Longing That Will Break a Wall

A few days ago, our teacher, the holy Rav Eliezer Berland shlit"a, was transferred and moved again, this time from Tzalmon to Ramla. About 24 hours before the transfer, his students began working to set up a protest tent opposite the walls of Tzalmon Prison. Immediately upon learning of the transfer, they loaded their equipment and went into exile along with their Rav to the center of the country.

Former Supreme Court Justice Miriam Naor said: Detention until the end of proceedings is illegal. Detention until the end of proceedings is a tool of the State Attorney's Office to pressure a person into reaching a plea bargain, even if he is not guilty.

Our teacher, the holy Rav Eliezer Berland shlit"a, has been sitting in prison for half a year without trial and for no fault of his own. His many students are sacrificing themselves to maintain the very important bond between Rav and student. Days and nights they frequent the walls of the prisons to which their Rav is moved, waiting and longing at the doors of closed hearts.

On 12.8.20, Rav Berland shlit"a was transferred again from Tzalmon to Ramla Prison; his students and followers, along with all their equipment, went into exile with him. We bring you the content of the interviews from the investigative report we filmed on-site.

"They ask us why come here, to leave home, to leave the family? To arrive in the middle of a field, in Tzalmon, to stand and sit in the heat. And we say that it is simply love; that is our excuse, one very simple excuse."

"This is state land belonging to the Administration - we checked; there is a Druze man here who cultivates the land; he hasn't cultivated here for two years, we spoke with him," says Rabbi Aharon Schwartz about the area opposite the prison where they chose to settle.

"They ask us why we come here, sitting in the sun opposite the prison for entire days. Leaving home, the children, going to sit in the heat, outside in front of the prison, what do we find in this? Beyond the matter of the protest, that we are students of a Rav who was arrested for no fault of his own, a tzaddik, holy and pure, who only helps everyone from the people of Israel, truly, with a whole heart, a man of service to Hashem the likes of which we haven't seen for generations. He is entirely occupied with Torah, with holiness, with prayer, a man who transformed Breslov, in practice since the sixties, into a large and giant Chassidut. From a small handful of a few families to a large and giant Chassidut."

"Rav Berland brought tens and hundreds of thousands to teshuvah (repentance), opened the way to Uman for them even in the difficult period of Communism - he opened Breslov to the masses. He encouraged his students to go out to bring the people of Israel closer. This is Rav Berland for us; this is the Rebbe Nachman of our generation. And Rav Berland is the successor, he is the true student who continues the light of Rebbe Nachman to our generation. And we are here to say these things in a simple way."

"Now it is the month of Av, and for half a year our teacher Rav Eliezer Berland has been here - in Tzalmon Prison behind us, in detention until the end of proceedings without trial. On accusations that are a legal theory, as if the pidyon nefesh (redemption of the soul), which is a religious ceremony, which is a soul, is extortion. This is a complete lie - the system wants to frame cases. There is a framing of cases here, there is a move here to try to eliminate a person legally, they do it in combination with the media. Channel 13 mainly, which incites, and after that the police supposedly arrest, and they don't find anything, and there is nothing."

"For every one testimony that Rav Berland supposedly took a pidyon and did not succeed, one can bring 5 cases where Rav Berland succeeded in performing the pidyon. In any case, it is an unfair trial; for half a year, an elderly man of 83 with dozens of different medical problems, lung failure, kidney failure, high blood pressure, a pacemaker, heart problems, after a kidney removal. Many medical problems throughout the body, and the Rav is imprisoned during this entire Corona period. The Prison Service and the judicial system took a dangerous gamble here by leaving the Rav in prison despite all the Corona, while he is in the condition of having the most severe underlying diseases for Corona. And nevertheless, they left the Rav in prison under conditions that are not simple for a normal person - all the more so for an elderly person."

"A man who lives as a Rav of a community numbering hundreds and thousands of people who hear him and the voice of his Torah - they put him in prison! Half a year without trial, they haven't even started the trial yet, detention until the end of proceedings."

