Peace of mind comes from raising holy children
Recently, Rav Eliezer Berland, shlita, was in Tel Aviv during one of his ‘house visits’ to various communities around Israel, where the Rav is trying to encourage more people to return to their Jewish roots and get closer to the Creator of the world.
On one of these trips, Rav Berland, shlita, spoke to a crowd of young Tel Aviv Jews at a private home in the ‘Yoo Building’ in Tel Aviv who listened to the Rav’s words very intently, as you can see in the attached video clip (42 minutes running time – you can see the crowd of people who came to hear the Rav in the first minute).
Rav Berland told them:
“Am Yisrael doesn’t waste time bodybuilding, and isn’t interested in soccer. The only thing that interests Am Yisrael is learning Torah. Each person is obligated to learn Torah, or to recite Tehillim (Psalms). It’s forbidden for there to be a single second without Torah learning.
“If there’s a single second where someone isn’t learning Torah, that will cause a huge blemish to the world. At that instant, the world will be destroyed. ‘Yaakov sat in tents’ – he sat and he learned Torah.”
The Rav later remarked:
“[The prophetess] Devorah, the wife of Lapidot, used to make wicks, in order that people could sit in the beit hamidrash (study hall) and learn Torah. That’s why she was surrounded by tongues of fire. How did people used to know that Devorah was a prophet? Because she was surrounded by tongues of fire.
“Yaakov asked to dwell in peace.” A person wants to feel shalva (peace of mind, tranquility) all the time, but true shalva only happens once a person raises a family, and has children who are Tzaddikim (holy Jews). Shalva is when a person learns Torah day and night, without a break, and it doesn’t matter if he has a parnassa (way to make a living) or not, because learning Torah brings parnassa.
“Parnassa only comes from Hashem. There’s a place called the halel panui (the vacated space), and parnassa comes from there. Esav was the halel panui, the vacated space. He had a son named Eliphaz, and his descendants conquered the whole world, and they are the leaders of the halel panui.”
