More translated comments from Rav Berland, last week.

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Second day of Rosh Hashana 5785, after kiddush

Now, it’s the fiftieth gate.

Now, it’s the geulah.

All those who are here will merit to have 10 sons and 10 daughters.

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In a seperate shiur from Shabbat Ha’azinu –Shuva 5785.

Before the reading of the Torah.

Yaakov Biton spoke with the Rav about the Gemara in Masechet Yoma, page 9, about the 18 Kohen Gadols of Beit Rishon (the First Temple), and the 300 kohens of the Beit Sheni (Second Temple).

[The Rav said]:

Beit Rishon, 410 [years] there were 18 Kohanim. Beit Sheni, 210 [years[, there were 300 Kohanim [Kohen Gadols], because they paid for the kahuna (the High Priesthood).

The Gemara in Yoma says that the 18 Kohanim who didn’t die, this is because they were from the seed of Pinchas. Whoever was from the seed of Pinchas, he didn’t die.

He merited to the bracha:

“Behold! I give him My covenant of peace.”[1]

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[Yaakov Biton said]: The 18 Kohens [of the First Temple] were tzaddikim.

[The Rav replied]:

Yes, they were tzaddikim. But they didn’t die because they were from the seed of Pinchas. Whoever paid for the kahuna, they died in that same year.

300 kohanim – they all died.

Only 18, who were from the seed of Pinchas, lived. They didn’t die. Because Pinchas was:

“[T]here was no man.”[2]

The women in the midbar (desert) didn’t die. They were taking their vitamins, so they wouldn’t die in the midbar.

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[Yaakov Biton said]:

The difference between Beit Rishon and Sheni was that in the Beit Rishon, there were three sins: avoda zara (idol worship), gilui arayot (sexual immorality), and bloodshed. And in the Second Temple [it’s destruction was because of] lashon hara, which is even worse.

[The Rav replied]:

Yes, lashon hara is the worst.

Here [in the First Temple], you are murdering a person, but then it’s finished. But lashon hara is for all of a person’s life. It’s been repeated all over again, all the time.

A person says something, or does something, they talk about him on all the news channels, and in all the newspapers, and on all the televisions in chutz l’aretz (outside Eretz Yisrael).

The lashon hara remains.

Hashem says, I forgive those three other sins, but when it comes to lashon hara, I don’t forgive!

Lashon hara is worse than everything else.

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[Ephraim Revia asked]:

Does this involve ‘his blood, and the blood of his offspring’?[3]

[The Rav replies]:

Yes, of course. This is for all the generations.

My grandchildren,  my great-grandchildren, they [still] aren’t being accepted into [educational] institutions. Even if they are the most gaon (genius), they don’t let them in to any institutions.

Just ‘via the back door’, but otherwise they don’t accept them.

There always [has to be] someone with connections, how get’s them in, in the end. But this is affecting my grandchildren and my great-grandchildren across all the generations.

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[Yishai Chazan says]:

We didn’t hear anything from the Rav about the destruction of Nasrallah…?

[The Rav replies]: Nasrallah was the biggest tzaddik.

Personally, I was against his assassination. Personally. He learned with me in Rechasim. You also learned [there], do you remember him?[4] Yes, he remembers.

And so, he wanted the Galilee, because he learned in Rechasim. Did your father learn in Rechasim?

(Yishai Biton replies, in Or HaHayyim.)

Ah, you were with the Rav Elabaz, but he learned in Kfar Chassidim.

He was the biggest tzaddik. He just wanted to send everyone to Gan Eden.

==

Because we gave over a shiur 30 years ago, about kiddush Hashem.[5] Do you remember that shiur?

We said that at least, they should spit at you, they should fire at you, they should do something, so that you feel that you’re worth something.

If they don’t spit at you, it’s a sign that you aren’t worth even being spat at.

We said that 30 years ago, you were already in Shuvu Banim.

So, Meir David Isaac and [name missing from original text], they went to Sha’ar Shechem. And they said to the Arabs, see, we came. Come and stab us! We want to die al kiddush Hashem!

So the Arabs laughed at them.

They really asked for a sword, they said that [the Arabs[ should shoot at them, so that they would feel that they were worth something.

But they [the arabs] didn’t agree. You can’t rely on them for anything. They are living in their own world.

Only Nasrallah used to stab them.

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Translated from Shivivei Or 378.

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FOOTNOTES:

[1] Parshat Pinchas, 25:12

[2] See Parshat Pinchas, 26:63-65.

[3] Based on verse 4:10 in Bereishit, where God tells Cain: “What have you done? The voice of your brother’s bloods cries out to me from the ground!” The Sages discuss why ‘bloods’ is in plural. One explaination, from Midrash Bereishit Rabba, 22:9, is that ‘bloods’ refers to the offspring that Abel were meant to give birth to, but which were prevented from coming into the world because he was murdered by Cain.

[4] It’s not clear what the Rav is hinting to. The reader is reminded that the Rav frequently ‘sweetens’ judgments by way of his apparently random comments. Rebbe Nachman of Breslov used to do the same.

[5] I.e. Sanctifying God’s name by being prepared to die for Hashem’s honor, as a Jew.

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ADDENDUM:

I went to look up ‘RECHASIM’ – you can find it’s English Wiki page HERE.

Snippet:

Rekhasim (Hebrew: רְכָסִים, lit. Mountain ridges)^] is a Haredi town and local council in the Haifa District of Israel. It is located between Kiryat Tiv’on, Kiryat Ata, and Nesher, next to roads 70, 75, and 762.

I’m finding this suddenly very interesting….

Go look at the area on a map.

See if it reminds you of anything.