Knowledge Received from the Tzaddik Cancels All Curses

The Daily Chizuk from our teacher, the Gaon and Tzaddik, Rav Eliezer Berland shlit"a – The Holocaust occurred because of the idolatry of previous generations

"And Hashem was angry with me for your sake" (Deuteronomy 3:26)

Wednesday, 23 Iyar 5784 – If Rabbi Akiva had come to the shiur of Rav Eliezer, his suffering would have been avoided

"And Hashem was angry with me for your sake" (Deuteronomy 3:26), it was all for your sake, because Israel needed to receive the Ten Commandments, for the entire Holocaust was a matter of gilgulim (reincarnations).

The entire Holocaust happened because they once practiced idolatry; for 850 years they practiced idolatry. There is almost no Jew who did not practice idolatry.

We have been here for 50 gilgulim already. If we divide 6,000 years from the beginning of Creation by 50, that is 75 gilgulim, whereas until the Flood they only lived through 2 gilgulim, no more. There is no woman who did not practice idolatry; they threw their children into the fire. People do not understand how it is possible to take children and throw them into the fire?

It was literally as it sounds, the Nazis, but you did this when you were practicing idolatry! Everyone took their own child and threw him into the fire, rejoicing, dancing.

Why was it called Gei Ben Hinnom? Because the children would moan! And Tophet is named after the drums (tupim)!

Hinnom, because the children would scream and wail; when they burned them, they would beat on drums, striking the drums so as not to hear the children's screams. It was also called the Valley of Tophet after the drums, and also Gei Ben Hinnom after the moaning and screaming that the children would make.

People would be at the height of joy throwing their children into the fire, or they would dance around the Golden Calf. The nations of the world said, they just want to see the dancing; they were all once Shuvu Banim, they loved to dance. They would dance, "Oy, let's go to the dances" – the women should have given every husband two slaps.

Why are you going to the dances? What dances? These are dances for the Golden Calf!

The women did not give their earrings (for the making of the Calf), fine, but that was not enough; they remained widows. Every woman remained a widow; six hundred thousand women remained widows when everyone was from the age of 20. At age 60, a man would say goodbye to his wife, and his wife would go and dig a grave with him. He has to lie in the grave, and in the morning he does not rise; the woman already knows that it is over. She has her husband until age 60; if she lives to 120, then for another 60 years she has no husband; the woman is left without a husband.

Because the women should have restrained their husbands so they would not go to the dances, to the revelry. Dancing, an orchestra, let's hear some tunes, let's get out of the sadness, out of the despair – but these are dances for the Calf. For 850 years, people threw their children into the fire with joy, danced, and beat on drums so as not to hear their screams.

Every woman threw her child into the fire, the third child... the tenth, certainly; from ten one is obligated to give. There were those who were stringent, even after three children, already the third child they would throw into the fire.

But the ordinance was to read Parshat Bechukotai, which has 49 curses, to always read it on Shavuot. And also to read Ki Tavo, which has 98 curses – together it is 147, the gematria of Nachman (148 including the collective).

If a person knows of the tzaddik, he nullifies all the curses; the Rebbe nullifies all the curses.

Rav Eliezer said to Rabbi Akiva, if you had come to me for all the shiurim (you would not have undergone all the suffering). Rabbi Akiva had a spark of Zimri; he had to perform a tikkun for the spark of Zimri – therefore his flesh was combed with iron combs.

The entire Holocaust was to perform a tikkun for the 850 years that they practiced idolatry.