The precious young men of the great yeshivah “Breslov – Chochmah V’Daas,” who are like the apple of the eye of The Rav, Rabbi Eliezer Berland shlit"a, merited to enter the home of The Rav shlit"a for a special shiur for the bochurim—strengthening them in learning Gemara and in Yiras Shamayim.

As mentioned, the shiur took place in the home of The Rav shlit"a this past Wednesday night, the eve of the 27th of Iyar, before the Maariv prayer. At the beginning of the shiur, The Rav shlit"a spoke about the signs of Yaakov and Rachel, and about the secret connected to the thumbs that are used for the metzora. They tell him: Rachel Imeinu guarded the secret—having given the signs over to Leah—throughout her entire life, and she did not reveal it to anyone so that Leah would not be shamed. So too they say to the metzora: Guard your tongue, and learn from Rachel Imeinu. It should be noted that for most of the shiur, The Rav strengthened the bochurim to learn Gemara in depth and to complete Shas.

After that, throughout the shiur The Rav expanded on the sugya of “a kav within four amos,” and said that one must know how to learn Gemara b’iyun properly, together with all the commentaries, in the right way. In the course of his words, The Rav spoke about the lofty importance of giving tzedakah. He also explained the line from the piyut, “From the womb, for Your Name, they are circumcised”—that a baby is truly already “circumcised” from the womb; it only needs to be revealed at the bris. Afterwards he spoke about the blessing of Shemittah, and said that when a person says, “What will we eat?” it can be a great form of kefirah. Toward the end of the shiur, he spoke again about the great blessing found in the fruits of Eretz Yisrael, as brought at the end of Maseches Kesubos, about the tremendous abundance that was here. Regarding this, Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi said: “Land, land—for whom do you bring forth your fruits…?”

After about forty minutes of shiur, The Rav shlit"a concluded with Kaddish and went out to Maariv and Sefiras HaOmer with vitality and niggunim, as every evening, in the plaza of the prayer hall.