He who didn’t see the joy of Pesach at Shuvu Banim with our Rebbe, Rav Eliezer Berland shlit”a, never saw joy before.

We merited to pray along with the community in the partition of an angel of Hashem Tevakot over a course of 13 hours of singing, dancing, and spiritual elevation in prayer and words of Torah – the work of prayer, singing, and dancing in a way that has no equal in the whole world.

Fortunate is the eye which saw all of this… Fortunate is the people for whom it’s so… Fortunate is the generation that has merited to this… Over 13 hours straight of standing without rest which began with the Minchah prayer of Shabbat Pesach...  Immediately after the Minchah prayer, the Rav shlit”a continued with the holy order of the Third Shabbat Meal with songs and holy passion. Keeping to his holy custom, the Rav lit up the community over a period of many hours, and immediately after Birchat HaMazon, he began the Ma’ariv prayer of Motza’ei Shabbat.  Also the first night of the counting of the Omer was said with great excitement. The Rav shlit”a performed Havdalah and continued, this time with the post-Shabbat Melaveh Malchah meal and the saying of Tikkun Chatzot.  The light of song and dance only became stronger and stronger with time, until the community noticed that the Rav had begun the songs of the morning – the Shacharit prayer of Chod HaMoed, saying Hallel with fiery passion. The Rav shlit”a began the Musaf prayer along with the community only at 8:35 in the morning.  The Rav spent most of the hours of  Shabbat in prayer and song already with Kabbalat Shabbat and the Ma’ariv prayer which lasted for some three hours.  The Shacharit and Musaf prayers of Shabbat Pesach lasted seven hours, from 4:30 am until 11:30 am. One doesn’t have to be on a high level to understand that we’re not talking about levels not from our generation… It’s known that Tzaddikim pray in private over the course of many hours, closed alone in their room, but a Tzaddik who already is over 84, who performs such holy avodah as this together with hundreds of his Chasidim, and to them he joins hundreds of simple people-- men, women and children, and reaches with them such devotion and holy arousal with longing – such as this we haven’t found. In order to understand a little of the greatness of the self-sacrifice and holiness of the Tzaddik, it’s important to point out the Rav Berland shlit”a began the avodah of Shabbat with the community after they had already been awake over the course of the entire night with the Passover Seder. Aba, thank you for the merit of spending time in the shadow of the “Flowing Stream.”

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