Who is the Yenuka?

Rabbi Shlomo Yehuda Be'eri shlit"a — known to the Jewish world as the Yenuka — is a descendant of the Arizal through his mother. From the earliest years of his childhood he gave himself completely to Hashem, reaching extraordinary heights in Torah and spiritual purity. He learned Torah some twenty hours a day, slept only about two hours, and was mostly hidden from the world.

Because of his great innocence, he did not realize that he was anything unusual until people began to flock to him.

A simple beginning

In his own words, he came from a very simple family in Bnei Brak. His childhood was not easy — there were financial difficulties, long stretches of being alone, and a deep loneliness that, he says, brought him to constant prayer.

"I would take an old book of Tehilim my father gave me when I was ten, pray to Hashem, and He would — simply — answer me. I would say a chapter and feel Him, and this followed me everywhere."

In the synagogue he kept the company of an elderly Yemenite scholar named Mori Shmuel, who poured Torah into him. Two days before Mori Shmuel's passing on Tisha B'Av, he told the young Shlomo Yehuda: "You don't need me. I see your heart. Everything is ok."

The name "Yenuka"

At sixteen he met the Chacham Avraham Chai of Bnei Brak. While learning Zohar together, the elder asked about a teaching he could not place — and the young Shlomo Yehuda brought it to him instantly. The Chacham rose, kissed him on the forehead and cried: "Yenuka, Yenuka — this is the Yenuka!" The name comes from the Zohar (Parshat Balak), where a mysterious young child astonishes traveling sages with the deepest mysteries of Torah. From that day, it has been his name.

Trials and slander

By eighteen he was widely known. Because his Torah was beyond what people thought possible for so young a man — and because he had come from nowhere — he was investigated, tested and slandered endlessly. For a time some rabbis even called his light a "demon" and broke off every shidduch he was offered. He never returned insult for insult.

"If you are with Hashem but the whole world is not with you — you will defeat the whole world. But if the whole world is with you, and Hashem is not with you — you have already lost."

Torah, fear, and joy

The Yenuka teaches that his mastery of Torah is not memory but yirat shamayim — the fear and awe of Heaven. A person who has lived through something terrifying remembers every detail forever; so too one who learns Torah trembling before the King will not forget it. He learns, he says, not to finish the Torah but to begin — to seek the One who stands behind every page.

He plays music — soul-stirring niggunim that open the heart — and he speaks before thousands across Eretz Yisrael. The blessings he gives have been fulfilled in countless miraculous ways, and he attributes every one of them to Hashem alone.

Adapted from his own words. Source: dafyomi.co.il — Hidden Tzadikim