"Impurity Has No Dominion" - The Esteemed Rabbi Eliezer Berland shlit"a in Be'er Sheva

"Impurity has no dominion, it is finished, we are done, enough, we must cry out 'enough, enough,'" cried the esteemed Rabbi Eliezer Berland shlit"a during a lesson he delivered in Be'er Sheva, and the audience cried with him. "Now we are in Parshat Bo, 'And Hashem said to Moshe, "Come to Pharaoh, for I have hardened his heart and the hearts of his servants, so that I may perform these signs of Mine among them"' (Exodus 10:1). Pharaoh did teshuvah (repentance), says the Baal HaTurim that Pharaoh did teshuvah, Pharaoh was a tzaddik, he was a king in Nineveh (Rabbi Nechunya ben HaKanah says: Know that the teshuvah from Pharaoh, who rebelled greatly against the Holy One, blessed be He, "Who is Hashem that I should listen to His voice," and with the same language he sinned, with that language he did teshuvah: "Who is like You among the mighty, Hashem," and the Holy One, blessed be He, saved him from death, to tell of His power and might, as it is said: "But indeed for this reason I have allowed you to stand" and he became king in Nineveh, and the people of Nineveh were writing oppressive decrees and stealing and were abominable in their conduct, and the Holy One, blessed be He, sent Jonah to prophesy against it to destroy it, and Pharaoh heard and rose from his throne and tore his clothes and wore sackcloth and proclaimed throughout his people that all should fast for three days, and he separated men and women, and also animals on one side and their young on the other, and the children saw their mothers' udders and cried, and the mothers saw the children and cried, and there were more than twelve myriads of people.). Pharaoh rectified all the sparks that he had damaged."

"Benjamin was called 'thief, son of a thief,' therefore he merited to have the Holy Temple in his territory, all the work is that a person should be called a thief, son of a thief ("and they would stand and strike Benjamin on his shoulders and say to him: 'Thief, son of a thief, you have shamed us, you are the son of your mother, thus your mother shamed our father.' And because of those blows that they struck on his shoulders, he merited that the Divine Presence would dwell between his shoulders, as it is said (Deuteronomy 33:12): 'He hovers over him all day long, and between his shoulders He dwells'" [Tanchuma Miketz, 10]."

"Benjamin jumped into the Sea of Reeds with a hundred of his children, and then David came and he too jumped into the sea, 'Then the proud waters would have gone over our soul' (Psalms 124), all the proud waters passed over Benjamin and David. King David paved a way through the sea, King David was the first, he was the pillar of fire. King David went through the waters with a flaming fire, he made the first pillar of fire, therefore King David lives and exists, because he made the pillar of fire."

"King David walked literally through the fire, therefore King David lives and exists. Like Rabbi Zeira who studied Gemara in the fire. A person comes into the world to study Gemara in the fire, even if everyone laughs at him and mocks him for studying Gemara in the fire. Rabbi Zeira did a hundred fasts and another hundred fasts and would enter into the fire itself. For this reason, a person comes into the world, to jump into the fire itself, this was the work of the tribe of Benjamin, to jump into the fire."