Chapter 51: Baruch the Young One in Dubrovna

00:01 We continue to follow the fascinating adventures of young Baruch. At this point, Rabbi Avraham the gardener tells him that he already knows Baruch is a scholar and wants to study with him. And that is what happens. Throughout the winter, the two study together during the long nights. They both enjoy learning as study partners. As far as Baruch is concerned, the winter could go on and on. He can support himself from his savings, which have not yet run out. He has a teacher and a friend here. What more could he want? Then Nissan arrives. Liozna begins preparing for Pesach. The matzah ovens begin their work. The bustle grows, and everyone is busy. Even the teachers stop teaching, and the Torah scholars no longer study as diligently as before. Rabbi Avraham the gardener is also busy preparing for the holiday and can no longer come every night to study with Baruch. One night, Rabbi Avraham says to him, “Look, the holy festival of Pesach is approaching. Until now, I haven’t invited you to eat at my table, because I know how much you dislike that. But Pesach is different: a person can’t make do with his usual provisions. So I want to invite you to celebrate Pesach in my home. You’ll be a welcome guest there.” Over the next several nights, Rabbi Avraham is too busy to see Baruch. When he comes to the beis midrash where Baruch has been staying during the week before the holiday, intending to remind him of the invitation, he cannot find him. Rabbi Avraham thinks to himself, “Was it hard for him to accept the invitation? Yet apparently he couldn’t refuse me to my face. So he disappeared without leaving a trace.” This pains Rabbi Avraham deeply, but what can he do? What really happened to Baruch? From

02:40 Rabbi Avraham, Baruch had heard a great deal about his teacher in Bishenkovitz, the great scholar Rabbi Avraham Zev. Baruch longed to travel to Bishenkovitz and learn Torah from Rabbi Avraham Zev. Since he had now decided to leave Liozna, he saw an opportunity to make the journey. The road from Liozna to Bishenkovitz passed through Dobromysl. It was the first town where he had stayed for an extended time after leaving his uncle’s home in Vitebsk. Baruch had interesting memories of Dobromysl and its people. He had happened to spend Pesach there before, so he planned his journey to celebrate Pesach in Dobromysl again, with the same man who had taken him in on his first visit. When Baruch first arrived in Dobromysl, he was only fourteen. He sat studying Torah in the beis midrash, firmly resolved not to depend on the kindness of others. As a result, he often went hungry simply because he had no money to buy food. One day, a Jew whom he recognized from the daily Ein Yaakov class approached him, though Baruch did not know his name. The man extended his hand in greeting and said, “My name is Eliezer Reuven. I’m a blacksmith. My workshop is at the edge of town, on the road to Liozna, and I live there too. I need someone to help me with my work. If you’re willing, I’ll give you food and a place to sleep.” Baruch was overjoyed. This was exactly what he had wanted: to work by the sweat of his brow and earn his living without depending on anyone’s kindness. Baruch replied to Eliezer Reuven, “I would like to be paid in cash, whatever the amount. But I don’t want to eat at someone else’s table or sleep in a stranger’s home. As for the wages, I trust your honesty completely and have no demands

05:21 about that.” The blacksmith agreed and set a fixed wage that satisfied Baruch. Baruch went straight to the workshop and began working diligently. All day he helped the blacksmith at his trade, and at night he studied diligently in the beis midrash. Meanwhile, Baruch observed Eliezer Reuven the blacksmith closely and began to admire him. He saw that this simple blacksmith had exceptional character traits. All the while Eliezer Reuven stood at his forge, striking the hot iron with his hammer, he recited chapter after chapter of Tehillim without pause. He knew the entire book by heart. Eliezer Reuven earned his living from the farmers of the nearby villages. They brought him their wagons and plows for repair, and their horses to be shod. Baruch noticed that Eliezer Reuven served his customers with uncommon honesty and devotion, never taking even one extra coin from them. Once, Baruch witnessed an incident that made a tremendous impression on him. This is what happened. One farmer brought Eliezer Reuven his horse to have a horseshoe fitted and his wagon to have one of its wheels repaired. A second farmer also brought his horse to be fitted with four new horseshoes. When it came time to calculate their payments, Eliezer Reuven made a mistake and charged the second farmer for the first farmer’s work as well. Later he realized that he had overcharged the second farmer by six grosh. Eliezer Reuven was very upset when he discovered his mistake, but the farmers had already gone home. So he set out on foot for the second farmer’s village, five versts away, and returned the overpayment. Baruch was astonished. He had never encountered such righteousness in a simple Jew. He asked Eliezer Reuven whether it was worth walking

08:19 a full ten versts—five there and five back—for six grosh. Eliezer Reuven replied, “Our Sages say that the people of the generation of the Flood were so corrupt that they were willing to steal even something worth less than a perutah. Should I be worse than the generation of the Flood and steal six grosh?” Eliezer Reuven was careful not only in matters between one person and another, but also in matters between a person and Hashem. Every morning and evening, summer and winter, in rain and snow, he went to the beis midrash. There he davened with a minyan and studied Torah. Like many craftsmen, he belonged to the Tehillim society, the Ein Yaakov society, and the Midrash society. He was also enrolled in every charitable society in town and paid his dues in full and on time. And as we said, he recited Tehillim by heart all day long. With every blow of his hammer, sacred verses of Tehillim flowed from his mouth. Baruch also got to know the blacksmith’s neighbor, who was a welcome guest in Eliezer Reuven’s home. His name was Zevulun Binyamin. Zevulun Binyamin was tall and broad-shouldered, with strong, sturdy arms and fingers like pegs. His complexion was dark, his forehead narrow, and his voice deep, but he was rather slow to grasp things. Zevulun Binyamin was very unlearned, though he was G-d-fearing. At first, he did not even know how to form letters. Over the years, with great effort, he managed to learn the weekday prayers and the blessings over the Torah by heart. On Shabbos and Yom Tov, he made do by repeating after the chazzan. Compared with Zevulun Binyamin, Eliezer Reuven was considered a great scholar. Eliezer Reuven treated him with great compassion, especially because Zevulun Binyamin was deeply distressed by his ignorance and by his inability to absorb more. When Zevulun

11:15 Binyamin visited Eliezer Reuven, especially on Shabbos, the blacksmith would retell the stories he had heard in the beis midrash, in the Ein Yaakov and Midrash classes. Zevulun Binyamin listened to everything the blacksmith told him and drank in his words thirstily. He could not read even the small letters, nor could he speak Yiddish. Having grown up among non-Jews, he knew scarcely a word of Yiddish, so the blacksmith taught him in Polish. Eliezer Reuven spoke Polish fluently, so it was not difficult for him to explain in that language even things he did not really understand in depth himself. Because Eliezer Reuven explained everything to his neighbor in Polish, non-Jews often gathered around them. They too listened to the stories from Ein Yaakov and the Midrash, clapped their hands in delight, and exclaimed, “Dobrze, dobrze, pan Reuvka”—that is, “Good, good, Mr. Reuvka.”