Rav Shmuel Liani warns against continuing the incitement against Rav Berland

RAV SHMUEL LIANI WARNS AGAINST CONTINUING THE INCITEMENT AGAINST RAV BERLAND

Hear Rav Liani's words for yourself, in the original Hebrew:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4Pb2JWs5fk

Over Purim 5777, Rav Shmuel Liani gave a fiery speech where he warned Rav Berland’s persecutors to stop their poisonous and destructive incitement against him. Rav Liani said:

“Purim is a good time to look at the fire of machloket (controversy, strife) from the right perspective. Mordechai the Jew succeeded in uniting everyone when he proclaimed: ‘Go and gather all the Jews together’. This was what effectively saved all of Am Yisrael from the destruction that had been decreed upon them.

“What ‘good’ are those people who are engaged in the machloket bringing to the world? What have they done so far in the world for Rabbenu (Rebbe Nachman of Breslov), that makes them think that they have the merit to come and fight against [Rav Berland, shlita, and his Shuvu Banim community]?

"[Rav Berland] woke up Breslov, and started flying the flag for Breslov chassidut. He turned [Breslov chassidut] into a burning flame containing tens of thousands of Jews, all over the world. [His persecutors] need to measure all the ‘good’ [they think they’re doing] against the terrible damage they’re causing to so many people.

> “There is a big community, a huge community of people that can’t even really be counted, who came close to Breslov thanks to Rav Berland, shlita.

"Today, this community is spread out in a number of synagogues all over Israel (and the world, generally). Every week, they’re reading the Rav’s words in the parsha sheets, telling them: ‘Just keep praying, and don’t respond to the persecutors. Don’t participate in any machloket, just pray and wait for the fire of machloket to be extinguished.’

“Rav Eliezer Berland, shlita, is telling us not to take sides in this machloket - but how is it really possible not to take a side?! Without any disrespect, there are many people within the community of those that are persecuting Rav Berland who aren’t lifting a finger to try to stop this from happening. They are adding fuel to the fire of machloket, and by so doing are playing straight into the hands of the Soton (the forces of evil).

“They are fomenting strife and disturbing the emuna of thousands of Jews, who drew close to Breslov, and to Rabbenu, thanks to the efforts of Rav Eliezer Berland, shlita.”

Rav Liani continued: “It’s forbidden for us to forget that Rebbe Nachman himself started his path in the midst of machloket, and that the people who were coming against him were big figures [in the Torah world], and at a very high level indeed.

> "250 years’ on, Breslov is thriving, while those people really disappeared from the face of the earth.

“250 heads of the Sanhedrin challenged Moshe Rabbenu, which they believed they were completely justified in doing. And the outcome from that was painfully plain and shocking to see: God doesn’t want us to cause trouble, and to be engaged in machloket. The ground opened up and swallowed every last one of them.

> “Machloket is truly the work of the devil, and it has no place in the [Jewish world].

“The second point concerns the terrible way this dispute is being waged, so shamefully and disgracefully. I don’t remember ever seeing such disgusting announcements being made at any other point over the last few years, that are truly posing a danger to the future of our people. Things that are so full of obscenity, it defies all sense of logic or propriety that they are pasting these things up above the signatures of the Gedolei HaDor (leaders of the generation) of Am Yisrael.

“This is not the way!

> "Surely no-one really wants that these disgusting things should be put into the heads of our children, and filling our homes.

"This is a terrible, dreadful thing!

“We should remember that there are thousands of Jews who don’t live in Meah Shearim, and who live in the Diaspora, and in Tel Aviv and Haifa, and who have no way of holding on to their Yiddishkeit. They are standing on the sides watching all this, and pondering what they should do now that the person who brought them back to their Judaism, and who all their connection to Judaism depends upon, is being fought against like this.”

Rav Liani concluded:

“May it be Hashem’s will that He should listen to  my cry, and that he should wake people up to spend a few minutes every day figuring out what they can do to completely uproot this machloket [from the community], root and branch.”