thing, the incredible confusion about where to live thing…

Some stuff, I’ve been sharing here.

But not everything – and the biggest stuff of all is really just the internal dynamics that have been in operation, the last few months.

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Some of it boils down to feeling totally lost in this process of geula.

Is that still happening?

Is redemption still on the way? Is moshiach still imminent?

Because day to day over the last while – really since Purim 2024, when all that stuff with ‘Rivka HaTzaddika’ blew up – it’s been feeling like geula has been receding into the distance, not coming closer.

And if you feel what a ‘mess’ the world is in, that’s difficult.

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So, a big part of the struggle recently is to continue to have optimism, to continue to hope for better times, to continue to hang on to the idea that Moshiach really can come at any moment – even, perhaps especially, when it seems like that’s impossible, tachlis.

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But in the meantime, Moshiach didn’t come (yet…)

So, I’ve been trying to figure out what do I do with myself, day to day, in the meantime? And that means engaging much more in the physical world, and climbing down from my ivory tower of geula, where I can continue kicking the can down the road for a few more years, because Moshiach is going to show up imminently and save me, you and everyone else from our misery.

Right?

Except no, really that’s not right.

That’s not Moshiach’s job. That’s our job.

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The last couple of months, God has been sending me a whole bunch of clues that there is a big price to pay, for ignoring the messages that something radical has to change in myself, in my attitude, in my middot, in my circumstances.

I can’t just keep on kidding myself that I’m on a level of emuna I really am not on.

Or, that I don’t want things that I really, really do want.

Or, that I can carry on pretending that acting like a selfless suffering martyr is a) what God really wants from me and b) actually good for anyone around me.

It’s totally, totally not.

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But that’s been so challenging.

Figuring out what healthy boundaries are, let alone putting them in place and then policing them has been, and continues to be, one of the biggest challenges I have at the moment.

And how all this squares with mesirut nefesh and trying to bitul the self to others, and to God – it’s very complicated. Every day brings up a new batch of massive birurim to try and figure out and sort through.

And I’m still getting so much wrong.

But I know God has patience, and that the process is what He’s really interested in.

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I also know, that ignoring God’s clues that we really have to jump off the cliff, to change, to move, to step out the comfort zone, is not a good strategy, long term.

The clues only get more obvious.

The shout gets louder.

The slaps get harder.

The wave of ‘stuff’ to deal with becomes more and more overwhelming – until either we drown in it, God forbid, or we put the flag up, like Yonah in the Whale, and accept whatever ‘mission’ God has given us to do.

Whatever new path He wants us to walk down.

Scary as that so is.

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So, ‘Iran’ isn’t scaring me, honestly.

But the fight within, the storm within – it’s been hair-raising.

This week, after I made a bunch of decisions to try to change a bunch of the stuff that I think God wants me to work on, the sea is calmer. The waves have reduced. I can breathe again.

The little ship Rivka is heading for port.

But, we all know how unstable the world is right now.

We all know, everything changes in a blink of an eye…

That the windfall, the bite of the scorpion and Moshiach all fall upon a person unexpectedly.

As we move more into the month of the scorpion, I give us all a blessing, that we find the courage to listen to the clues God is giving us all, about what really needs to change in our lives.

And that God also gives us to the koach to act upon that new understanding.

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PS: I am loving the words of this song by Ben Tzur:

Very appropriate, for the month of the mabul.

This is the second of probably three installments.

You can read Part 1 HERE.

This is translated from an interview Nachman Gilad conducted with the Rav’s sister, Leah Gal, that appeared in Hitchadshut.

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In the meantime, the winds of war were blowing in Europe.

Ettia’s parents lived in Tash. [The author refers to a previously published letter from Rabbi Moshe Strulovitz, which described what had happened there during WW2.] Meanwhile, now information started to arrive about what happened to the Jews of Krasnystaw, including the mother and brother of Reb Chaim, during the Shoah.

In Elul 5699 (1939), Nazi Germany conquered Poland, and Krasnystaw also fell into their hands. The dreadful consequences were immediately visible within the town. Right next to the main road, seven Jews were killed, and Jewish businesses were plundered.

A year later, around 1200 Jews from the town were corralled into a walled ghetto, from where they were then sent to concentration camps. As in the rest of Poland, so in Krasnystaw, the Germans plundered, robbed and destroyed the Jewish citizens.

