More Revelations: Rabbi Shalom Arush Shares His Journey to Judaism and Rabbi Eliezer Berland – 2005 Part 3

We continue to bring the third part of the rare conversation of the head of the 'Chut Shel Chessed' institutions and one of the veteran and famous students of the esteemed Rabbi Eliezer Berland shlit"a, Rabbi Shalom Arush shlit"a. "The first trips to Uman, anyone who hasn't seen the simcha (joy) in Kiev hasn't seen joy in his life. In 1975, I was in yeshiva, during the time I was with the Rav in Arad (detailed in the previous part of the conversations), at that time our teacher Rav Berland shlit"a was not yet famous, his yeshiva in Shikun V' was only opened in 1977. During that period, I moved to live in Bnei Brak to study in the Rav's yeshiva, before that I studied in other yeshivas."

The Sweetness of the First Trips to Uman

"In the first trips to Uman, the entire journey was spent in prayer, they delayed us a lot there, it took a long time until everyone passed through. How many dances we did, what dances, what joy. If a person wants to travel to the Rebbe, there are no obstacles in the world that will stop him. It is written that whoever extends his hand on Purim is given, I had a yearning to travel to Uman, I stood and prayed on Purim with supplications to reach the Rebbe."

The Prayer to Reach the Tzion Works

"I passed by the bookstore of Meshach HaNachal and there I saw Shimon Shapira who told me, 'We are nine people traveling to Uman on Rosh Chodesh Nisan and we need a tenth, are you interested in joining?' I said okay, but I didn't know what to do, how would I leave my wife with all the cleaning and preparations for Pesach and I didn't have any money. I told my wife and she replied firmly, 'You are going to Uman only if you take the son. At that time, it was not yet clear to us how to handle the children regarding the trips to Uman, I didn't take Nachman before the age of seven and there was Natan before the age of seven. 'Here, I saved money for both of you, if you take the child!', she continued and said - what is the power of prayer."

Truly Self-Sacrifice to Reach the Tzion of the Tzaddik

"I don't know if we had another trip like this. We traveled via Vienna with the intention of obtaining a visa, and indeed we received visas to Leningrad. This was in 1987, and there, in Leningrad, they didn't want to give us any permit. We flew to Moscow without suitcases and without any food, at the Chabad House they made us soup, we immersed in the mikveh, it really revived us. From Moscow, we made our way to Kiev and still needed to reach Uman. It is impossible to describe what we went through until we reached Uman, the whole way we were in prayers, mentioning the names of the tzaddikim, dancing, everyone who managed to pass brought everyone into joy. Every step was miracles, Baruch Hashem, in all the trips I took, I reached Uman."

Our teacher Rav Berland said that whoever was privileged to travel on those trips knows what a journey is. Those who bore the difficulty were left with a strong impression from the journeys."