“If they shut down my hall, I will open up a kollel instead!”
Over the last couple of months, as the Rav’s opponents have seen how many hundreds and even thousands of people are continuing to turn out to hear him speak across the country, their attempts to shut down his meetings have become increasingly aggressive.
A few days’ ago, Rav Berland was scheduled to speak at a synagogue in Rehovot. As soon as his opponents got word of the event, they quickly mobilized to get the Mayor of Rehovot, Rachamim Malul, involved in pressuring the synagogue to cancel the event. The synagogue bowed to the pressure tactics, and the event was moved to a hall in the industrial area of Rehovot instead.
But the demonstrators didn’t stop there, and continued to apply pressure tactics to try to force the hall owner to cancel the event there, too, including making all sorts of threats about getting his business closed down.
Not bowing to intimidation tactics
After all these threats had been made against him, the owner of the hall in Rehovot said that he’d been contacted by a number of journalists who were trying to get his reaction to the situation. The hall owner told us that he told them very bluntly:
“I’m going to close the hall, and open up a kollel there, where the Torah of Rav Berland, shlita, will be studied instead. How is it possible for someone to be scared of people, but not to fear HaKadosh Baruch Hu?!”
The owner of the hall continued:
“I will open six kollels in Rehovot, and one of them will be for Rav Berland, and I’m not going to bow to the pressure I’m coming under from his opponents.”
This is what the hall owner told the journalists.
Despite the demonstrators’ aggressive efforts to disrupt the Rav’s shiurim, yesterday night (January 15, 2018) Rav Berland held another successful event in the Northern town of Nahariya.
Tomorrow, he is due to speak in the Southern Israel city of Ashkelon.
- To see if the Tzaddik is coming to a town near you soon, please check the ‘Upcoming Events’ tab on the right hand side of the website.
