Emotional. Watch: From Sayeret Matkal to the Righteous Rabbi Eliezer Berland shlit"a. The Story of Rabbi Aharon Berkowitz's Journey - Part 1

Many people know Rabbi Aharon Berkowitz, if not by name then at least by appearance. His towering figure, passionately reciting Psalms into the microphone at the prayer gatherings of the Shuvu Banim yeshiva, stands out among the many students. However, not many know the story behind him, the inspiring journey of drawing close to our teacher, the righteous Rabbi Eliezer Berland shlit"a.

"I don't have interesting stories," begins Rabbi Aharon Berkowitz, modestly opening his story of drawing close. But, as our Rebbe writes about a person who did not involve Hashem in his dealings and therefore came to the court to rectify it. We too come to tell our story of drawing close to incorporate the Torah and divine providence into all our past. Especially since the Sefer Chassidim writes that a person will be held accountable for innovations he had and did not publicize them to the masses."

"In November 1983, I served in the army in the unit - Sayeret Matkal. One night, we did rooftop navigation in the unit. Each received an aerial photo. It's a photo of Jerusalem from above, and we navigate from roof to roof according to it. During one of the navigations, the edge of the roof broke, and I fell down. I don't remember how many floors, because I fell on my knees and immediately lost consciousness. They evacuated me immediately; it was a complete miracle."

"Another time was when we were on a hike in Ma'ale Ein Gedi. On one of the cliffs, we sat to rest, and suddenly someone shouted - 'A rock is falling.' I clung to the mountain and managed to see a rock the size of a large ball fly a centimeter from my nose. It was simply the merit of the ancestors and the mercy of the Rav shlit"a. We originally hail from important families of the Chassidut of Sanz and Belz, as the 'Sar Shalom' was a study partner of my great-grandfather's uncle (Uncle Wolf). They were, as I recall, with Rabbi Naftali Horowitz of Ropshitz, who told them to go and establish the Chassidut of Belz, so my ancestor was one of the founders of the Belz Chassidut."

"Another miracle was during an operation with helicopters on the Jordan-Iraq border, when there were only four of us guys, and we managed to take what we needed. When we were crossing the border, half the army was on alert. The army itself didn't know this, but they were advancing them to the area so that if necessary, they could launch them. Once, when Raful was the Chief of Staff, we were before an operation in Damascus, Syria, and Raful started testing us with questions and answers. In the end, he told us: 'Why do we ask so many questions? Because with us, there is no suddenness, suddenness is when a person is not prepared.' I remember his words pierced my heart like an arrow - the pride - that a person thinks he controls everything and runs the world. I suddenly understood that all the power and might is a very big shell."

"Ehud Barak was then the head of Military Intelligence, sitting next to us with biscuits and cookies, and we were arguing about nonsense, us four guys before boarding the helicopter that was supposed to take us to Iraq - you realize you really have no one to rely on."

"Afterwards, the whole team went on a joint trip to South Africa and South America. I continued my engineering studies at the Technion and completed civil engineering and environmental engineering, a field dealing with solutions to environmental pollution. In Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA, we opened a private company and dealt in this field. We reached a farm where they raise chickens in quantities four times larger than all that is raised in Israel. There, you cannot use their waste to fertilize the fields because of the large snow layer in winter. We offered them technology that would generate electricity from this waste. The company we worked with was excited about the matter when the future profit was expected to be 1.6 million dollars from the smallest plant." In the heart of the city, there was an area where the project could be built, but when we started building, a cache of linseed oil barrels was discovered below, and somehow the entire project went down the drain."

"In any case, we needed a mezuzah for our home, and my wife went to purchase it from Rabbi Dropman, who was in the area, and they invited us to stay for Shabbat. During the Shabbat prayer, I thought to myself that I cannot say 'Forgive us, our Father' when our behavior is the opposite, so I approached the bookshelf, took a Rambam (Laws of the Foundations of the Torah, Book of Knowledge), and began to study. The Rambam writes in chapter 8 about the miracles of the Exodus from Egypt that everything Hashem did was necessary, the faith of Israel was measured at the Sinai revelation. There are special glasses used for analyzing aerial photos, because in the desert there are almost no height differences, and on the map, it looks like a flat plate. The glasses turn everything into 3D, and you can distinguish between the heights. When I saw the words of the Rambam, I felt like the words came out to me from the page - 'Our eyes saw and not a stranger.'"

"I suddenly felt that Hashem and the Torah are like a rock, you can close your eyes and lie to yourself, but the truth does not move. We are connected to Moshe Rabbeinu in every generation, and everything is like a chain of rocks that cannot be moved. From here, we understood there is something else, until I began to delve into the Torah daily in our basement, like the stories about the Rav shlit"a, I stood and shouted every word."

"From here, we progressed quickly in Torah study and mitzvah observance, but as we progressed, conflicts began to emerge in the project until the business went down the drain. A friend came to me and suggested a new idea - to market fish from the north to New York, but in winter the lake froze for half a year, and there wasn't even one fish. We rented an apartment in an Indian village where there were no Jews besides us. During the Chanukah holiday, we intended to celebrate properly and put the menorah outside as customary, so we traveled hours to Detroit, where the nearest Jewish community was. There was also Rabbi Groskin, who was a student of a student of the Chafetz Chaim, and he brought us very close to Judaism. He wanted to return to the land, but the great rabbis of the time, including Rabbi Shach, told him they needed him in Detroit, and he stayed. In the Indian village, we had great spiritual elevation, and yet we descended into great poverty. Although we constantly saw miracles around us, my wife had to return to the land, and I had to find work in a slaughterhouse to survive."

