The Miracle of Shabbos HaGadol and the Yahrtzeit of the Apter Rebbe

Holy words delivered by our teacher, the Gaon and Tzaddik Rabbi Eliezer Berland shlit"a, on the 5th of Nissan 5782, the day of the Nasi Elitzur ben Shedeur and the Yahrtzeit of the Rebbe of Apta.

"Today we call out 'Elitzur ben Shedeur,' for everyone must enter into the 'tzur' (rock)—'And you shall stand upon the head of the rock,' the cleft of the rock—because now we are traveling toward the Sambation. In ten minutes, one hundred buses are departing, each bus with one hundred people."

For "Let Reuven live and not die"; Reuven crossed the Sambation. Just as he made the calves, our friend Yeravam made the calves. For his father was Sheva ben Bichri, and he saw fire. The Gemara in Sanhedrin says he suddenly saw fire; he saw fire and understood that it was such a holy fire. A fire of holy of holies, so he went and rebelled against David. He said, 'The fire goes with me, it surrounds me.' And it was not him; it was Yeravam ben Nevat, Sheva ben Bichri—this is a reincarnation of Yeravam ben Nevat, who looked but did not see; he looked and saw fire, and he did not understand what he was seeing.

You see fire like Rabbi Yonatan ben Uziel; one sees fire, fire. Suddenly all the birds are burned, all the trees are burned, all the trees become roasted by fire. He would perform [miracles] upon the fire, Yonatan ben Uziel. All the trees, all the birds, he does everything upon the fire.

And after that there was a brit, there was a brit, at Avuya's there was a brit.

So now there was an argument about how they maintained the kollel for King David, and the kollel here. So they became disgusted, and they fled; they went down to the basement below. Suddenly, boom! Fire erupted—what fire, what a conflagration! And 'All shall weep for the burning that Hashem has burned.' Such a fire had never been in the world; the entire house went up in flames. They brought planes from Syria, from Greece, to extinguish it; they already obtained a supertanker—a supertanker is eighty tons. Every five minutes, eighty tons of water, but it doesn't succeed, it doesn't work, it doesn't work.

What did Avuya do? He put on asbestos clothes; these are clothes against fire. Firefighters walk with asbestos clothes, against fire. He enters into the fire, goes down one hundred and fifty steps, goes down into the fire, goes down, down, down, reaches the basement, and he sees the fire coming out of the basement. Crash... he kicks the door of the basement, the door opens, and what does he see? Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Yehoshua.

The Miracle of Shabbat HaGadol

We are now studying the weekly Torah portion of Metzora, Shabbat HaGadol, that 'Take for yourselves on the tenth of the month.' Because the miracle was on Shabbat HaGadol; it is written in the Tur that the miracle of Shabbat HaGadol was greater than the miracle of the Exodus from Egypt. Because there, everyone died; there, suddenly everyone died. The plague of the firstborn—the firstborns came and said to Pharaoh, 'What are you doing? What is going on here? We have already received nine, we have no strength for another one. How much strength do you think there is?' It is one thing for Shuvu Banim to be able to receive more blows... so they said, 'There is no strength, we have no strength.'

He says, 'No! I am not interested in anything! No Jew is leaving from here! I tell you, I swear by my crown! No Jew will dare to leave from here!' So they began to suffer blows, destruction; twice as many firstborns died than those who died in the plague of the firstborn. 'To Him who struck Egypt through their firstborn,' twice as many. This is Shabbat HaGadol, which will be in two days; there will be Shabbat HaGadol in two days.

Yahrtzeit of the Rebbe of Apta

Today is the Yahrtzeit of the Apta Rav; it is greater than Yom Kippur, everything can be accomplished today. And today, today everyone is traveling to Uman, so that no one dares to remain here. You don't need passports, you don't need anything; the Ukrainians are happy that we are coming. We strengthen them, we pray for them that there should be peace. Why did you come? To pray that there should be peace. All the time they asked us, 'Why are you coming?' To pray that there should be peace. They want peace—in Russian it is 'Mira,' Mira. Everything is 'Mira' boulevards and there is 'Mir' boulevard, all of this is Mira, Mira, Mira. Whoever has a daughter should call her Mira, so with the help of Hashem, now we are still in Mira.

So suddenly they saw the fire coming out and they didn't know what to do with the fire; they don't know, in every place fire breaks out, and more fire, and more... more fire, more fire, more fire. And this is Elitzur ben Shedeur, who enters into the cleft of the rock, and from there they ascend in a chariot of fire and horses of fire.