Strengthening Words: The Legendary Gabbai Rabbi Yosef Assoulin with New Revelations from Rabbi Eliezer Berland's Home shlit"a - Surprising Part Four

Shuvu Banim Int' continues with the saga that inspires teshuvah (repentance), more holy words of inspiration from the home of the esteemed tzaddik Rabbi Eliezer Berland shlit"a, as told by the legendary gabbai Yosef Assoulin shlit"a. "When the Rav says something, he stands behind his words," continued Rabbi Assoulin. "In the year 5760, we arrived at the residence of our teacher, Rav Berland, in Uman. The Rav entered his room and told me he was only praying Mincha. I thought to myself that after all the upheaval of traveling to Uman, the Rav would quickly finish the prayer, but after two hours when I checked, he was still in the midst of the prayer. The hours passed, and I waited for the Rav to finish Mincha, until finally, after 8 hours, the Rav completed the Mincha prayer. After eight hours of Mincha, our teacher Rav Berland immediately requested to pray Maariv and stood for another hour and a half."

"I did not understand the length of the prayer until at the Rosh Hashanah gathering in Uman, the Rav approached someone and suddenly said to him, 'I prayed for you for 8 hours that you would come to the gathering.' Not only him, this Jew came to Uman for Rosh Hashanah with his entire family. I later approached to clarify with that Jew the intention of the Rav's words, and he told me, 'Yosef, you don't know what miracles I experienced. All of the USA was closed to flights (this was during the time of the Twin Towers' fall), suddenly I had the idea to travel to Canada,' in retrospect, it turned out that thousands of others had the same idea to travel to Canada. Miraculously, the travel agent reserved the flight tickets to Uman specifically for him, 'I don't understand how this happened,' he told me, I knew it was from the Rav's eight hours of prayer."

"In the past, the mikveh in Uman was located below near the magnetometer area. On the night after the holiday, we took the Rav to immerse before he entered the holy resting place of our Rebbe. Afterwards, Kosovski and I ascended with the Rav towards the resting place, and suddenly the Rav leaned on us as his breath stopped. We waited a bit until the Rav returned to himself, and immediately afterwards, we flew back to Eretz Yisrael. In the land, the Rav was supposed to be the sandek at the brit of the son of Rabbi Pinchas Bik, but the Rav conveyed through Kosovski that he should take his righteous father-in-law, Rabbi Shabtai Horowitz zt"l, as the sandek. The Rav also told Kosovski that we should travel to Tzfat and prepare a place for him to stay. Kosovski pointed out a house in Kfar Canaan to me, but I did not listen to him. After searching throughout the village, we finally arrived at the very house Kosovski initially pointed out, and indeed, the Rav and the Rebbetzin eventually came there."

"It was during the Ten Days of Repentance, we returned to Jerusalem and loaded cabinets full of books from the home of our teacher, Rav Berland shlit"a, to bring them to Kfar Canaan. One day, the Rav was walking in the garden, deep in thought, until the son of the homeowner saw him and came down to speak with him, wondering what a Jew from Jerusalem was doing in Kfar Canaan. The Rav replied that he came to the north because he was not feeling well and came to rest. That Jew replied, 'You are not feeling well? I am a doctor from Shaare Zedek, let me do a quick check-up and see how I can help you!' Indeed, after a brief examination, he identified a heart issue in the Rav and immediately arranged special treatment for him with a heart specialist, the head of the cardiology department at Shaare Zedek, who was his friend. Thus it was, and thanks to the Rav's prayers, he ended up in the place where salvation sprouted for him, the Rav received the appropriate medications and was completely healed.