Chapter 59: Rabbi Ber Arrives at the Village; Zalman Leib's Life Takes a Downturn

00:01 We are now telling the story of Baruch’s meetings with various people as he wandered between cities, towns, and villages when he was younger. We are now talking about the time Baruch was in the town of Yanovitch. He met Zalman Chaim, the remarkable shamash who had established a beis midrash in the marketplace. There was also a Jew named Mordechai the miller, who lived in one of the villages around Yanovitch and had become very close to Zalman Chaim. This miller had three daughters, two of whom were already of marriageable age. Through Zalman Chaim’s efforts, the daughters married young Torah scholars. The first son-in-law was named Avraham Shlomo. He was the son of the rabbi of Dubrovna, and, following Zalman Chaim’s approach, he immediately set up various classes in the beis midrash of his father-in-law, Mordechai the miller. The classes were even tailored to the level of understanding of the village Jews. In this way, the shul Mordechai the miller had established also became a beis midrash, a place of Torah study. Some time passed, and Avraham Shlomo, Mordechai the miller’s son-in-law, was appointed rabbi of an important Jewish community. He left the village and moved there. So the responsibility for teaching the community would naturally have fallen to the second son-in-law, whose name was Zalman Leib. Zalman Leib was also a rabbi’s son. His father was Rabbi Shlomo, the rabbi of Borisov. But although Zalman Leib was an outstanding scholar, he looked down on the simple Jews and avoided having anything to do with them. He also refused to be their rabbi, and told Mordechai the miller, his father-in-law, so. He did not even bother to hide this from the Jews themselves, preferring to keep to himself in his lofty position. But now the situation was different. These Jews had grown accustomed to studying Torah. They did not want to be left without a rabbi. Mordechai the miller was particularly keen that they should have one.

03:08 He was, of course, deeply upset that his son-in-law was so arrogant that he wanted nothing to do with the Jews of the village. In general, he got little satisfaction from this son-in-law: his character traits were far from admirable, and he was stingy and hungry for honor as well. Quite a collection of fine qualities. So Reb Mordechai called the villagers to a meeting. At that meeting, they decided to bring a learned Jew to the village to teach Torah publicly and rule on their halachic questions. The village had reached the point where it needed a rabbi of its own who could issue halachic rulings. Mordechai the miller undertook to pay a third of the new rabbi’s salary out of his own pocket. Several householders from the village then traveled to Yanovitch and asked its rabbi whom they should appoint as their rabbi. The rabbi of Yanovitch chose a Jew named Rabbi Ber. Rabbi Ber was about sixty at the time. He was a great Torah scholar. He had married the daughter of a Yanovitch resident and had spent many years in that household studying Torah—so much so that his father-in-law even became a scholar himself. After his father-in-law passed away, Rabbi Ber became a melamed. Some time later, sadly, his wife passed away. Since his sons were able to support him honorably, he stopped teaching and devoted himself once again to sitting and studying Torah and davening. Rabbi Ber liked solitude and avoided saying an unnecessary word. The rabbi of Yanovitch knew that work in the village would suit Rabbi Ber, since it was a quiet place without too many people. Rabbi Ber arrived in the village before the days of Selichos—that is, during Elul. As he was no longer married, Mordechai the miller gave him a place to stay in his own home. Both Mordechai the miller and his wife were known for their hospitality. Zalman Leib, the miller’s son-in-law, as we said earlier, immediately saw that Rabbi Ber was a great Torah scholar, but

