Chapter 56: Baruch Begins Studying Mussar Books

00:01 The story continues with Baruch and the hidden tzaddikim. The ordinary wandering poor—not the hidden tzaddikim—trudged from place to place collecting charity. They looked for lodging or food in the homes of compassionate Jews. Here and there, they also received a hot meal from a kindhearted Jewish woman. On Shabbos, these beggars would stand by the synagogue door, and compassionate Jews would take them home after services. But the hidden tzaddikim, who looked like wandering beggars yet would not ask anyone for help, could go hungry unless they had some means of supporting themselves. Baruch knew all this well, and he dreamed of the day when he could open his home to them. He knew that simply giving them a soft bed and a hot, satisfying meal would be a real kindness. Baruch also wondered how he would do this once Hakadosh Boruch Hu blessed him with a home of his own, since by then he would be married. It would depend on his wife, too: she would have to agree to make their home a place of hospitality. So Hakadosh Boruch Hu would need to send him a wife who shared his views on the matter. Baruch also knew well what our Sages said—that a woman can be reluctant to welcome guests—as stated in Bava Metzia 87a. Rashi explains this in connection with our matriarch Sarah: even when Avraham told her to give the guests fine flour, she said to give them flour. That was why, when Rabbi Avraham the gardener proposed a match between Baruch and his daughter Rivkah, Baruch’s first condition was that Rabbi Avraham build him a separate house immediately after the wedding. He explained to Rabbi Avraham

02:25 that he wanted a home of his own, where he could host people as he wished. Rabbi Avraham agreed at once, but Baruch was not satisfied with his agreement alone. “Rabbi Avraham,” he told him, “you must discuss this with your daughter. She, too, must want our home to be open to guests, because it depends very much on her.” Rabbi Avraham agreed, of course, and, knowing his daughter’s character, assured Baruch that she would welcome this condition. Baruch set two more conditions. First, he did not want a dowry or gifts from Rabbi Avraham. Second, as soon as the seven days of wedding celebrations were over, he would no longer eat at his father-in-law’s table. He would support himself solely through his own labor. Rabbi Avraham’s daughter would therefore have to agree in advance to make do with whatever livelihood Hakadosh Boruch Hu provided him, without relying on help from other people. Rabbi Avraham agreed to this as well, and the match was settled. Before the engagement agreement was signed, Baruch’s aunt Freida and his sister Devorah Leah traveled to Liozna to meet the prospective bride and settle all the details with her family. Now everyone clearly understood what Baruch wanted and how he intended to arrange his life after the wedding, for he had finally opened his heart to his relatives. He explained that one of his main reasons for wanting to marry Rabbi Avraham’s daughter was that Rabbi Avraham earned his living as a gardener. Baruch, too, wanted to work as a gardener, practicing the trade he had learned from him. So Aunt Freida and his sister Leah wanted Rabbi Avraham to undertake to set aside a suitable plot of land for Baruch to cultivate as a garden. Rabbi Avraham agreed. During their visit to Liozna, he also showed them the plot where he planned to build the house and prepare the ground for gardening. The neighborhood where the plot lay was several versts from Liozna,

05:08 and both women, the aunt and the sister, were satisfied. They liked the prospective bride, Rivkah, very much and returned to Vitebsk full of joy. They now waited for Rabbi Avraham, who came to Vitebsk a short time later to sign the engagement agreement at an auspicious time. Under its terms, Baruch was to remain in Vitebsk for a year until the wedding and study there in the yeshivah. During that year, he continued attending the classes of Rabbi Paltiel [unclear] and Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak, and continued his practice of devoting certain hours of the day to work so he could support himself. Baruch took on the hardest jobs. He carried heavy loads or pushed wheelbarrows piled with cargo. No work was too difficult or beneath him. As he worked, he would review from memory what he had learned. He devoted the rest of the day, and much of the night, to Torah study in the beis midrash. So the summer passed, and Elul arrived. Classes at the yeshivah stopped. Some students went home, while others stayed to study on their own. Baruch used the opportunity to advance in his studies and review what he had learned before. At the same time, he began devoting himself to a new kind of study, which his brother-in-law Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak introduced to him and guided him through: the study of mussar. Baruch applied himself with particular diligence to works of mussar such as Rabbeinu Yonah’s Shaarei Teshuvah, Shaar Hateshuvah in Reishis Chochmah, the laws of teshuvah in the Rambam, and, of course, tractates Rosh Hashanah and Yoma. The mussar works made a deep impression on Baruch. They opened a new world before him and kindled a fire in his heart that had never burned there before. Until then, Baruch’s conduct had generally been measured and rather cool. The driving force within him was his mind, not his heart. Everything he did was calculated and restrained. The strings of his heart had not stirred; no storm had ever swept through the depths of his soul.

07:50 His prayers had no warmth or heartfelt feeling, and his whole way of life flowed calmly along. So, for all his great righteousness and fear of Heaven, he had lacked that stirring, driving urge to rise from one rung to the next on the ladder every true tzaddik climbs.