Episode 32: The Family of Baruch the Younger, His Uncle Rabbi Kadish

00:02 Young Baruch, whom Divine Providence had destined to become the father of the founder of Chabad Chassidus, was so distant from his family that he had to learn details about them from other people. He learned most of this while he was in Dobromysl with his friend Yitzchak Shaul. As they worked together in the smithy, Yitzchak Shaul taught him a great deal about Chassidus and also told him about his family. Thus Baruch heard, with surprise and also pleasure, details about his uncle Rabbi Kadish. As we know, Rabbi Kadish lived in Vitebsk. Baruch’s sister Devorah lived in his home until her marriage to Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak, as we may recall. Rabbi Kadish was the son of a Jew named Reb Dovid. Reb Dovid, as we now see, was the brother of Baruch Batlan, Baruch’s maternal grandfather, after whom he was named. Baruch Batlan had lived in Posen, where Baruch’s whole family had formerly lived. As we may recall, Grandfather Reb Moshe lived in Posen and was a leader of its Jewish community, but was forced to leave because of pressure from the Catholic Christians. Reb Dovid, like his brother Baruch Batlan, belonged to the circle of Kabbalists—those who studied Kabbalah—and was also among the chassidim of Rabbi Yoel Baal Shem of Zamosc. Reb Dovid’s way of life differed from that of his brother Baruch Batlan. He lived in a village fifteen miles from Posen, together with several other Jews, and worked the land. They were a group of Kabbalists who followed the path of Kabbalah as they had received it from their forebears, Jews from Spain and Portugal, most of whom were Kabbalists. In those days, the Kabbalists tended toward asceticism and seclusion. They farmed the land near Posen. They did not withdraw from others completely, but their way of life resembled, to a large extent, a life of

03:15 seclusion. On the one hand, they prayed all the daily prayers together with a minyan. On the other, they had almost no social contact with one another. Reb Dovid was one of the chassidim of Rabbi Yoel Baal Shem, but he traveled to see him only very rarely, unlike his brother Reb Baruch, who visited Rabbi Yoel regularly. There is more to tell about Reb Dovid and his fellow Kabbalists. They were well known in the surrounding area. For example, they did not need to bring their produce—grain, fruit and wool—to nearby towns to sell it. Their regular customers came to the village and collected their goods there. Once, a merchant from Prague came to the Kabbalists’ settlement. He offered to buy the village’s entire output at once, at a very high price. The Jewish farmers, the Kabbalists, gathered to decide whether to accept his offer. Opinions differed. Those who opposed it said the deal would hurt the small merchants who bought their goods in smaller quantities. In the end, they left the matter to the village elders and its two teachers, who decided to reject the offer despite its financial appeal, so as not to harm the livelihoods of the local merchants. Later, the reason for the Prague merchant’s surprising offer became known. Word had spread in Prague that the produce of the Kabbalists’ settlement, which was called Eretz Hachayim, was blessed with a special good fortune. People passed along the claim that anything from the village brought success. Among the wonders they recounted was that Reb Peretz, a maker of spirits, produced four or five times the usual amount of liquor from potatoes and grain he bought from the Kabbalists. What is more, the liquor was finer and tastier than usual. Another story concerned Reb Shimon the shopkeeper, who grew wealthy from the wool and spun flax

06:14 purchased in Eretz Hachayim. When these stories reached Posen, demand for the produce of Eretz Hachayim grew, and people almost raced to the village to buy it. The Kabbalists could have set any price and become wealthy, but they preferred to keep selling to their regular merchants at the old prices. But, as usual, someone tried to be clever. A merchant in Posen bought a plot of land bordering Eretz Hachayim. He offered to let the Kabbalists work his land for themselves and keep all the proceeds from its produce, giving him only a percentage of the profits in return for his investment. But the Kabbalists declined. Two teachers lived in Eretz Hachayim and taught Torah to the village children. One was Rabbi Naftali, the teacher of the youngest children. The other was Rabbi Shimon, the Gemara teacher. There was also the elder Rabbi Yaakov Kaplan, who gave a lesson to the older boys. All three teachers were Kabbalists and chassidim of the Baal Shem of Zamosc. Generally, the boys were not taught Kabbalah before the age of eighteen. Yet the teachers instilled its spirit in their students long before they reached that age. This found expression in the teachings of our Sages that the teachers told them and in the good character traits they nurtured in the boys from an early age. Rabbi Naftali, who taught the youngest children, strove to give his students a sense of the holiness of the letters themselves from the moment they began learning the alef-beis. “My dear little ones,” Rabbi Naftali would tell the children, “you are learning the alef-beis. These are the very holy letters with which Hakadosh Boruch Hu created the world, and with these letters He gave His Torah to His people Israel through Moshe Rabbeinu.” Rabbi Shimon, the Gemara teacher, would repeatedly tell his students that when a Torah insight is quoted in the name of someone who is in the World of Truth, his lips speak in the grave and his soul takes delight

