New—Listen: “All the Selichos Begin in Tzalmon” — The Astonishing Lesson of the Holy Tzaddik Rabbi Eliezer Berland shlit"a

On the 4th of Elul 5776, in Hashem’s mercy upon us, we merited an astonishing lesson from The Rav shlit"a, delivered with fiery holiness and true self-sacrifice. “The Jewish people are children of the Supreme Holy One—children of Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov. There are no sinners, no heretics, no ‘secular Jews.’ On Yom Kippur everyone becomes one; everyone prays. I remember when I was a child, about ten years old, and the crowd broke the windows and doors of the great synagogue. They had handed out tickets, and the people refused to accept that. It shocked me so deeply to see Am Yisrael alive: even completely secular Jews broke everything just to get in to pray.” With these holy words, The Rav shlit"a opens.

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“Rabbi Kuperstup from Herzliya would cry such tears that everyone came to see him—and when everyone would leave, he would begin to pray. His crying on Rosh Hashanah melted every heart; all the secular Jews would come to witness it. Even the least Jewish Jew is more of a tzaddik than any non-Jew, because even though he did what he did, it is all only on the outside.”

“On the first night of Selichos, before flying to Uman, everyone comes to Tzalmon—twenty thousand people will come. At 18:00 they will begin saying the entire Book of Tehillim; afterward they will say Selichos, and immediately after the Vasikin prayer everyone travels to the airport, and from there to Uman. There will be free buses, food and drink, and dancing until morning.”

“With Rebbe Nachman, everything begins from the very first day of Selichos. Rebbe Nachman brings everyone through—everyone—into the Book of Life. A person sees that he is alive after Rosh Hashanah and thinks they forgave him for his sins, but he does not know that they took years off his life. Miriam is at the head of the camp. We are commanded in the Torah to remember the deed of Miriam—but what did she do? Could it even enter one’s mind that Miriam spoke lashon hara? She only wanted to save her brother. ‘And they kept the children alive’—Miriam merited the Nukva d’Pardashka, the ‘nose’ of Atik, and she drew down life from the right side. All the children that Miriam brought into the world were at Har Sinai. All six hundred thousand heard the Ten Commandments: ‘Do not make for yourself gods in the heavens and on the earth’—but the men said the intention was not to forbid the image of the ox and the living creatures of the Merkavah. The women insisted that even the image of the living creatures is forbidden to make, but the men tore the jewelry from their ears.”

“‘Scorpions’ alludes to a ‘foundation’—to a Beis HaMikdash of fire. Through the crushing labor in Egypt, all desires were nullified from them, and thus they were able to draw down the holy souls who would receive the holy Torah, because their spiritual contamination ceased. This Yom Kippur, it must be that ‘their contamination ceases’—to leave all blemishes of the bris, all the awesome and terrible blemishes. Therefore Rebbe Nachman says that one must ‘stick a finger in the eyes’ and not look at any woman in the world.”

“A woman is always Malchus. She begins from Malchus of Malchus, and if she merits, she can ascend higher—up to the Malchus of Atik. And a man without his Malchus cannot manage: he can do all the avodah in the world, but without Malchus he cannot. It is like plus and minus in an electrical circuit—without the woman, the current will not flow. Hashem wanted to create the souls together as brothers, but because of the sin of Adam HaKadmon they scattered throughout the world, and only through prayer can a person find his zivug.”

“The most important verse in Sefer Devarim is: ‘And tzedakah will be for us’—here is the entire secret of the Geulah. Rebbe Nachman writes in Torah Reish-Nun-Alef (Likutei Moharan) that Ruth, who was a princess and slept on pillows of gold, left everything and went to glean stalks in the fields. Because when the Rav is present, you pray from six in the morning until twelve, and when the Rav is not present, you put on tefillin before sunset—so what is all your prayer worth? Where is the learning? Where is guarding the eyes? Every second a person must stand before Hashem. To whom are you praying—to the Rav? Is the Rav an idol? Is that avodah zarah?”

“The Ketzos HaChoshen teaches anew (siman 255) that a person is always drawing forward and advancing—there is no going back. A person cannot even transfer from holy to holy. Whoever comes to Rebbe Nachman is entirely for Hashem; he is included on Erev Rosh Hashanah in being entirely for Hashem. It is impossible to exchange that—even in the middle of speaking.”