"We were strengthened by what is written in 'Orchot Tzaddikim,' that when a person draws close to Hashem, all the non-kosher money is taken from him because they are cleansing him. From there, I traveled to New York, and during the Torah reading at the Mincha of Shabbat Parshat Eikev, I was called up to the Torah third, and there it is written: "For Hashem your God is bringing you to a good land, a land of brooks of water, fountains and depths that emerge in the valley and the mountain: A land of wheat and barley, vines and figs and pomegranates, a land of olive oil and honey: A land where you will eat bread without poverty, you will lack nothing in it, a land whose stones are iron and from its mountains you will mine copper" (Deuteronomy 8:7-9). I received the message and went outside, and as I continued on my way, they called me again to complete a minyan. I entered and sat to study on the side because I had already prayed, and again I was called up to the Torah. Now the message was clear and sharp, as in "By the testimony of two witnesses, a matter is established." Together with the blessing of the Rebbe of Vizhnitz in Monsey, we decided to ascend to the land."

"Another providence was the acquaintance with a friend of the head of the 'Chayei Olam' yeshiva, through which I entered this yeshiva immediately upon my arrival in the land. We arrived in the land with $35 in our pocket. It was the end of the Ten Days of Repentance, and we received a temporary apartment in Jerusalem from my parents to stay in until after Sukkot. Due to my familiarity with the Spanish language, I gave lessons in 'Orchot Tzaddikim' to the new immigrants in the yeshiva."

"Due to the economic situation, we moved from Jerusalem and purchased an apartment in Kiryat Sefer. There, friends from the army told me about a mutual friend of ours from Sdot Yam named Sagiv, who had a very serious car accident and was recovering in Eilat. As if that wasn't enough, he went through a divorce and from a war hero, he went through a great upheaval. I contacted him, and he told me he rode his motorcycle north to visit his children. Suddenly, at the Ra'anana junction, a truck came towards him, ran a red light, and hit him. Hashem enlightened me that Sagiv had a near-death experience, so I asked him what he saw there. He was surprised by the question because until today, he was ashamed to tell it."

"I am lying in bed, and my neshamah (soul) leaves my body through the bed rail, and I walk through a black tunnel. As I progress, I see a light at the end of the tunnel. When I reached the end of the tunnel, I saw a courtyard bathed in light, and the light is very pleasant. I enter the courtyard trying to reach the source of the light, and suddenly I see bars from the ground to the sky that do not allow me to advance. I searched for an opening when suddenly I see a gate in the fence, I try to open it, and it is locked. I searched my pocket for something that could help me break the lock. I found nothing, so I stood in front of the fence and thought to myself: I don't want to return to the black hole behind, forward the bars prevent me from advancing, so I stand and hear a voice saying to me - 'Sagiv, do you know you've reached the end of the road?' and the voice captivates me in place and does not allow me to move right or left. I answered him, yes, Sagiv continues to tell me. Now return to your body, you have not completed your rectification! The voice commands me. I fly backward through the black hole, back to my body in the hospital, and soon recover against all odds."

"All night I thought about Sagiv's story, and the verse ran through my mind: This is the gate of Hashem; the righteous shall enter through it (Psalms 118), and I understood that I have a mission here. Do you know that not everyone is revealed such visions with such clarity? I asked him. I know that this world is nothing and that in one second a person is not here, he answered me. Who is your grandfather? Surely there is merit of ancestors here, I claimed to him. After three months, we spoke again, and he asked me if I knew someone named Yehonatan Eibeschitz, who is his great-grandfather, referring to Rabbi Yehonatan Eibeschitz. And the second was the 'Tiferet Shlomo,' and he is a descendant of both."

"The book 'The Straight Line' came into my hands, and there it is written in chapter 5 about the mitzvah 'Love your neighbor as yourself' that the main thing is to teach your friend Torah and bring him closer to Judaism, therefore a person should pray for his friend to return in teshuvah, and during the days of Elul, it is most effective. From Rosh Chodesh Elul, I began to mention Sagiv in prayer, and on Sukkot, I called to see if anything was progressing with him. He tells me that because his father was saved in the Six-Day War, they have a tradition at home to fast on Yom Kippur, so he left his work at the marina in Eilat early. At the traffic light, a motorcycle stops next to him, and my friend tells me: 'Sagiv, look, there's your motorcycle! It can't be, I answer him. The accident was in Ra'anana, and my motorcycle was wrecked. We move forward, and at the next traffic light, the motorcyclist signals me to open the window. The motorcyclist is completely covered, and he doesn't recognize him at all, he opens the window, and he asks him if he is Sagiv. Yes. This is your accident motorcycle! And he runs away. "From heaven, they reminded me that it's time to do teshuvah." I was startled because it happened on the eve of Yom Kippur, and it was after the last prayer I prayed for him, that they sent him a messenger to his car."

"At that time, the mother of one of the friends I studied with in Kiryat Sefer passed away. I matched him with a scribe I knew to write a Torah scroll in her memory. On the 7th of Elul, both of them came to me and brought me a matchmaking fee, because the Torah is also called 'A Woman of Valor,' but travel with it to Uman. Until then, I had no connection to Breslov and Rebbe Nachman, although people who saw me said I belonged to 'Shuvu Banim,' but I still had no connection to that name. When I returned, a friend took me to the second hakafot at 'Shuvu Banim,' I saw people approaching the Rav shlit"a, and I also approached. The first question I asked the Rav was - how can I bring the whole family closer to Breslov? The Rav answered: 'Bring them to Jerusalem."