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On the first day of Yom Tov of Pesach 5701 (1940), the SS passed through the ghetto, together with a group of Ukrainians, who took the Jews out of Krasnystaw and sent them to the city of Izbitza, from where they were sent to the Belzec extermination camp.[1]

Tzirel and her son Matis Berland were amongst the Jews murdered there.

[The author of the article Nachman Gilad found the witness statement signed by Chaim Berland at Yad Vashem in 1947, #29011956.] Where Chaim described the murder of his mother and brother, who was said to have worked as a tailor. Chaim signed his name, and gave his address, of 2 Zevulun Street, Haifa.

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[Nachman Gilad gave a copy of the signed declaration to Leah, Chaim’s daughter, during the interview].

“This is my Abba’s signature! I’m very touched,” she said. Meanwhile, Gilad tried to find out more about the grandfather, Eliezer Berland, and his religious affiliation. Leah replied:

“I don’t know, which chassidut my grandfather was affiliated with, because my father never said anything. He didn’t speak about the Shoah, and not about the family. Today, I’m sorry that I didn’t ask him. He was the embodiment of “silence is a fence for wisdom.”

What I did understand from him, was that his grandmother raised him, and that it wasn’t simple… He learned in yeshiva until the age of 18, and then he escaped to Israel, via Romania. He learnt Romanian for a few months, and then he arrived in Israel.

My husband, z’l, used to speak Hungarian and Romanian, and my father used to speak with my husband, his son-in-law, in Romanian. I will never forget it.”

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And so, Nachman Gilad was unable to ascertain more about Rav Berland’s paternal familiy, and which stream of chassidut they belonged to.

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With the end of WW2, some of the refugees decided to come to Eretz Yisrael.

In this way, the siblings of Ettia Berland, who had survived the holocaust, made aliya, and Chaim and Ettia set out the welcome mat for them, and gave them lodging in Israel. Leah explains:

“There was always hachnassat orchim in our home. The door was always open. When my aunts came back from Auschwitz, they were in our house until they got married. I had a few aunts, [my parents] gave them a room, and each couple that got married, until they found their own apartment, they used to live with us.

They loved my father very much, simply, it can’t be described! Back then, we slept in the same room as our parents, three kids together with the parents, in one room. And they slept in the second room – there were two bedrooms. It was truly mesirut nefesh.”

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Leah continues to describe her father, Reb Chaim:

“My father was a tzaddik, he was a straight, humble person, a talmid chacham, a person who knew the holy books. He used to sit and learn with his sons, and especially, he’d learn gemara with them. There’s a picture of him, where he’s sitting with Moshe Berland [the son of Rabbi Yehezkel Berland, z’tl, the Rav’s brother] when he was five years old, and learned with him.

That picture is from 50-something years ago, it was on erev Shabbat. In the picture, you can see the candlesticks have been prepared, and also the table, with the tablecloth in honour of the Shabbat. And they are sitting there, learning. That’s how my father used to look. He was an ish tam,yoshev ohalim. And as well as the gemara, I remember that he also taught them chess.”

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“Sometimes, when I think about my two brothers’ great love of Torah and their diligence, I think that they inherited this from my father, and of course, also from my mother’s mesirut nefesh.

As I said, she used to take them on foot every day, just to ensure her children were getting good chinuch (education).

Our home was one where the Torah, and the laws, and the minhagim, were respected. And it’s clear to me, that if my father had been able to work more independently, he would only have worked for part of the day, and then the rest of the day he would have learned in kollel.

For example, that’s how my husband, Gabi, a’h did, in his older years. His full name was Chaim Eliyahu Gabriel, but we called him Gabi. He died two years’ ago, and my brothers loved him a lot.

When he got to retirement, he used to go to the kollel and study there every day, from 8am to 12pm. There is a kollel here, in Haifa, and he used to go and learn. After all, learning Torah is the aleph-bet of being a Jew. There are many people here in the neighborhood [Neve Sheanan] who are doing this.

This neighborhood has become very religious.

When I was a little girl, I barely saw anyone wearing a kippa here. There was a period of time after [my brothers] got married that they didn’t use to come here, because they were scared someone would scream at them [for wearing a kippa].

==

One of the things that the Rav has been speaking about recently, is the topic of shmirat halashon, and fleeing from machloket (dissension).

Leah recalls that this was a distinguishing characteristic of her father, Chaim.

“My father fulfilled the verse “silence is a fence for wisdom.” And lived by “life and death are in the hands of the tongue”. I never, ever heard him speak lashon hara. I didn’t know there was such a thing like this, in the world. In any case, he was not a big talker. He only spoke when he needed to, and even then, he was very careful with his words. Where would you see or hear things like this?!

