Even Completely Secular People Do Everything to Reach the Synagogue on Yom

"The people of Israel are the seed of the holy of holies, the children of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob - there are no sins, there are no criminals, there are no secular people; on Yom Kippur everyone unites, everyone prays."

The holy words of our teacher, the Gaon and Tzaddik, Rabbi Eliezer Berland shlit"a, from a lesson delivered on Tuesday, Parshat Shoftim, 3rd of Elul, 5776, in Tzalmon.

"I was a boy of nineteen, I remember that they broke into the Great Synagogue, broke the windows, broke the doors, because they were distributing tickets and they did not agree to that, so they broke the windows, they broke the doors. It impressed me so much how the people of Israel live, how completely secular people who ate non-kosher all year long break the doors, break everything, enter from the ceiling—all of this was at the Great Synagogue."

"There was Rabbi Kupershtok in Herzliya who would weep such tears that you have never seen in your lives. Kupershtok was such a tzaddik that there had not been one like him since the creation of the world; his weeping on Rosh Hashanah melted every heart, all the secular people would come to hear his prayers, the tzaddik Rabbi Kupershtok, in whose merit I returned in teshuvah (repentance), in whose merit I became a Breslov chassid - he said that only Rebbe Nachman is the tzaddik of the generation."

"Our Rebbe explains in Torah 279 that on Yom Kippur all the lights shine, on Yom Kippur all the sefirot, all the lights from the creation of the world, because we are building the vessels for the infinite lights. The least of Jews is more of a tzaddik than the greatest of non-Jews; he says 'who has not made me a non-Jew,' a Jew who has murdered and done what he has done, it is all external, external, and the non-Jew always regrets his good deeds, he only does them on the outside."

"When Yom Kippur arrives, we are now 40 days before, the first 'sawing' (separation) is on Rosh Hashanah by the Rebbe, it begins on the eve of Rosh Hashanah with Selichot, by the Rebbe everything begins from the first day of Selichot, on the eve of Rosh Hashanah the Rebbe is already sweetening everyone, passing everyone over to the Book of Life."

"Rabbi Eliyahu Lopian explained in Kfar Chassidim that a person thinks that Rosh Hashanah went well, but if he is not with the tzaddik, then they take years off his life. He is 20, they take ten years off him every year, at age 40, 50, 60 he is already gone, he does not understand that they already took a year from him once, half a year once, two years once. How does a person know if his sins were forgiven? He thinks he is living, because a person needs to live 120, 120 years is a verse, it is a decree of the Scripture, and he needs to live the entire 120, Yom Kippur arrives."

"We are already arriving at the first day of Selichot, from the Molad (new moon), whoever immersed in the Well of Miriam at the Molad, then Miriam is at the head of the camp, 'Remember,' remember, do not forget, 'Remember what Hashem your G-d did to Miriam on the way' (Deuteronomy 24:9). The Yalkut Shimoni and all the Midrashim say, what is 'remember' that Miriam spoke lashon hara? Heaven forbid, she only wanted to save her brother, a sister hears that her brother is dying so she goes to save her brother, she jumps into the sea with her clothes to save her brother."

"And the reason she thought Moses would die is that Eldad and Medad ran through the entire camp and shouted 'Moses is dead.' Until a person receives a prophecy, he is forbidden to say the prophecy, but the prophet is altogether beside himself, the prophet begins to shout the prophecy, he runs in the streets, he is beside himself, the prophet does not know what is happening to him. It is written in Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer that the prophet is beside himself and begins to shout the prophecy, he runs in the streets. The prophecy of Jeremiah, they want to hang him, to put him in a pit, but he does not even know what is happening to him."

Edited from the Shevivei Or newsletter - 0583-289-318