A Lesson for the Residents of Beit Shemesh at the Residence of the Gaon and

On Wednesday, the night of the 2nd of Sivan, Parshas Bamidbar, a lesson was held at the holy residence of our teacher, the Rav, Rabbi Eliezer Berland shlit"a, for the residents of the city of Beit Shemesh.

The lesson was exceptionally long, lasting over an hour and a half. Before you is a summary of the topics from the lesson delivered to the participants:

Eliezer did not understand why Avraham was sending him to the most impure place in the world. To the most impure family, to take a wife for Yitzchak? Now they bring a weight of one hundred and thirty—a silver bowl to rectify all 130 years that Adam HaRishon (the first man) wasted sparks. There was a man who was told, "Go to Meron, there you will succeed in selling all your jewelry." In the end, he arrived and saw them dancing without a single drop of champagne, until someone explained to him: there is Hashem in the world, He created you, He created your father. "His name was Enosh"—at the age of 695, Enosh began to get confused by the stories of Chavah (Eve), who told him there was a Tree of Knowledge from which Hashem supposedly ate and from which the world was created. For all these confusions, one must rectify the "one hundred and thirty weight." Then that same man who wanted to sell diamonds arrived, drank a cup of tea, and had a stroke; now the question is, to whom does all the merchandise belong? In the end, that same man did teshuvah (repentance) and threw all the jewelry in Meron. Now, in the era of Biden, they wanted to kill all the Jews, and in all the campuses, they needed protection until Trump rose. Returning to the matter of Eliezer, who wanted the shidduch (marriage match) for his own daughter and thought that Avraham had surely become senile—as it says in the Gemara in Gittin that there is a state of shugushta (mental confusion) where in such a state one can no longer give a divorce document nor testify about his son being his firstborn. It is written in Siman 250 that even if two simanim (signs of ritual slaughter) were slaughtered, he is still considered alive, as brought at length in the Ktzos. Yoav asks Avner, "Why did you kill my brother?" Avner told him that he only cut his ear, but that is not considered a confession. Yoav replied, "If so, why did you know exactly where to stab—in the fifth rib?" Then Yoav stabbed him in the fifth rib as well, and Avner grabbed Yoav and could have killed him too, but he overcame himself, and therefore he merited a grave in Me'aras HaMachpelah (the Cave of the Patriarchs). Regarding one who smokes, it is forbidden to stand within 9 meters of him because it is carcinogenic. There are 24 types of skin afflictions, and those with Ra'atan (a specific contagious disease) are forbidden to sit in the wind because the wind carries the bacteria. It is brought there how they perform brain surgery to remove the gnat. Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi said to the Angel of Death, "Give me 30 days to review all my learning," and he agreed. After 30 days, the Angel of Death returned and said to him, "Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi, I agree for you to take me, but show me where my place is in Gan Eden (Paradise)." He took the Angel's sword and jumped into Gan Eden and refused to return his sword. It is written that it is forbidden to live outside of Jerusalem, unless someone was born outside of Jerusalem, then he does not violate the prohibition. Rebbe Nachman says that Mashiach will conquer the entire world without firing a single shot. Indeed, the Arabs fled from all places; Beit Shemesh was an Arab village, and there were Arabs from Har Tuv who burned the entire Jewish area. In every generation, there is Mashiach ben David and Mashiach ben Yosef, and if a person thinks he is the Mashiach, he is already not the Mashiach. Avidan ben Gideoni—those who are suicide bombers now call it "Gideon's Chariots"—so the Gideons told them that whoever sticks his head in the water cannot fight. Because a person wants to dive into the food with his clothes on, the main thing is to eat... The Sifra DeTzniusa (an ancient Kabbalistic text) writes that Iyov (Job) came to rectify the Generation of the Flood; the children, five minutes after they were born, would start playing the violin while still attached to the umbilical cord. The five-minute-old baby would walk by himself in the house, go to light a fire, and then return to take the scissors to cut the cord himself, and suddenly he meets a demon. Today there are no demons; Rabbah bar Nachmani abolished them all. Abaye was called "Nachmani" after his teacher, and indeed he was an orphan from both father and mother—"For in You the orphan finds mercy." The halacha (law) follows the acronym Ya'al Kagam because it came from Yael who subdued Sisera. So that 5-minute-old baby saw the demon and started fighting with him. The demon said to him, "Say the HaGomel blessing (prayer of gratitude for surviving danger) that I didn't kill you." The baby said to him, "You should say HaGomel, for if I weren't attached to my mother by the cord, I would have killed you." So the first cradle was by Yitzchak; until then, babies would walk, talk, and