A Burning Fire • Transcript of the Lesson from the Hillula of Moharanat (5775)

Before you is a lesson delivered by The Rav, Rabbi Eliezer Berland shlit"a, at the Hillula of Moharanat in the year 5775

This lesson was delivered by The Rav on Thursday night, the 10th of Teves 5775, and was broadcast live to Eretz Yisrael while he was in Amsterdam, Holland. It is impossible to say about this lesson that it was merely “said,” because it was not spoken so much as cried out and roared forth from the depths of The Rav’s heart. It is impossible to describe the blaze that seized The Rav as he delivered this awe-inspiring lesson—his face literally reddened, he burned with a terrifying fire, and he thundered every single word of this lesson until his soul was spent. A few hours after delivering this lesson, The Rav’s heart stopped beating from the superhuman exertion he invested during the delivery of this awesome lesson, and he suffered a heart attack. When they came to take The Rav to the hospital, they saw it was impossible to get the stretcher out through the elevator. They brought a crane, tied the stretcher to it, and lifted The Rav out through the large living-room window to the ambulance waiting below. From there he was taken to the most advanced hospital in Holland, called “VUmc,” where they implanted a pacemaker in his heart. To our great sorrow, on Shabbos morning—only a day and a half after his heart surgery, at his advanced age—the hospital announced that The Rav had to leave immediately, without giving any reason. Even so, with his extraordinary self-sacrifice, on Motzaei Shabbos The Rav traveled to arrange a chuppah and kiddushin for one of our people, and there he blessed and read the kesubah with the same enthusiasm as always. Afterwards, The Rav related that at the moment his bed was tied to the crane and swaying in the air, the Angel of Death came; The Rav fought him and defeated him—and remained with us.

And the ordeal surrounding this lesson did not end there. After it was delivered until his soul was spent, many people searched and searched for the recording of this awe-inspiring lesson and could not find it. For eight years it was unknown that any recording of this awesome lesson even existed—until, with Hashem’s help, about a year ago the recording was found by chance, and over the past year it has been transcribed and edited.

Special thanks to the “Shvivi Or” Institute for providing the lesson. To download the lesson transcript:

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