The concluding part of R Berland’s translated remarks.

Read part 1 HERE, part 2 HERE and part 3 HERE.

Enjoy!

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R STERN: Does the Rav want to add something else for the public?

R BERLAND: Not really, just that I waited for half an hour, I waited there, in the Breslov yeshiva [in Bnei Brak, on Purim night]. And I didn’t see anything. I didn’t see ‘simcha’, I didn’t see dancing, I saw nothing.

R STERN: And the Rav was leafing through Likutey Moharan, in the meantime?

R BERLAND: Yes, and I didn’t understand a word. I still remember it, today. Until today, I still don’t understand it, ‘to join the ‘het’ with the ‘nun’. The Biur Likutim explains that when you join the ‘het’ to the ‘nun’, you get ‘taf’. But the kooshia (difficulty) remains a kooshia.

What do I have to do, with a ‘het’ and a ‘nun’?

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This is not Ketzot HaHoshen, and this is not hilchot Shabbat, and not hilchot tefilla. How did we get to this ‘het’ and ‘nun’?

‘Het’ is chochma, (wisdom), and ‘nun’ is anava (humility). I didn’t understand anything. I tried to understand, I said, let me try a different Torah lesson. I sat there quarter of an hour, with that Torah lesson, I tried different things, to try to understand what was written there, but I didn’t succeed to understand anything.

Even today, I don’t understand this Torah lesson, ‘to join the ‘het’ with the ‘nun’. In the Biur Halikutim, is says you will get the letter ‘taf’. OK, 8 (het) times 50 (nun), equals [400, the gematria of] ‘taf’. But it remains a kooshia.

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So then I was in tohu v’ bohu, trying to understand this Torah lesson, and there was only some light from downstairs, from the room downstairs.

This was turned into the room where they give shiurim, and a minyan of Gur chassidim were there. I used to pray with Yankele together, Yankele was one of my chassidim.

R STERN: [Yankele] Galinsky?[1]

R BERLAND: Yankele of Gur, Yankele Galinsky. He didn’t move over to Breslov, he had no affinity at all for Breslov, even though his father-in-law was Breslov. His FIL was Chaim Binyamin, he married his daughter, but he was a Litvak, and he remained a Litvak.

He used to tell jokes. I heard one of his shiurim once, and it didn’t find favour in my eyes. Way too many jokes. I was looking for something deep, something, some new idea, not jokes, that give you a stomach ache.

I still remember today, that you needed  a stomach ache, in order to cry out “Hashem, rescue me!!!”

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R STERN: So, what does the Rav say about the zchut of Nachman Rosenthal? What is his zchut? [That he brought the Rav into Breslov.]

R BERLAND: If not for him, I wouldn’t have drawn near [to Breslov].

I got to Breslov [the yeshiva] at 12 at night, and I didn’t see anything. I opened a Likutey Moharan, I didn’t understand anything. What am I meant to understand, here? What do I have to do, with a ‘het’ and a ‘nun’?! Even today, I still don’t understand this. How did we get to the ‘het’ and how did we get to the ‘nun’?

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[Rebbe Nachman says in this lesson 1:1:] Don’t be like Esav, who put his heart into exile. Be like Yaakov.

How am I going to be like Yaakov?! I know that to be like Yaakov, you have to learn a lot of the Ketzot HaChoshen, and now, I’m also learning Likutey Halachot, but I didn’t see anything.

So, [R Nachman Rosenthal, the Breslov mashgiach in Bnei Brak], he told me something that I’d never heard before, in my whole life. I’d never heard something like this, only crazy people did things like this.

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R STERN: So what did he say?

R BERLAND: He said that we need to go out to the field and cry out.

That now, he’d only just got there, he’d only just got [to the yeshiva on Purim night] now [in order to wake up the boys and take them to do hitbodedut in the fields near by.]

He was Breslov from the day he was born, his father was Breslov. R Moshe [Arieh], R Moshe knew the whole SHAS, all the Rishonim. He just learnt the Rishonim and the Acharonim. In his life, he never uttered a pointless word.

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But Breslov back then, didn’t know how to bring people closer [i.e. do kiruv].

They didn’t have someone to do kiruv. The only person doing kiruv was R Natan Liebermensch. He brought people closer.

R STERN: In Immanuel[2]? He was in Immanuel, at the beginning?

R BERLAND:He still wasn’t in Immanuel. He used to live in Bnei Brak, he used to live opposite the Kollel Chazon Ish, Alsheich St.

R STERN: So the Rav came to him for the first shiur [on Breslov teachings] and I heard that the Rav cried throughout the whole shiur ?

