Tzaddikim and Torah Scholars Continue to Awaken in Protest Against the Disgrace

The eternity of Israel will not lie; it is a great Kiddush Hashem when the tzaddikim of the generation begin to awaken and protest from every platform against the honor of the great gaon, Rav Eliezer Berland shlit"a. We have known in the past of great rabbis who spoke of the greatness of Rav Berland shlit"a and of the severity and prohibition of speaking evil against him, but we are witnessing a fascinating phenomenon in recent times. Many tzaddikim, rabbis, and those who bring the public closer to Hashem, great and hidden tzaddikim who were not previously known for their affiliation with Rav Berland and his community, are suddenly rising with a great voice and drawing many after them to protest the sin of shaming the tzaddik.

"We must protest the shaming of the tzaddik, all the more so because there will not be many who protest, for 'a covenant is made with lashon hara (evil speech) to be accepted.' Furthermore, people feel that whoever protests and speaks against the persecution of Rav Berland is as if they are associating themselves with a certain thing, and people do not like to label themselves. Especially when there is a dispute, people are afraid that they will be drawn into the dispute, particularly when everything is accompanied by threats: 'If you speak against the persecution of the Rav, we will make your life bitter; we will not distribute your books and we will burn them.'"

"I am speaking against the dispute regarding the great gaon, Rav Eliezer Berland shlit"a, who is one of the foundational tzaddikim of this generation, if not the greatest tzaddik among them. And due to our many sins, the state here, just as it has done to many, does the same to Rav Berland. The state asks where the money from the pidyonot (redemptions) goes, while they themselves are thieves in broad daylight, robbers in the dark, doing everything, yet they come to question what a tzaddik is doing."

Rabbi Yisrael Sharret shlit"a began to protest before a large audience of G-d-fearing people at the Musayoff Synagogue in Jerusalem.

"They stole children, the children of Yemen. It would have been better if they had killed this glorious Judaism, which passed down a pure tradition since the days of the Second Temple, in the gas chambers, rather than the death that the state inflicted upon them. This is the killing of souls; in the Holocaust, they died as martyrs and ascended straight to Gan Eden, but here they killed generations. My father-in-law, to this day, does not know where his brother is, and another one from the family as well—they sold them. Their mothers have been crying for them for 60 years; they sold them to the gentiles, to the secularists—that is permitted! Rav Uzi Meshulam, who was a hidden tzaddik, they killed him because he revealed the truth."

"You are liars, and you ask what a true tzaddik does? It is a shame and a disgrace. They did this also to Rav Yaakov Yosef zt"l; they called him for questioning. Rav Motzafi, may he live a long and good life, they also called for questioning; Rav Avraham Yosef, they called him for questioning. This is not for nothing—there is a trend here to debase the honor of the Torah and its students to the dust."

"They could come and ask the sage in his home, but no, we will bring a police van, we will put on handcuffs, we will take him out to the street, we will make noise, we will film—so that everyone will see as if the rabbis are thieves. You are the thieves, not the rabbis, and if you had let the rabbis speak everything that was on their hearts, there would be no thieves in the country, there would be no need for prisons. But they do not want that; they want there to be prisons and for people to die."

"Why does Rav Berland perform a pidyon nefesh (redemption of the soul)? People come to ask for salvation. Sometimes Rav Berland performs a pidyon without money, but sometimes he asks for a certain sum for the pidyon. It is his full right; if you do not want to, do not give! He knows what was decreed upon you and he knows what your pidyon is. No, when they set exorbitant prices for medications without including them in the health basket, that is fine; a doctor charges 180,000 for a transplant. The doctor kills him in surgery, but with the Rav, the salvation is guaranteed, and he is forbidden to take a pidyon? Anyone who knows Rav Berland knows that he does not benefit from this; he gives everything to charity."

(The lesson is courtesy of Rabbi Yaakov Salma of Yeshivat Netzach Netzachim)

"Anyone who knows him knows how much he despises money, despises gold, despises food, and despises drink—not for a day or two, but for over forty years. My father has known him for decades and told me, 'From his youth, I said that Rav Berland would be great; he has terrible labors in the service of Hashem.' Will corrupt people come and dare to judge and pass sentence on Rav Berland? What is your problem, the drops he gives for healing? Did the Baba Sali not give bottles of water and arak?"

"This is the oil of a tzaddik. People in Morocco would go with oil to the graves of tzaddikim and heal the sick with it. But their goal is to destroy the faith in the sages and to shame the students of Torah."