My father was a person with a very good heart, who was gentle with others. People loved and respected him.

Also in the house, we all loved him very much. I used to call him ‘Golda’le’, which sounds like ‘gold’ – that’s how I used to like to call him.”

==

Leah now starts to reminisce about the wider Berland family:

“We never met our grandfathers, or grandmothers, from either side.

We just knew the aunts and my mother’s relations. On my father’s side, I know that here in Israel, he had one uncle Berland, called David. We were in touch with him. His son learned in the Technion [in Haifa], and he used to spend a lot of time in our house. Today, he lives in Rehovot. This was our family.”

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Leah explains that although not everyone kept the religious laws the same way as the younger members of the Berland family, the strong connection continued.

“Apart from one of my aunts, the rest of the aunts didn’t keep Shabbat.

But, they didn’t kindle any lights, and they didn’t cook on Shabbat, and they used to say that they learned that from our house – that once a week, a person needs to rest. Of course, they kept kosher. My parents honoured them greatly, and they honoured my parents, in return. My mother, who was the oldest girl, was like their mother.

They had an unusual agreement between them. Once, they sat in the room, everyone together, and swore that they would never fight with each other. Even if you say alef, and I say bet, it doesn’t matter. It’s allowed to have different opinions, the question is only how do you express it, in what manner do you say it.

Until the last day of their lives, they never fought with each other – and this is something that I am trying to instill in my own children and grandchildren, bezrat Hashem.”

TBC

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FOOTNOTE:

[1] Read more about Belzec, a camp created by the Nazis solely to exterminate Jews, Poles and Gypsies en masse, here: https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/belzec

 

Chaim Berland, the Rav’s father – interview with Leah Gal

Translated from Hitchadshut #85

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The following is taken from an interview conducted by Nachman Gilad, for a book he is writing about Rav Berland, with the Rav’s sister, Leah Gal, focussing on the Rav’s father, Chaim Berland.

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Chaim Berland came from the city of Krasnystaw, in Poland, approximately 25km away from the city of Chelm, 50km away from the city of Lublin, and located on the Wieprz River. Jews had been living in the small town of Krasnystaw since at least the 15th century, but under a number of restrictions.

Jewish life really only started to flourish in the 19th and 20th centuries, when some of the restrictions on the Jewish community were removed, and the kehilla started to grow significantly.

The Jews, who accounted for a third of the 7,500 population on the eve of WW2, played a significant role in the town’s economy, and primarily made a living from trade. The Berland family were numbered amongst the town’s Jewish residents.

Chaim Berland had a small family, his parents, R Eliezer Berland, his mother Tzirel, and his brother Matis. Eliezer Berland senior worked for the large family bakery in Chelm, together with his brothers. The bakery was very well known, and is even mentioned in Washington’s Holocaust Memorial Museum, which has 27 black and white photos of the bakery, and its bakers, at work.

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The mother of the family, Eliezer Berland Snr’s wife, was Tzirel, and they had two children: 1) Matis-Mordechai, and Reb Chaim, the father of Rav Berland.

Reb Chaim was born in YEAR, and three years after his birth, his father R’ Eliezer, died. His mother remarried, and Matis and Chaim were sent to their grandparents. Chaim grew from a child to a youth, and spent much of his time soaking up the Torah atmosphere within some of the yeshivot in Poland.

Later on, he combined his Torah learning with working at the bakery, that his uncles continued to run in Chelm.

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Around this time, antisemitism in Poland began to grow to worrying proportions, and around the age of 18, Chaim Berland decided it was time to leave the land of his birth, and move to Eretz Yisrael.

The decision wasn’t easy, and the journey took Chaim from Poland, into Romania, in very difficult conditions. According to Rav Berland’s own account of his father’s journey:

My father went on foot… From Poland, from Lublin, he went on foot. He got detained on the Romanian border. He was an orphan, and he didn’t agree to eat. He didn’t agree! [He said]: “I am not prepared to enter houses to eat there.” He was hungry the whole week. He slept on benches, there was nowhere for him to sleep.

He was an orphan, he didn’t have a father or mother, he slept on benches in the yeshiva, and was hungry for bread the whole week. Perhaps, on Shabbat, once, someone would invite him. He didn’t want to be somewhere where there would be girls, and all kinds of things. He was always tzanua (modest) – mamash, a tzanua and holy person. When you went to other people’s houses, that always led to problems.

