The daily Chizuk from our teacher, the holy Tzaddik Rabbi Eliezer Berland shlit"a — “We don’t have any institutes. We learn Torah. Come and see: people don’t even go out to the field, and everything grows!”

“(May Hashem make you) like Ephraim and like Menashe” (Bereishis 48:20)

“Binding his donkey to the vine” (Bereishis 49:11)

Thursday, 3 Shevat 5783 — If you hadn’t gone out to the field, the clusters would have grown even more.

These are his holy words:

People say, “(May Hashem make you) like Ephraim and like Menashe” (Bereishis 48:20) — why don’t we say, “(May Hashem make you) like Zevulun and Yissachar”?

Zevulun gave everything to Yissachar—whatever he had: money, billions. He traveled with ships, with fruits—each fruit was the size of a building. One peach was the size of a house. A cluster of grapes could fill an entire ship. They would bring the fruits, and everyone would go out of their minds.

The whole world says to Israel: Tell us, what institute do you have? What institution do you have? The Weizmann Institute? What institute do you have?

We don’t have any institutes. We learn Torah. Come and see: people don’t even go out to the field, and everything grows! Reish Lakish went to pick grape clusters. He was a bit of a farmer—he had vineyards there, and he went to harvest them. He had one cluster the size of a se’ah; each cluster weighed 14 kilos. The next day he went to harvest clusters again, and the cluster had already become a bit smaller—now he had two clusters in a se’ah, each cluster 7 kilos. After that he went to the garden a third time, and by then it was already three clusters in a se’ah.

His teacher, Rabbi Chiya, asked him why he had been absent from the yeshivah and hadn’t come for three days.

Reish Lakish answered: I was harvesting grape clusters.

Rabbi Chiya: How much did you harvest—how much? What weight?

Reish Lakish: The first time, each cluster was 14.5 kilos. On the second day it was 7 kilos. On the third day it already weighed 5 kilos.

Rabbi Chiya: If you hadn’t gone out to the field, it would have grown bigger. Let the cluster grow! A person is afraid: It will grow and then it will rot. No! It only grows! It will grow for you many times over…!

The Gemara says that in the future they will bring a single grape on a ship. A person will put in a spout and have wine for 100 years—the wine will ferment inside the grape. “Binding his donkey to the vine” (Bereishis 49:11): there will be one cluster on a donkey.