A Lesson for Second-Year Students of the 'Chochma V'Daat' Yeshiva at the

On Monday of Parshas Terumah, the night of the 27th of Shevat, a lesson took place at the home of our teacher, the Rav, Rabbi Eliezer Berland shlit"a (may he live long and good days), for second-year students from the 'Chochma V'Daat' Yeshiva. Before the lesson, the students were tested by our teacher, the Rav shlit"a, and afterwards, the Rav delivered a lesson for about forty minutes. Before you is a summary of the topics from the course of the lesson:

The feast of Ahasuerus was exactly on the 15th of Nisan, the day Belshazzar was killed. There were three types of women in Egypt: the first, who prayed, would run to the fields to give birth, and the children would be swallowed by the earth and emerge from the other side; the second would run to the Nile and the angels would take them; and the third, the Egyptians would take them and place them in the walls (as bricks), and then they prayed, "The snare is broken, and we have escaped" (Tehillim 124:7). When Samuel arrived at Jesse, Jesse did not understand who was being spoken of. The Gemara (Talmud) discusses how it could be that Saul says, "Whose son is this youth?" and swears he does not know David after David had already played music before him. "Abigail, daughter of Nahash," who was without physical desires. A person needs to study sixteen hours a day; a person needs to cross the Jordan River in order to study Gemara, like Reish Lakish who was the leader of the bandits. Ahab did complete teshuvah (repentance); the Maharal says that he was meant to be Mashiach ben Yosef. Ahab said to Elijah that Joshua was greater than Moses, for Joshua cursed the rebuilding of Jericho and it was fulfilled, while Moses cursed idolatry saying that rain would not fall, yet downpours continue to fall; therefore, Elijah stopped the rain for three years. Vashti was in mourning during Ahasuerus's feast for her father, because on the 1st and 2nd of Tishrei they could not hold the feast, and on the 3rd of Tishrei they began; one hundred and eighty days minus six "missing" months (of 29 days) comes out exactly to the 15th of Nisan. Rabbah slaughtered Rabbi Zera on Purim; the entire concept of "Kiyemu v'kiblu" (they established and accepted the Torah) refers to studying sixteen hours of Gemara a day.