Rabbi Eliezer Berland – June 2012 Winter Stadium Ramat Gan
“The Talmud teaches us that we need to do acts of kindness to Arabs, it does not matter what kind of Arab it is! Other than a terrorist we need to help and assist every single Arab in every way possible; with money, with encouragement, in every way possible, even to split the sea for him! All the more so when we see the horrible massacre that is happening two hours from here [in Syria], right under our noses! And the entire world is silent! This past Thursday 170 children were killed, two days ago 107 children, everyday they are slaughtering right under our noses, What have we come to?! What kind of merciless world have we come to?! The Nations of the world are silent. And we the Israelite Nation, the Nation of Justice, Nation of Conscience, Nation of Fairness, The Israelite Nation is the conscience of the entire world! The entire world lifts up their eyes to the Israelite Nation, the entire world believes in the Israelite Nation, the entire world knows that the Israelite Nation will bring the redemption, only the Israelite Nation will bring the Messiah! And now at this peace rally we need to come out with a strong message to the entire world and demand immediate intervention in Syria, to stop the horrible massacre, to stop the terrible slaughtering by the Shabiha cult and the entire military, and to stand at the side of these unfortunate forlorn people, it does not matter if they are Ishmaelite’s and it does not matter if afterwards terrorists will rise up from there, our first priority is to save the unfortunate children, the infants, the women, this is the first mission that the Nation of Israel must place before themselves. “Beloved is man for he was created in Gods image”, every person is in the image of God! There is no difference between Jew and Non-Jew! Everyone is in Gods image! Every person is composed of sparks of godliness! God created them all! All of mankind! 7 billion people – They are all the same! For “Beloved is man who was created in Gods image”, and it doesn’t just say “beloved”, it says “Excessive affection is deserving to man since he was created in Gods image” Arabs are our cousins, we are all sons of Abraham and Isaac, we all come from the same father, from the same God, we all come from the same roots, the same race. When we went to war with Amon and Moav the Prophet got up and said “Just play music! Just sing! Throw away all instruments of war! Throw away all your weapons! Begin singing! Just sing!” So Jehoshaphat said to them “If you believe in the words of the Prophet then you can win over all of your enemies only through song and music”. Because all of our victories and all of the wars that we won through the use of weapons are not considered “victories”! Any war that is won through weapons is not eternal, “Victory” is only what we win through the power of song and music which awakens the Jewish spark in every nation in every gentile, in every single Arab, for there does not exist an Arab or gentile that does not have within him a Jewish spark. We just need to arouse that spark then automatically there will be peace in the entire world! Then “The wolf will live with the sheep and the leopard will lie down with the goat; the calf, the lion and the sheep will walk together and a young child will lead them, a cow and bear will graze together, and an infant will play by a viper’s hole”
(if only we would have listened…)
Extract from a shiur given by the Rav on Shabbat Parshat Eikev, 22 Av, 2015
“My handiwork is drowning in the sea, and you want to sing songs?!” (Sanhedrin 39b)
It’s forbidden to murder any goy (non-Jew). It’s forbidden to kill any goy. When Rav Pinchas ben Yair’s non-Jewish worker would accompany him, he would even do a miracle and split the river for him. Nowhere is it written that the goyim should die – we need every goy!
Planet earth is currently home to 7 billion people, and that number will hopefully double in the future, and the goyim should not be killed. ‘All the nations of the world, and their seed, will be blessed through you,’ says the Midrash Rabba in Lech Lecha.
Avraham Avinu prayed from the age of 5 prayed until the age of 175 – 170 years! – that no boat would sink. Why did he care so much, that not even a boat should sink during his lifetime? Wasn’t the whole world full of idol worshippers?! Weren’t they all evildoers and sinners. What does it matter, if a certain boat sinks?
But Avraham had pity on every single person! So it was forbidden for any boat to sink.
The Zohar and the Midrash Rabbah both explain that the more goyim there are, the more people there are, the more bounty and blessing will come to the world. It will be like the days of Moshiach. We need lots of people in the world, and the more the merrier.
It’s forbidden for any goy to be killed. If in Syria they’re killing people every day, we need to go and demonstrate about it, and to travel to Damascus and to demonstrate there. We need to cry out: ‘Why are you killing people? Why are you killing children? Have pity on all these non-Jewish children, on all these Arab children!’ We need to take a stand against all the murders that are happening in the world, and every single loss of life.
That’s why Avraham Avinu prayed that no goy would be killed. No-one knows this midrash, and people think that the goyim are hefker (lit: ownerless, fig: worthless). ‘Beloved is man, that he’s created in the image of God’ (Avot 3:14). In Likutey Halachot, on page 172, Rav Natan tells us that goyim are not hefker, and that there will be judgment and reckoning on every drop of blood that is spilt, even from amongst the nations of the world.
Hashem also needs the goyim. ‘Beloved is man, that he’s created in the image of God’. Avraham prayed that no boat would sink in the sea, and no boat sank. Planes wouldn’t fall out of the sky in the time of Avraham Avinu. People wouldn’t fly into space only to be turned into dust, and never return, like [Israeli astronaut] Ilan Rimon. Such a thing would never have happened.
Extract from the shiur given on Rosh Chodesh Elul, parshat Re-ey, 2015
We need all 70 nations to make teshuva. Melech HaMoshiach (lit: the King Moshiach) will bring back all the nations in repentance, because God forbid that even one goy should be killed! It’s written in Chapter 14 of the opening of Lamentations that a heavenly voice was heard saying: ‘And now you will go into galut (exile). I do not want that you will be harmed by any nation. But what is this thing that you do, to throw 10,000 Edomites off a cliff?! OK, conquer them; OK, bind them and subdue them, because they are enemies, and they some to harm us. But you don’t have permission to throw them off a cliff! If you throw them off the cliff, then you’ll all go into exile.’
We have no permission to kill any goy. In the time of Avraham Avinu, no goy would be killed and no ship would sink. Even if all of them are pirates and all of them are brigands, and their ships are full of statues and idols, we still don’t want that any goy should have their blood spilt. Not pirates, and not even murderers. If they were a mass-murderer like Hitler, may his name be erased, who tried to destroy the whole world, that’s something else. But an ordinary murderer can still make teshuva.