dance from the moment they left their mother's womb. Regarding Yitzchak, they said that Sarah became pregnant from Abimelech, so "Sarah nursed children"—Sarah nursed all the babies. All the babies that Sarah nursed became great kings. "Iyov" (Job) is an anagram of the letters "Al-bam Yuval," and he came to rectify the sin of Adam HaRishon, as he did not influence his generation and did not prevent the Flood; he should have danced and sung with his grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Therefore, they bring a weight of one hundred and thirty—a silver bowl. The people of the Generation of the Flood said, "Why do we need G-d?" Just like there was a woman in Florida who said, "We get along without Hashem," and within a short time, all of Florida went up in flames, everything turned to ash. When people think they can get along without Hashem, they turn to ash. Five are like the image of Above: Shaul was from his shoulders and up (taller than others), Shimshon (Samson) kills a thousand men in one blow. Now was the Molad (new moon) of Sivan; from the Molad, all the gates are already opening, and on Shavuot, we merit the Fiftieth Gate. Yeshayahu (Isaiah) said to Chizkiyahu (Hezekiah), "Sing, play music, then you will merit to be Mashiach." For Sennacherib arrived with his thousands of armies and looked through binoculars; he saw that the Jews had no weapons of war. He said, "I will bring you horses, but only if you have riders; I want to fight someone." Yisrael Ber Odesser was in prison because they said he helped a Russian spy—Rabbi Yisrael Karduner. Then they sent someone to Jerusalem to look for him, and they found him and saw he was not a spy, and thus he was saved. In Egypt, there were three types of mothers: some would run to the field and give birth there, some would run to the Nile, and then Hashem said to the angels, "Descend, for this is why I created you—to save these babies." For Chizkiyahu was a reincarnation of Amram; if Amram had not divorced Yocheved, he would have brought all the Egyptians to teshuvah (repentance). Similarly, Chizkiyahu—if he had sung and played music, the Geulah (Redemption) would have come and all the gentiles would have done teshuvah. The wife of Mar Ukva would give bread in secret to a poor man every day until the poor man wanted to check who it was. They fled from him and entered an oven of glowing coals. Mar Ukva said to his wife, "The soles of my feet are burning." His wife said to him, "I am cold!" and she placed her hands under the soles of his feet. This was because she was a previous reincarnation of Tamar, who was prepared to be burned rather than shame Yehudah. So Chizkiyahu was supposed to bring the whole world to teshuvah. When a person reaches Heaven, they will show him that he could have brought the whole world to teshuvah, like Yosef Meshita, who refused to go back and take the Menorah after he had already entered the Holy of Holies; he said, "It is enough that I angered my Creator." And also like Yakim Ish Tzerurot, who rode a horse on Yom Kippur and saw how they were leading his uncle—Yossi ben Yoezer—to the gallows. Yakim mocked him and said, "Look what a horse I have, and what a 'horse'—the gallows—you have." Yossi ben Yoezer said to him, "If this is the 'horse' prepared for me, then what a 'horse' is prepared for you...!" Yakim Ish Tzerurot heard this and went and performed upon himself the four types of capital punishment of the Beis Din (rabbinical court). Yossi ben Yoezer, who was still before his hanging, saw a pillar of fire and said, "This one—Yakim—has preceded me by one hour into the Life of the World to Come." So every Jew has a situation where he can fall no further and he decides to do teshuvah. Thus, the moment a person dances, he raises all the prayers. In Uman, they would dance for forty-five minutes, and Rabbi Levi Yitzchak (Bender) continued this here; we would go with him every day to the Kotel (Western Wall) for an hour of Hisbodedus (private prayer) after sunrise, and afterward, he would learn eight pages of Gemara every day. He would do the shopping alone; he did not agree for his wife to do the shopping, and he would finish the Shas (complete Talmud) every month. The Rogatchover would finish the Shas every day. So Yeshayahu said to Chizkiyahu, "You shall die and not live," because a person must marry. A person says, "I don't have the strength to marry, I want to come home at 12." I would come home every day after nine; I would make the posters for the classroom with the Rebbetzin, all the crafts. So it is written that the angel sucked the soul out of Sennacherib and his armies, and they heard singing from the Chayos (holy angels) of Above. It is written "These are findings" and "These are treifos (unfit animals)," and they expounded on this: "These and these are the words of the Living G-d." Everyone learns "These are findings" (the beginning of Bava Metzia), but one must also learn "These are treifos" in Zevachim. From the magnitude of the miracles they saw happen to Sennacherib, the Egyptians built a temple to Hashem in Egypt. This was the mistake of Chunio, who saw it was written that there would be a temple in Egypt but did not understand that the gentiles would be the ones to build it.