R BERLAND: Yes, he was a wondrous man. He was a wonderful man.

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R STERN: Was the Rav very affected by his shiur, by that first shiur?

R BERLAND: He just simply used to cry, during his prayers. He used to cry.

R STERN: No, I heard that it was the Rav who cried ?

R BERLAND: I also cried! When I got there, the [paraffin] lamp exploded, the whole lamp blew up. Suddenly, the whole house was on fire. The whole room downstairs was on fire, everyone ran away.

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R STERN: This happened during his shiur?

R BERLAND: No, this was during kabbalat shabbat, Lecha Dodi. R Nachman Rosenthal told me to come, that I would see things that I’d never seen before in my life.

And then, the lamp exploded above my head.

(Now, rockets are also exploding over my head…) My head was nearly set on fire. I was in the middle of the Shmoneh Esrei. I said to myself, I am not moving, even if everything goes up in fire. Maybe, this is fire from ‘above’, I don’t know.

I had no idea that the lamp had just exploded. Suddenly, the Aron HaKodesh was on fire, but only externally, not on the inside. [I.e. the Torah scrolls were safe]. The lamp exploded, it was a [paraffin wax] candle, it splashed on the Aron HaKodesh. I was standing next to the Aron HaKodesh, and I was suddenly surrounded by flames, totally surrounded by fire.

I didn’t know where to try to escape to, maybe to Dimona, to [missing in original]. Where could I escape to?

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Back then, there was still not ‘Dimona’. [I.e. it hadn’t been built yet].

I travelled to Dimona to make a shidduch from someone, and there was nothing there. There just […] there. In the end, they kicked them out, there was nothing there.

And everything was on fire, and I didn’t move. I didn’t care, if I’d get burnt, I just didn’t care. I’d achieved such dvekut, in my life, I’d never had dvekut like this. Everything was burning, yallah, let it burn! Until they found some non-Jew, it had already burnt itself out.

Today, there is a ‘shabbos goy’ on every corner, but [back then in Bnei Brak] they went to look for a shabbos goy at the edge of Bnei Brak, I don’t know, maybe on Chazon Ish St, or on R Akiva St. I think it burnt itself out.

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R STERN: So, the Rav stayed there

R BERLAND: We are staying – until today, we are staying there.

R STERN: And when did the Rav hear R Natan Liebermensch? When did the Rav hear him? Was that at the beginning?

R BERLAND: No, Shabbat evening [the Rav saw how R Liebermensch was praying the friday night prayers.] After that, I came to seuda shlishit.

R STERN: And that’s when he spoke?

R BERLAND: Yes. When he spoke, it was like tongues of flame. When he would speak, it was like your free choice got nullified, it mamash nullified your free will. It wasn’t just stam a shiur, a something.

R STERN: I got to hear him when he was in Immanuel.

R BERLAND: This is very important, yes, wonderful. I used to come to Immanuel to give over shiurim, for a year or two, I would come. Every Thursday, I would come to Immanuel to give a shiur, between mincha and ma’ariv.

R STERN: Yes, he told me that the Rav used to come.

R BERLAND: People used to run to come and hear me, because when they heard me, it was something else entirely. I’d already passed through being “Litvish”, I’d gone through that.

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R STERN: I heard that the Rav used to give a shiur for a few hours, there ?

R BERLAND: Yes, I could give an eight hour shiur. I used to give a shiur for eight hours.

R STERN: How many hours did you used to do there? [In Immanuel].

R BERLAND: I used to start the shiur, let’s say, at 6pm in the evening, and finish it at 12 at night. Or start at 12am and finish at 6pm. Every shiur was six hours. Every shiur [included] the whole Gemara, all the Tosfot, all the Midrash Rabba, all the Zohar.

I used to put everything in.

R STERN: Also here [in Jerusalem], in front of Ohr Someach, the Rav used to give shiurim for hours at a time, for whole nights, also on Thursdays.

R BERLAND: Yes, in Ohr Someach there was a matnas (meeting hall), everyone drew closer, everyone who was in the matnas came closer. Each  night, I’d start at 10pm and finish at 6am in the morning. People went out of their minds.

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R STERN: HaRav, where did you get the strength to do things like this?

R BERLAND: (Jokingly) I used to drink a lot of whiskey… It’s the internal fire. It’s the fire of the Torah.

We need to kindle the inner fire.

People are dati (religious), but they are have no inner fire. This is all ‘doing a mitzvah because we were taught to do it.’ The Abba told them, the Imma told them – but they don’t have the inner fire!

