On 2 Adar I 5782, Wednesday of Parshat Terumah, Rabbi Moshe Barber zt"l was brought to his eternal rest at the Holon cemetery — may his soul be bound up in the bond of life.

Our teacher, the gaon and holy tzaddik Rabbi Eliezer Berland shlit"a, eulogized him before a large crowd immediately after the evening prayer; these are his holy words:

"Moshe ben Esther now needs to know that he was the greatest tzaddik, the greatest tzaddik of all generations—such a tzaddik has not existed since the creation of the world. For he would travel every night to Yosef HaTzaddik—traveling at 1:00 at night, among the pomegranates, amid incendiary bottles; there they also fired some hundred bullets at us. The entire army fled; they hid there in Beit Porek; some crossed over to Dubai and hid in Dubai. But not a single soldier remained there in the whole area except Breslov chassidim—no one else remained."

"Barber would travel every night amid the gunfire—he was literally amid incendiary bottles. Today there is only gunfire; then it was incendiary bottles. They literally shot pomegranates; one went exactly—he bent his head, and then it struck his hat; Nachman Weiss bent his head, and then it struck his hat. And so there was an abundance of bullets—abundance, abundance, abundance. The heavens opened; the windows of heaven opened, and there was great abundance. Every bullet is infinity—millions of dollars. Every bullet—only, we didn’t pay income tax then, so there will be a bit of a problem."

"In any case, one must know that Barber is the greatest tzaddik. Moshe Barber—such a tzaddik has not existed since the creation of the world—who merited to be such a tzaddik with such self-sacrifice. In practice, he atoned for the sale. For one must bring a goat as a sin-offering; even after Mashiach comes, they will bring a goat as a sin-offering to atone for the sale of Yosef."

"Now Rav Hoffman told me the novel insight, ‘You are the goat.’ I didn’t understand what a goat has to do with this—what goat, where is the goat? No—this goat will take the goat out from the Sitra Achra, because the ministering angel of Egypt arrived with the goat of the sale of Yosef at the time when they needed to split the Sea of Reeds. Then the ministering angel of Egypt brought the goat; they slaughtered a goat to dip Yosef’s coat in blood. So the ministering angel of Egypt goes all the time with the goat; therefore one must atone—to bring a goat as a sin-offering."

"On Yom Kippur they bring three goats: two goats for the lots, and another goat for the day—three. On Rosh Hashanah they bring two goats: the goat of Rosh Chodesh and the goat of the day. Shavuot also—two goats. And all the goats always come to atone for the sale of Yosef, because it is impossible to atone for 22 years of being in prison, in jail. We were with a phone right next to us, food—today every five minutes they bring new food: chocolates, sweets, all the delicacies in the world. But why were there literally no grapes? Let Hashem bring literal grapes—what is the problem for Him? He can bring grapes, plums, dates. No—this is all a tikkun for the sale of Yosef, because in prison there are no grapes, no dates—dates there still were, but not grapes."

"So just as Yosef for 22 years did not have grapes, therefore I also did not have grapes. Therefore for 40 years in the wilderness there were no grapes—only what the merchants of the nations of the world brought, because the manna was absorbed into the limbs (and they did not need openings). And what about ‘And you shall have a peg upon your weapon’? (the bathroom that was in the wilderness)—but the manna was absorbed into the limbs! Rather, it was only what they ate from the merchants of the nations of the world (see Yoma 75b)."

This was Moshe Barber: he was our Rebbe of the generation; he was the Moshe Rabbeinu of the generation. He did not leave Yosef HaTzaddik in any way in the world, even though there were a million Arabs there, a million Hamasniks, a million al-Qaeda there. He would travel within al-Qaeda, within Hamas, not afraid of any person in the world. And such a tzaddik has no longer existed and will not exist; therefore we must now have in mind for the elevation of his neshamah (soul)."

And our teacher Rav Berland shlit"a sang with the congregation:

"And Esther continued and spoke before the king, and fell at his feet, and wept, and pleaded with him" (Esther 8:3).

"My God, my God, why have You forsaken me" (Psalms 22).