A new and special lesson that our teacher, His Honor the holy tzaddik Rabbi Eliezer Berland shlit"a, dictated to his attorney in prison and asked to publish to the public.

“The eight days of Chanukah came to nullify the power of the eight kings of Edom”

“Chanukah is the letters of chanu”khah— in the verse Shema Yisrael there are 25 letters, because the Maccabees went up to the grave of Shmuel the Prophet, because from there one can see the entire landscape as far as Tel Aviv; one can see the entire lowland. The Maccabees, the Chashmonaim, were up on the mountain above and saw that the Greeks were advancing from Greece—there was nowhere to be. From Jaffa ships arrive, and every ship is full of soldiers; one hundred thousand Greek soldiers were drawing near to Jerusalem.”

“It took them three days to reach Jerusalem on foot. When they reached Latrun, the Maccabees saw them by way of the area of Shmuel’s grave. They saw that the soldiers were arriving with large elephants. The Maccabees fled; only Yehudah remained with another 300 soldiers. He cried out ‘Shema Yisrael’ many times, since the verse has 25 letters.”

“The Maccabees saw that the elephants began to run wild among them; the situation became dangerous, and the elephants that had brought the Greek soldiers killed those soldiers.”

“Latrun is a place where all the camps encamp before they go up to Jerusalem; Sha’ar HaGai is a narrow place.”

“On Chanukah all the Maccabees engraved on their flag: ‘Who is like You among the mighty, Hashem’—the initials are M.K.B.Y.M. Matityahu cried: ‘Whoever is for Hashem—[come] to me,’ because at the moment that Matityahu, the father of Yehudah and Elazar, killed in Modi’in the Greek officer who brought him a pig and told him to offer it as the Pesach sacrifice—Matityahu drew his sword and severed the Greek’s head.”

“In that period, in all of Modi’in there were Greeks—Greeks who came from Syria and took upon themselves Greek culture. The revolt began in the year 64 BCE and lasted three years. The first war was against Apollonius, and Yehudah cut off his head.”

“The second war was against Siron, with whom came one hundred thousand Greeks. The third war was against Lysias, who came with one thousand elephants and one hundred thousand soldiers—and this was the great miracle of Latrun, that the elephants trampled all one hundred thousand soldiers who came with him. This was also the final battle, which lasted three years.”

“The initials of the three wars are ‘P.S.L’: ‘P’ for Apollonius, ‘S’ for Siron, and ‘L’ for Lysias.”

“The Maccabees entered Jerusalem and purified the Holy Temple of all the signs of Greece that were inside it—pig [offerings]—and they lit the lamps. There was one jug of oil, and until they made new oil it took eight days, because it was necessary to bring olives from the Galil, to harvest them, and this took eight days. Therefore, every Chanukah, each and every year, the light is greater and greater, and it is possible to see miracles and wonders.”