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At this time, the Shomer haTzair youth movement came into being, under the supervision of the ‘HeHalutz HaTzair’ national organisation. As its known, this movement was not exactly known for being ‘yirat shemayim’ – however, they represented the main, and in most cases, only, route for a young Jew to get into Eretz Yisrael.

So, Chaim decided to join the Shomer haTzair movement, but with one goal in mind: to make aliya to Eretz Yisrael. His wish was granted, and he moved to Israel, and made his home in the city of Haifa.

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‘Red Haifa”

Haifa was known as ‘Red Haifa’ during these years, because of the very high numbers of Histadrut members who lived in the city.

While Mapai[1] was the political wing of Labour Zionist movement, the Histadrut was it’s organisational counterpart, and the part of the movement that actually owned assets, and controlled workers, on the ground, in Eretz Yisrael.

As this time, the British were ruling over Eretz Yisrael. When the Histadrut started to organise the financial and governing institutions required for a new State, under the name of ‘Hevrat HaOvdim’, they were accused of building a ‘state within a state’, by the British.

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The heads of the European Zionist movements had just one aim: to settle Eretz Yisrael with as many Jews as they could – who were far away from mitzvot and Torah observance.

They wanted to be a ‘state, just like every other state’.

To this end, they created a number of secular youth organisations, like the Shomer HaTzair, who were structured around communal activities that were designed to break an individual’s attachment to mitzvot and Torah observance.

It’s hard to describe the very difficult tests that Jewish youth were subjected at this time, via the youth organisations. Anyone who wanted to leave Europe basically had one option for doing that, in nearly all cases – i.e. by joining a secular youth organisation.

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One of the ways that the youth organisations used to break an individual’s commitment to mitzvot and Torah observance was by separating the youth away from their parents, at the earliest opportunity, and sending them to secular kibbutzim for indoctrination.

Few could stand up in this terrible test, and many formerly religious Jews from Europe became ‘secular Israelis’.

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Reb Chaim Berland’s father had died in his youth, as we mentioned, and so he’d grown up with his grandparents.

In some ways, his tests were greater than others in the youth movement, because he didn’t have the support of his parents, even from a distance. There was no possibility his parents were ever going to ‘make aliya’ to join their son, where they’d see what he’d made of himself.

However, the main point is that making aliyah at this time was very, very difficult. The British were trying to keep the flow of new immigrants to Eretz Yisrael down, and worked with the Zionist organisations to distribute a very limited number of ‘certificates’ to Jews who wanted to make aliya.

As is known, religious Jews were not given priority for these certificates. There was some ‘illegal’ immigration, nevertheless, but the secular Zionists controlled the main aliya spigot, via the certificates distributed by the British.

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Chaim Berland made aliya in 1926, and made his home in Haifa.

After a few years, he moved to a new neighbourhood in Haifa, ‘Sderot Moriah’, where the Feldman family lived on Marcus Street. Chaim became their lodger, and that is where he met Ettia, Rav Berland’s mother, who was the first cousin of Menachem Feldman, the head of the family. Ettia had recently made aliyah from Hungary, in 1936.

Leah Gal, Rav Berland’s sister, now takes up the story:

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“After the wedding, my parents lived at #20 Tiveria St.. When I was born, they moved to #2 Zevulun St., in the ‘Hadar HaCarmel’ neighborhood. When we moved to Zevulun and ‘Hadar HaCarmel’, there was the Rushmia Wadi, or to give it its Hebrew name, ‘Nahal HaGiborim’.”

Above that riverbed, there is the famous bridge, that’s called the ‘Giborim Bridge’. It’s famous for it’s stylish decoration, and when it was built spanning 90 meters, it was the longest bridge in Eretz Yisrael.

After the bridge was built, joining Hadar HaCarmel to the neighbouring areas, it quickly became the main road in Haifa, and the bridge turned into a local landmark. In the process, Hadar HaCarmel transformed from a quite residential area to the centre of the town, with Herzl Street becoming the main road.

During the War of Independence, in 1848, Israeli soldiers were stationed in the Wadi to secure the entrance to Haifa, so it was renamed ‘Giborim Bridge’. This is where Reb Chaim and Ettia lived, with their growing family.

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Leah continues:

“After the wedding, my father went to work as a baker. He used to work from 2am, that’s when he left the house – and it didn’t matter what sort of weather was happening outside, whether it was raining, or summer. And he would come home at 4-5pm, totally exhausted.

He worked very hard, in order to support our family.

