The Daily Strengthening from The Rav, Rabbi Eliezer Berland shlit"a – “A person must shake himself free from the sin bound up with birth”

“Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me” (Psalms 51:7)

“Then you will delight in Hashem” (Isaiah 58:14)

“They saw their bundles of money—they and their father—and they were afraid” (Genesis 42:35)

“And of Zevulun he said: Rejoice, Zevulun, in your going out, and Yissachar in your tents” (Deuteronomy 33:18)

“Yissachar is a strong-boned donkey, crouching between the boundaries” (ibid. 33:14)

“Naftali is a sent-out doe, who gives words of beauty” (ibid. 49:21)

“Peoples—he will call them to the mountain” (Deuteronomy 33:19)

“In the future, wheat will rise like a palm tree and ascend to the top of the mountains. And perhaps you will say: Is there suffering in harvesting it? … Hashem will bring a wind from His storehouses and blow upon it, and it will shed its fine flour; and a person will go out to the field, bring a palmful, and from it he will have his livelihood.” (Kesubos 111b)

Day 2, 6 Adar 5783 – “What is real ‘core curriculum’ learning?”

These are his holy words:

People ask: We were in Uman, we were in this and that… so why hasn’t the yetzer hara weakened?!

Because, “Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me” (Psalms 51:7). A person is born through the yetzer hara—so now he needs 120 years to fight the yetzer hara.

“They saw their bundles of money—they and their father—and they were afraid” (Genesis 42:35). The impurity connected to birth clings to a child for his entire life. That is why he can’t learn, and he can’t pray—because the impurity is stuck to him.

A person must do teshuvah for the impurity of his own birth. Rebbe Nachman brings this in Torah 11: a person needs to do teshuvah for his birth. “They saw their bundles of money—they and their father—and they were afraid”—“they saw,” because it’s impossible to bring a child into the world without desire; but a person must quickly shake himself free of it, cleanse it, and pray about it.

When he sees “their bundles of money” in their sack, he needs to do teshuvah for it—because through learning Torah, one must unite Hashem and the Shechinah.

Rebbe Nachman says an awesome chiddush that I have not seen in any book in the world: when, in the future, our righteous Moshiach arrives, whoever cannot learn will make chairs, will make tables, will make… and they will distribute it all for free. People will need to create things, and everything will be given out for free.

Everyone will have enough food. It is written (Kesubos 111b) that one grape will suffice for 100 years. With one grape a person will have wine for all those years.

About Zevulun it says, “Rejoice, Zevulun, in your going out” (Deuteronomy 33:18). Why “rejoice”? Because Zevulun brings people back in teshuvah!

The only one about whom it says “rejoice” is Zevulun. About the others it says, “Yissachar is a strong-boned donkey, crouching between the boundaries” (ibid. 33:14), “Naftali is a sent-out doe” (ibid. 49:21)—but it doesn’t say about them “rejoice.” About Zevulun it says, “Rejoice, Zevulun”—why?

Because, “Peoples—he will call them to the mountain” (Deuteronomy 33:19). Through Zevulun’s Torah learning, everyone does teshuvah—he doesn’t learn Torah for himself.

In the future, a person will bring one grape, place it in a corner, and he will have it for 100 years. They will take the grape to the Diaspora, and all the nations will see that the Jewish people learn Torah and are blessed. There are no institutes, no universities—there’s no need. We learn Torah.

The Rebbe said that “core studies” means learning Gemara!

You want “core”? Gemara develops the mind! If you want to develop the mind, learn Gemara, learn sugyos, learn Ketzos HaChoshen—this is the true core curriculum. Then everything develops, and then, “In the future, wheat will rise like a palm tree” (Kesubos 111b). Who can reach a height of 50 meters? A wind will come, it will blow, and the wheat will fall—the seeds will fall, the kernels will fall.

You must know: the moment we learn Torah, we must learn Torah only with iyun (deep analysis). The Rebbe explains in Likkutei Moharan, Torah 101, that only learning with iyun breaks the yetzer hara. The Rebbe brings that people ask: “The yetzer hara still hasn’t been broken, the yetzer hara isn’t running away—but we were in Uman?!”

We were in Uman—so we receive the seichel to learn with iyun!!

There are “Anpin Chashuchin” (darkened countenances) when people learn without iyun, and there are “Anpin Nehirin” (illuminated countenances) when people learn with iyun. “Whoever accepts upon himself the yoke of Torah” (Pirkei Avos 3:5)—what is the yoke of Torah? The Rebbe says: it is when he learns with iyun!

The Rebbe repeats this three times: “Accepting the yoke of Torah” means learning with iyun—and then you are called “adam.” Only when a person learns with iyun is he called adam; without iyun he is like an animal—he is not adam.

You are called adam. Even if non-Jews learn Gemara, they don’t learn with iyun; they just learn the give-and-take, the shakla v’tarya. The nations have come to realize that Gemara is the deepest intellect. Soon they will require, in all universities, to learn a few hours of Gemara every day—because it is the only thing that develops the intellect. Without Gemara learned with iyun, the intellect collapses.

“Anpin Nehirin”—true intellect is only Gemara.