On Monday night, 24 Tammuz, Parashat Matot-Masei, Moreinu HaRav Eliezer Berland shlit”a gave a very long shiur for close to an hour to bachurim of our community in his holy home.  Here is a summary of the shiur:

He Rav shlit”a began the shiur on the subject of the weekly Parashah and the greatness of the daughters of Tzelafchad, and likewise, he talked about the greatness of Jewish women who did not become confused and did not take part in the sins of the dessert, and this appears in the verse, “and among these, there was no man,” that only the men did not enter the Land of Israel.  However, all the women merited to enter the Holy Land.  The Rav shlit”a mentioned a number of times over the course of the shiur the role of the mother, that all the children’s education depends on the mother. Afterward, he strengthened the importance of prayer at sunrise, and said that even when travelling to the graves of Tzaddikim during the night, one needs to remain awake until sunrise in order to pray Shacharit, and only afterwards to go to sleep.  After this, he spoke about Avraham in Ur Kasdim, and how he caused his entire generation to stop worshipping idolatry.  Afterwards, he discussed what is described in the Bible about the transfer of the Ark of the Covenant from Beit Shemesh to Kiryat Yearim, and he brought the verses, “Goren Kidon,” and “Goren Nachon.”  He said that if David had not become angry, Hashem would have revealed to him the place where 50,070 people were killed, and likewise the death of Uzza when the Ark passed the place of the Holy of Holies. Later in the shiur, he discussed how Shaul came to subdue Agag King of Amalek, and this is alluded to in the numerical value of his name 337, which is also the value of “Agag Melech Amalek.”  He added that every person comes to eliminate a particular klipah (impure husk), and this is what David asked, “The measure of my days, what is it?”  He spoke more about the war with Amalek, that if Shaul had waited for Shmuel another minute and hadn’t brought the elevation offering, he would have merited to eternal kingship.  Because the Tzaddik knows everything and sees everything.  Like by Eliezer, who saw that Esav would descend from Rivka, and really Rivka had needed to subdue Esav, and this is the secret of Rivka’s jug.  The Rav made the calculation brought in Rashi on the verse, “Like these and like these a hundred time,” that it reaches a trillion multiplied four times.  Likewise, the blessing of Yoav is greater than that of Moshe Rabbeinu in the merit of his distributing food to the Jewish people and performing acts of kindness. During the shiur, he told a number of stories, among them how the Kotel became revealed thanks to the garbage that was thrown there.  He also told how an entire plane was saved from crashing thanks to a member of our community by the name of R’ Nachman Biton, who said to all the passengers of the plane to say with him three times the verse, “When you pass through water, I am with you.”  The Rav shlit”a spoke at length about the importance of this verse and encouraged travelling to Uman for Rosh Hashanah. At the end of the shiur, the Rav shlit”a mentioned that he still has a black visa to Ukraine and that this is the time for us to strengthen ourselves in prayers even more so that we can merit this year to Uman Rosh Hashanah together with the Tzaddik shlit”a.