A Remarkable Story: A Completely Blind Man Saw Rabbi Eliezer Berland shlit"a for

The Gaon HaTzaddik Rav Eliezer Berland shlit"a wanders night after night between the cities of Israel in order to bring Jews to teshuvah (repentance). Between the holy words of Torah of the Rav shlit"a and the holy melodies of those uniting around the tzaddik, a multitude of stories of miracles and Divine Providence accumulate. We bring before you the miraculous story of Chanan Vaknin, as first-hand testimony. "I have a friend named Shalom Yifrach; he is my chavruta for study, and in recent years he became completely blind; he sees nothing. All the time he heard sublime stories about Rav Berland shlit"a and he did not believe. He did not believe that a thousand people stand with the Rav for 4-5 consecutive hours in prayer. He knew stories about unique tzaddikim who do this, but it was hard for him to believe that the Rav draws an entire public after him to such holy service."

"When Rav Berland arrived in Hadera, my friend Shalom told me that he would exert self-sacrifice and come to the gathering, and indeed he waited 3 hours until the arrival of the Rav. When the Rav arrived, a commotion broke out around him, as usually happens with the arrival of a tzaddik with power like that of Rav Berland. Shalom asked the Rav's attendant to direct his head exactly to the place where the Rav was located. At that moment, the Rav began to sing 'E'ofah Ashkonah'. And then the great miracle occurred; for 20 minutes, my blind friend Shalom saw the Rav shlit"a clearly, after years in which he saw nothing."

"Two days after the gathering, my friend Shalom did not come to the kollel. At the end of them, he called me and said to me, 'Chanan, for two days I haven't slept; I saw Rav Berland, and everyone, including my wife, thinks I've gone crazy.' I asked him, 'Tell me, Shalom, how did you see the Rav?' I wanted to verify his words, knowing that there are certain movements that are characteristic only of Rav Berland shlit"a. Anyone who knows the Rav knows that he is constantly, without any pause at all, performing holy yichudim (unifications) with his fingers, moving them in the shape of the letters of the Name of Hashem. Shalom described the Rav to me exactly, one-to-one, and he did not stop there but continued with a confession of the soul. 'Chanan, how I disputed the Rav! All this time I didn't believe your stories about the Rav, I belittled it, but now, after I saw him, I know that everything is true.'"