"Judge Miriam Naor, former President of the Supreme Court, said that detention until the end of proceedings is illegal and undemocratic, for the simple reason that a person cannot deal legally when he is in detention. The pressure to get out of detention leads and pressures him to close a plea bargain, even when he can prove his innocence in an evidentiary trial. And this is what they are doing to Rav Berland - they are exploiting his difficult medical condition, putting him in detention until the end of proceedings."

"All this they do, because there is nothing in the file; everything is a fabricated theory, legal bluffs that supposedly, a pidyon nefesh is extortion, everything is based on bluffs, they have nothing so they want to pressure the Rav to admit to nothing."

"They already did this in the past in 2017, also delusional accusations of word against word, they put him in detention until the end of proceedings. An evidentiary trial was supposed to take a year or two, maybe even three, and Rav Berland had 3 cancerous tumors and his condition deteriorated. They neglected him, in the previous Tzalmon in 2017, and in the end, the Rav was forced to sign a plea bargain in order to be released as quickly as possible from prison."

"Truly that is how it was; he left prison, underwent a kidney removal and in a terrible medical condition, he left prison with complete dehydration on the verge of death, after a year in prison, part of the time in a very difficult prison. C-Max prison in South Africa, and most of the time here in Israel in Tzalmon, and now they want to do the same thing, to pressure the Rav through detention until the end of proceedings, to pressure him to reach a plea agreement even though there is nothing on him, in order to supposedly shorten the sentence."

"If Rav Berland has to be imprisoned for the entire evidentiary trial, the evidentiary trial hasn't even started yet, half a year has already passed, then, they want to keep him for many years in prison!"

"We do not agree that our Rav should be behind bars for no fault of his own. We are here protesting against the law and judicial authorities in Israel, that they are committing a terrible injustice here based on slander and a witch hunt. And terrible media incitement by those who disagree who have been looking for Rav Berland for decades, and media that only looks for blood, bloodshed, and acts hypocritically, as if they care for the weak, they themselves are the wicked, and they are the tramplers and the cruel - acting cruelly toward the tzaddikim."

"A severe violation of civil rights, a violation of the right to a fair trial of Rav Berland who is forced to be in detention until the end of proceedings, and to conduct a trial under the pressure of detention and the inability to conduct a fair trial."

"We are here also as students, like Joshua son of Nun who waited for Moses our teacher under the mountain, 40 days that Moses went up. We also as close students of Rav Berland, lovers of the Rav, admirers of the Rav, Chassidim of the Rav, believe that this is one of the greatest people who have stood for Judaism in the last few hundred years."

"Whoever knows Rav Berland up close knows what a person with a genius mind he is and what toil in Torah, and what a holy and ascetic man he is. He performs wonders and loves every Jew - simply all the good traits are united in this holy man. And we want to be as close to him as possible as students - the bond between us is very strong. Like, if, G-d forbid, one of my close family members, father or mother or brother were arrested under any circumstances. Whoever truly loves someone waits for him outside, waits for him on the side - and this is our expression."

"There are many students of Rav Berland who want to come for a few hours, to pray opposite the prison, to do hitbodedut (seclusion) opposite the prison, to say the Tikkun HaKlali, like the request of the Rav to say the Tikkun HaKlali 7 times, which the Rav believes is the only thing that can help him be released."

"Rav Berland believes that everything is rigged in advance, he has no trust in the judicial system of the State of Israel. We see this day by day, the courts are the rubber stamp of the State Attorney's Office, every request they approve. If they leave an 83-year-old man with so many medical problems, they leave him in prison for half a year despite the Corona wave - only detention, still without trial. We believe that only saying the Tikkun HaKlali will help."

At the end of the month of Av this year, the year 5780, our teacher, the holy Rav Eliezer Berland shlit"a, was transferred and moved again, this time to Ramla Prison. His devoted students and followers gathered all their equipment and went into exile with him to Ramla. These are their words from Ramla:

"B"H, we are here on the eve of Holy Shabbat, over 200 people arrived here. There are guys here with tents, some rented apartments in the Chabad neighborhood in Lod, we are organizing here for Shabbat. And B"H, everyone here is coming to spend Shabbat with the tzaddik Rav Berland - we are not giving up, we will be with Rav Berland - through fire and water."