R STERN: I have to publicise this conversation, especially what the Rav is saying now.

R BERLAND: The inner fire!

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I heard ‘save me, from the klipat Haman Amalek’, and it grabbed me, even until now.

To get out of this klipa, this lust. And afterwards, to have the merit of ‘kedushat Mordechai and Esther’, that we should leave all the lusts behind, totally. [Like] Mordechai and Esther.

So now, a child dies, chas v’shalom, your wife passes away, they throw you out of the apartment, and you don’t know what to do. I don’t have an apartment, I have nothing. You have no-where to live, you have no parents [to help you], you have nothing.

Your parents have a small flat, where would you live, there? So, [the ikker, main thing] is to get past the karpas. This is the ikker! And then, you will merit, in the merit of getting through the karpas, to being able to revive the dead!

You can do miracles!

The ikker is to get past the karpas.

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Because after Adam HaRishon cried out that there was no din and no dayan, he ate from the Tree of Knowledge.

And he denied Hashem. He believed the snake. The snake said that Hashem ate from this Tree of Knowledge. All the kofrim (non-believers) ask what came before Hashem? So, the snake settled the argument. The snake found the solution to the riddle, [i.e. that the Tree of Knowledge came before Hashem].

He ate from the tree, then created the whole world! That’s what Rashi explains [that the snake said to Adam].

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R STERN: So the karpas [is made up of the letters] ‘samech’, and peh-resh-chaf sofit. In other words, we have to get past the ‘samech’ – peh-resh-chaf sofit.[3]

R BERLAND: A person’s thoughts are what torment him.

The tortures that they do to him [externally] – all of this suffering, he can withstand it. But his thoughts – they torment him. This is how it is.

Suddenly, he finds out someone stole from him, or there was a Shoah, why was their a massacre at Simchat Torah? Everyone is asking this, still today, why were 1,500 innocent, righteous, holy, pure young people killed on Simchat Torah?!

Ultimately, they went to dance with champagne, they went, they did things they shouldn’t have, they brought a statue of the Buddha there, and danced around the Buddha. And this was instead of ‘Simchat TORAH’.

They called this a mega-terrorist attack, a ‘mega pigua’.

There were 15,000 young people there, like that. If only they had come to dance with a Sefer Torah, even the most chiloni would have come to dance with the Sefer Torah.

R STERN: Rashi says on Kohelet that ‘simcha’, it’s end is sadness. That is what Rashi says on Kohelet, that this sort of simcha ends with sadness.

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R BERLAND: They were meant to have finished [the Nova party] at 4.30 am.

They said no, let’s wait for the sunrise. The dawn is connected to a different type of avodah zara. They see the sun, and they bow to it. They kneel down and bow to it, this is a type of avodah zara in India, to bow to the sun.

The terrorists came at 6.30 am.

If they’d left at 4.30 am, no-one would have been killed. The terrorists came at 6.30 am. Everything was from shemayim. Now, everyone is in Gan Eden – but we wanted them here in this world. We are fighting that people will stay in this world [i.e. alive].

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[Returning to the initial discussion about the ‘gadlut rishon’, re: the Seder night, at the very beginning of the shiur.]

R STERN: So, HaRav, entering in to the ‘first gadlut’, what are we meant to learn from this?

R BERLAND: The ‘first gadlut’, you are within ‘greatness’, each person is in gadlut. You see that you are really feeling Hashem [that Hashem is with you], you have a feeling.

R STERN: And with this feeling, you need to traverse the karpas?

R BERLAND: You have to pass through the karpas, yes.

Why do they give you this ‘greatness’ at the beginning? So that you can pass through the karpas (i.e. the very difficult trials and experiences). Because when you are within katnut – you! – it’s impossible to get through the karpas.

There are so many kooshiot, why is it like this, why is it like that? Why was there a Shoah? Why was there a massacre on Simchat Torah? Why is like this now, why is it like that?

These torments – the brain is deformed by all these kooshiot, these are the very worse tortures.

You are entering into kooshiot that bring you horrible torments – and that’s when you need the mochin de gadlut.

[To know that] Everything is nonsense.

There is still Hashem.

Excerpted and translated from the special Pesach supplement to Shivivei Or, March 5786.

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FOOTNOTES:

[1] Yakele Galinsky was a mohel, even under the Communists, and risked his life to perform secret circumcisions, including on one notable occasion, for a leading communist who was a Jew. The Rav refers to this story often.

[2] An chassidic yishuv in the Shomron.

[3] I don’t know what R Stern is trying to say here, I’m just translating the simple meaning of the words.