My mother, a’h, used to go each day with the children, to the dati (religious) school, on Michael Street, which was very far away, to go and come back. It was an hour to go, and another hour to come back. It wasn’t for nothing, that she had such tzaddikim, for children.

Truly, it was tremendous mesirut nefesh. I don’t know if there was anyone else in Haifa who did that.”

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TBC

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There are some awesome pictures of the Rav as a baby and young boy accompanying this interview.

I am trying to figure out how I can share them with you here, online.

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FOOTNOTES

[1] MAPAI stands for Miflagat Poelei Eretz Israel, or ‘the Workers’ Party of Eretz Israel’.

I’m not translating much from the Rav, as there have been no newsletters for a few weeks, because of the chagim.

In the meantime, I am kinda enjoying the space of not having a billion things to do every day, to breathe out a bit, and start to think, feel and pray again.

I’ve been doing hitbodedut every single day, for an hour, for 20 years.

But the last couple of years, I have mostly been ‘ducking’ checking in with myself, as I didn’t really want to hear the answers.

That some big changes were required, are required.

That’s scary, potentially. On a whole bunch of levels.

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But what I realised recently, since the red ant bites that set off an extreme allergic reaction that felt like a heart attack, and who knows, maybe even was one, is that I’m not here forever, and ‘playing it safe’ is a fools’ game.

I’m not talking about taking pointless risks, or extreme actions stam.

I’m talking about living in alignment with the path God has set out for us to really become the ‘us’ He created us to be, and that path does NOT end in a comfort zone, where there is nothing more pressing to do than order a new cut for the expensive wig or plan the most fantabulous Shabbos menu anyone ever saw in their life.

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That doesn’t necessarily mean that a person’s path doesn’t lead them to more gashmius, btw.

For me personally, one of the biggest changes I have to make is to really listen to the loud, deafening message, that I need my own house, and I need it to be in Jerusalem, and I need it to be somewhere I could happily live.

I.e. not a basement with 1.8m high ceilings, not a dump in Armon HaNetziv that in 10 years time is going to be an expensive mega-tower, not a nice but overpriced apartment on a creepy road with yucky neighbours and no synagogues or real community.

I need a home.

Of my own. In Jerusalem. And not in 10  years time

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That understanding is bringing a bunch of scary stuff in its train, like how on earth can I afford this?!

After reading Rav Berland’s prayers to get an apartment twice in a row, here is what I realised:

1. The Rav wants people to have a big, nice apartment in Jerusalem, and not a dump.
2. He’s written prayers tfor people to say to ask God to send the money required, and make the parnassa plentiful enough to pay the mortgage.
3. He’s not talking about prayers to rent here, but prayers to actually buy something here, ergo, buying a place in Jerusalem is clearly a mitzvah.
4. I can’t be scared about moving forward, because the worst thing of all is to stay stuck in a ‘comfortable’ or ‘sensible’ place, that is really just an excuse for staying fearful and far away from God.
5. That doesn’t mean that the outcome is going to be 100% what I want – but the point is, God wants the effort, the journey, and even the bad experiences are stepping stones to growth and development and greater happiness. Or at least, they can be.

==

There is so much fear in the world, so much uncertainty.

My very sensible acupuncture lady was all worrying that Trump had moved his planes and was going to ‘bomb Iran’.

My daughter is worrying about stocks collapsing in America (I don’ t know why, she lives in a caravan and is not Warren Buffett…)

Everyone I know is worrying about housing, on a bunch of different levels.

War on…war off…

Healthy…sick…

To move, or not to move…

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Bottom line:

We are trying to create ‘certainty’ in a world where none really exists – except, that Hashem is our Rock.

Our Base, our Anchor, the only real place of refuge for the soul.

And God doesn’t want us hiding out under some stone for 30 years, counting down the days until we finally pop off, petrified every day about ‘what will the neighbours say’, or ‘how can I afford to move job / country / school’, whatever it is.

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We have to live.

We have to move forward.

And not just stay stuck in the past, in the comfort zone, in mistaken ideas of how our life ‘is meant to be’.

Are you happy?

Are you excited to wake up in the morning?

Are you looking forward to the next 20 years, or dreading them?

Are you healthy? Energised? Optimistic?

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If the answer is ‘no’… something big needs to change.

In you.

In me.

In us.

So that we come back to the real path that God set out for us in life, however ‘difficult’ it looks, from our armchair in the comfort zone.

==

Tov.

Here’s another interesting video on sleep from Tommy John, in the meantime:

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And I’ll get back to translating more Rav soon, BH.