To equate Eliezer Berland with Tartuffe is not hyperbole but diagnosis. Molière’s infamous imposter, cloaked in the garb of piety while driven by greed and base appetites, is no mere figure of satire; he is a mirror held up to every age that tolerates sanctimony in place of sanctity. In our generation, Berland emerges as a living embodiment of cruel fraud: a man who, by outward forms of religious devotion, conceals conduct that shames even the most cold-blooded criminals.
Berland’s career, marked by murder, lust, manipulation, exploitation, and delusions of grandeur, has wrought both spiritual and physical harm. He is never seen without a dragging tallis, but his deeds — heavily documented, recorded, and attested to — betray a pattern of fathomless predation and deceit. He creates division and competition even among his own cult-members. Berland has desecrated the vocabulary of Judaism (and Breslov) and trafficked in the sacred trust of the simple and the brokenhearted.
Tartuffe, in Molière’s play, is eventually unmasked and punished. But in the real world, justice is not served by clever plot devices or royal officers. Berland, despite arrests and spells of imprisonment, despite wall-to-wall rabbinic court condemnation the like of which hasn’t been seen for centuries (specifically accusing him of Sabbateanism and a pattern of sins bearing the death-penalty, if only the State would get out of the way and allow us to enforce the Torah), still limps about freely and commands a tiny, tragic cult.
The Torah warns us against flattery of the wicked, especially in the Holy Land. Every moment this monster is treated as a holy figure rather than a brutal cautionary tale is chillul Hashem renewed. Unlike Molière’s stage villain, this fraud requires no royal intervention to unmask — only the will to see plainly what stands before us.
But what if we have chosen the wrong theatrical model entirely? Are we witnessing a morality play where righteousness inevitably prevails, or something far more unsettling — a drama where the charlatan succeeds precisely because his audience craves the performance, ever growing more defensive? Do Berland’s evil followers remain so because they are deceived, or because they need the illusion more desperately than the truth? Some of them actually directly pray to him. And if so, what does that make of our comfortable assumption of immunity, that exposure leads to temporary justice, that unmasking leads to exile?
May God speedily have mercy on us all!
(Some credit to AI…)
P.S., We have written more on this here: The TRUE Berland Scandal: Why Did Rabbis In the Know Delay Protesting So Long?!