09:09 in Gan Eden. “That is why our Sages, of blessed memory, taught us that when someone repeats a teaching in the name of the person who said it, he should picture that person as though he were standing before him. The holy Tannaim and Amoraim whose teachings we study are here with us, and we must therefore stand in their presence with awe and reverence.” It was here, in Eretz Hachayim, that Rabbi Kadish was born. His father, Reb Dovid, was considered one of the settlement’s leading Kabbalists. He was known for his greatness in both the revealed and hidden dimensions of Torah. Reb Dovid was a man of the spirit and a great intellectual. At the same time, he was cold and calculating. He never lost his temper. He did take part in other people’s joys and sorrows, but only because the Torah commanded it, not because he felt moved. Another person’s joy or sorrow did not touch his heart. He was almost incapable of laughing or crying. Reb Dovid conducted himself according to what was written in the holy books and what his understanding and reasoning dictated, but without feeling or warmth. He mourned on Tisha B’Av and rejoiced on Simchas Torah, and he had the appropriate Kabbalistic intentions in everything he did, but he remained reserved and cold, inwardly and outwardly. Reb Dovid’s son Kadish showed great talent from childhood. His mother, Tzvia, doted on him because he was an only child. The boy was different from his father and more like his mother, who was cheerful, warm and kindhearted. Still, as he grew up under his father’s influence, he too became restrained, reserved and serious, contrary to his nature. Kadish’s education was no different from that of the other children of Eretz Hachayim. He first studied with Rabbi Naftali, the teacher of the youngest children, and then with Rabbi Shimon, the Gemara teacher. Later he joined Rabbi Yaakov Kaplan’s class and excelled in his studies. When Kadish turned sixteen, his father, Reb Dovid, passed away.

12:01 His mother, Tzvia, now a widow, decided to leave the settlement and move to the nearby city of Pozna. She wanted her son Kaddish to study in the large yeshiva there, which was blessed with many Torah scholars. Above all, though, she wanted him to be under the supervision of her brother-in-law, her husband’s brother, Rabbi Baruch Batlan. To that end, she planned to sell the land she had inherited from her husband and use the money to buy a shop in Pozna, which would provide her with a livelihood. But the settlement’s leaders explained that, under the rules established when the settlement was founded, its members were to study and pray for the elevation of the departed person’s soul throughout the year of mourning. During that year, members chosen by lot worked the land belonging to the widow and orphans to support them, so that everyone would be completely free to devote themselves to Torah and good deeds for the sake of the departed person’s soul. Tzvia therefore agreed to remain in the settlement for another year. During that year, Kaddish was permitted to study Kabbalah, even though he was not yet eighteen. An extraordinary event took place there that year: the entire surrounding region suffered a severe drought, and the crops and fruit in the neighboring villages were struck by blight. Only in Eretz HaChaim did rain fall, and its crops and fruit flourished wonderfully. Everyone saw this as an expression of the great merit and righteousness of the settlement’s people. The drought naturally drove up food prices throughout the region, but the Kabbalists did not ask their customers for even a penny more than in any other year, although they were offered enormous sums. They also made it a condition for merchants who bought from them that they, too, would charge their customers no more than the usual price. When the year of mourning ended, Tzvia sold her land to one of the settlement’s residents. Under the settlement’s rules, land could be sold only to a resident or a descendant of one. Tzvia and her son Kaddish then left the settlement and moved to Pozna.