"If another person were at the age of Rav Berland and in his medical condition, no one would dare to take him into custody. But the Rav, even though he is elderly, donated a kidney, several tumors were removed from his body, he is ill in his leg and barely walks—for him, one must not have mercy. This is the honor of Hashem, and for this, we must protest. As Samuel the Prophet said: 'For it is not you they have rejected, but Me' (I Samuel 8:7). They are not judging Samuel; they are judging Hashem, and the excuse is His anointed one."

"Show me one lawyer who does not charge money for his 10 minutes, and the rabbis give their days and nights for others. Rav Berland, at 82 years old, barely sleeps; he wanders all night throughout the country to bring more Jews closer in their homes. Let us see them invest like this in their own child, not in someone else's child."

"According to the Chafetz Chaim and according to the Torah, there is no permission for a person to listen to lashon hara, much less to accept it, and certainly not without hearing both sides. Who will you believe, the wicked? The liars? How can you believe them?!"

"Shuvu Banim, do you know how many people have done teshuvah there over decades and become complete tzaddikim? That is what hurts them. After all, they will not defend the Shabbat, nor the yeshiva students, nor the daughters of Israel."

"Pidyon nefesh—can a person judge a pidyon nefesh when he does not even understand what a soul is? And he does not even believe that there is a soul! The tzaddik knows the illnesses of the soul and its healing. There was the tzaddik from Ra'anana, Rabbi Yitzchak HaKohen Huberman, of blessed memory; it is good that he has already passed away, because if he were alive, they would have gone to arrest him after hearing these things. Once, they came to him with a case of a woman in her ninth month whom the doctors said was in great danger, either she or the child. It was Erev Shabbat; he told them, 'On Shabbat, nothing will happen; come on Sunday after the brit (circumcision) that I am attending, I will ask Elijah the Prophet and tell you what he said.' On Sunday, he said that Elijah the Prophet said that nothing would happen to the child or the mother, 'Do not operate.'"

"They asked Rav Shteinman, 'In what did the tzaddik from Ra'anana merit?' He answered: 'I remember him from his childhood, that he was very diligent in Torah and labored in it amidst hardship and poverty.' Once they invited him to be a sandak; he said he would not enter because of the immodesty—'Elijah the Prophet will not enter, so I will enter?' And he would ask for large sums for a pidyon nefesh. Someone came to him whose mother was in a difficult condition. He asked for 20,000 liras for the pidyon; the son insisted and asked only for a blessing. The Rav, Huberman, said, 'I will bless, but if you want her to live, the money for the pidyon is needed.' He would study Torah amidst poverty; the money did not stay with him for even one night. The son did not agree and left, but returned after two days; the tzaddik from Ra'anana said to him, 'That is it, the time has passed.'"

"It happened to me personally; my child was very sick and the doctor was afraid to deal with him. I went to Rav Berland, and he told me that nothing was needed and no doctor. I asked, 'Nothing at all?' In the morning, the child woke up healthy and whole, without a sign or anything, nothing. Already with Saul, who was looking for the donkeys, we learned that they would bring money to the sage."

"This is an insolence without parallel; you do not want to give, do not give. The tzaddik gives you advice as a way to be healed; you do not want it? Please, there are doctors."

"The Gemara says that Jerusalem was not destroyed until they shamed Torah scholars there. When Rav Berland was in exile, the government asked the government there to put him in custody. Rav Berland did not ask for anything there, only his tefillin. They told him, 'Either tefillin or food.' He said, 'Tefillin.' They brought him tefillin, they did not bring him food until he fainted on the fourth day. Then they were afraid of public outcry and brought him food."

"Anyone who believes the lashon hara should think if he would have waited four days without food in order to merit tefillin. In his synagogue at Seudah Shlishit, someone naturally opened a can of tuna and pressed it; there is an issue of 'borer' (sorting) in this. Rav Berland jumped from his seat, grabbed the oil in his hand, and drank it so that that Jew would not transgress the prohibition of borer. This is called a tzaddik, who is willing to swallow this repulsive thing to save a Jew from sin."

"All the tzaddikim were persecuted; the fact that they are persecuted and disparaged does not mean that the person is not a tzaddik; one cannot bring proof from this. Abraham our Father was in prison for 10 years, Moses our Teacher for 10 years, Joseph the Tzaddik for 12 years. The Ben Ish Chai was, the Ramchal was persecuted, the Rebbe of Ruzhin, the Rayatz, the Baal HaTanya—many great tzaddikim were persecuted."

"Representative testimonies from all walks of life about people who were saved by the blessing and the pidyon nefesh of Rav Berland shlit"a"