To Illuminate the Shabbat – The Daily Chizzuk with Rabbi Eliezer Berland Shlit”a

THE DAILY CHIZZUK OF OUR REBBE RAV ELIEZER BERLAND SHLIT”A – “TO FEEL THE LIGHT OF SHABBAT THROUGH JOY AND DANCING”

The beginning of the Rav’s words are based on the story of the famous niggun (melody): “Oz v’hadar levushah…” which is sung on Shabbat evening.

On the evening of her wedding, the daughter of one of the great students of Rabbi Natan of Breslov, Rabbi Meir Leib Belcher, approached her father and asked for money for clothes.  Her father, who was very poor but a great composer of niggunim, said to her, “I don’t have money to give to you; a niggun, I can give to you,” and he composed this niggun on the words (from “Eshet Chayil – A woman of valor”) “Oz ve’hadar levushah, va'tischak l’yom acharon – her dress is strength and splendor, and she laughed until the last day.”

THURSDAY, 3 SIVAN 5782 – “ILLUMINATING THE SHABBAT AND SWEETENING THE JUDGEMENTS”

These are the holy words of the Rav shlit”a:

Rabbi Meir Leib Belcher didn’t have a dress for his daughter for her wedding.  On the last day, mamash a few hours before the wedding ceremony, someone brought him a wedding dress.

The song that we sing, “Oz ve’hadar,” Rabbi Leib Belcher composed.  We are accustomed to sing this before Kiddush – to sing this five minutes, ten minutes with the children, to dance with them, to instill them with experiences – that they should feel the light of Shabbat, the light of the niggunim, of “Eshet Chayil.”

The child waits for the father to sing with him, to dance with him.  It’s not enough that you keep Shabbat.  [To a child who doesn’t feel the joy of singing and dancing,] Shabbat is terribly boring.  It’s most boring on Shabbat.  The phone is forbidden, the iphone is forbidden, the internet is forbidden.  They simply crucified him, put him in prison.

To a person [who doesn’t feel the joy], Shabbat is a prison.  He doesn’t know that [you need to] dance and sing, that you pray Ma’ariv three hours.  Begin Ma’ariv at 6:30 and finish at 9:30 – three hours.

After this the counting of the Omer.  Rabbi Natan says that [in] the counting of the Omer, each day is greater than the day before it.

Today there are decrees at every moment.  This is a government of wicked people, of Amalek, of Amalekites.  This is the seed of Amalek, these are Nazis, and we need to sweeten this.