What a Heart the Tzaddik Has

Awe-inspiring, the heart of the tzaddik. Our teacher, the Gaon and Tzaddik Rav Eliezer Berland shlit"a, arrives to comfort Meir Asulin upon the passing of his mother and weeps as if he had lost a close family member. The tzaddik feels the sorrow of Israel as if it were his own personal sorrow. The Rav entered the house of mourning and wept bitterly while saying, "You had an angel for a mother, my mother, my mother, my mother, this was my mother, this was my mother, this was my mother," the Rav continued, repeating it while weeping.

"Oh, my dear mother," the Rav continued in tears while embracing Meir Asulin. "Since Shabbat, I have only been crying, I have only been crying, I cannot stop crying, oh my dear mother, my dear mother, this was my dear mother," the Rav wept, and all those present were overcome with awe. "This was my mother, this was the mother of us all, this was the mother of the entire nation of Israel, there was no mother like her, this was Sarah our Matriarch," the Rav shlit"a sat, faint, on the mourner's chair.

Photography courtesy of Shahar Eliyahu