05:54 that very fact brought out Zalman Leib’s hatred toward Rabbi Ber. His hatred grew when he saw that the village Jews, and his father-in-law too, held Rabbi Ber in great esteem. It turned out that Rabbi Ber knew very well how to connect with ordinary people. He taught them Chumash and other suitable Torah subjects, explaining things in a way that gave them great pleasure in learning. Rabbi Ber also gave his listeners short talks encouraging them to do teshuvah and serve Hashem. The Jews listened with interest and were deeply impressed, which raised Rabbi Ber’s standing in their eyes. At the same time, and precisely because of this, Zalman Leib’s hatred of Rabbi Ber grew. Zalman Leib now began an open campaign against him. He simply started insulting him and showing him his hatred. Rabbi Ber, for his part, showed no displeasure toward Zalman Leib. He accepted every insult and slight with forbearance and patience. Perhaps someone else in Zalman Leib’s place would have changed his ways in response and shown more respect to a Jew who was both much older and a Torah scholar. But Zalman Leib was different. He could not bear having someone who knew more Torah than he did living under the same roof. Nor could he understand why the local Jews honored Rabbi Ber as their rabbi. So it turned out that Zalman Leib hated both simple Jews and learned Jews. Where did this trait come from? It came from Zalman Leib’s burning desire to be first everywhere, at all times, and to appear head and shoulders above everyone else. Mordechai the miller knew his son-in-law’s shortcomings well, and they caused him great distress. He was particularly unhappy with Zalman Leib’s disrespect toward his guest, Rabbi Ber.

08:42 Reb Mordechai the miller spoke about this with Rabbi Ber and apologized for his son-in-law’s rude behavior. But Rabbi Ber reassured him and promised that it did not hurt him at all. He also reminded Mordechai the miller that his son-in-law Zalman Leib was a Torah scholar and still fairly young, so in time he would surely find his way to developing good character traits. The days of Elul and the festivals of Tishrei passed, and Rabbi Ber could no longer feel comfortable in the miller’s home, mainly because of his son-in-law. He therefore decided to move out. He rented a room in the home of a tailor named Yosa. Yosa was a Jew in his seventies, approaching eighty, though he still supported himself through his work. He was a simple, upright Jew who said a great deal of Tehillim as he worked. Yosa’s sincerity and honesty came to light later, when, in his final years, he sensed that his end was near. He invited three acquaintances over, handed them the little money he had saved during his lifetime, showed them the shrouds he had sewn for himself and his wife, and told them that the money was for their burial expenses. He did not want anyone to spend a penny of their own on burying him and his wife. He instructed them to make his coffin from the boards of the table at which he had sat and worked all those years. He told them, “This table will testify for me that no garment containing shatnez was ever placed on it, that I never failed to return leftover fabric to its owner, that I never wronged anyone, and that I never used an improper expression.” In any case, Rabbi Ber moved into a room in the home of Yosa the tailor. The tailor’s home was meant to be a place where Rabbi Ber could find peace, but the miller Mordechai’s son-in-law continued to speak ill of him, look for faults in him, and make fun of him. The Jews of the settlement where Rabbi Ber served as rabbi were Jews

11:49 Simple people, yet upright and sincere. Rabbi Ber was very fond of them and took special pleasure in learning with them. But in the background was Zalman Leib, the son-in-law of Mordechai the miller, who made Rabbi Ber’s life miserable and called him “the old ignoramus” or “the maggid of the ignoramuses.” Among the residents of that village were two old men. The younger was Yosse the tailor, from whom Rabbi Ber rented his room. The other was called Shloime the skinner, or, as he was also known, Shloime the orphan. People still called Shloime “the orphan” when he was over a hundred years old. His age could be estimated from the fact that Yosse, who was himself already seventy, remembered that when he was a child, Shloime had already been forty. Shloime was called an orphan because his parents died when he was three, and he grew up with his uncle the butcher. When Shloime was nine, his uncle put him to work skinning animals. At that time, there was no minyan of Jews in the village. The villagers knew very little about Judaism. Shloime himself had never learned a single word of Jewish teaching and grew up completely ignorant of it. Nor did Shloime have the opportunity other children in the village had to hear words of Torah. Usually, the Jewish families in the villages would go to nearby towns for the High Holidays, where they would take in a certain measure of Jewish life. They would pray with the congregation, listen to the rabbi’s classes, and share in the spiritual experiences that surrounded the community on those days. Naturally, the children too would receive their share of the Judaism their families absorbed. But Shloime was an orphan, and his uncle preferred that he, of all people, stay home while the family was in town, to watch the house and look after the farm. So Shloime never had a chance to learn, neither

14:28 to read nor to pray. With great effort, though, he learned Modeh Ani, Shema, and the blessings Hamotzi and Shehakol by heart. When Mordechai the miller established communal prayer and built the shul, Shloime would come every morning, put on a tallis and tefillin, and listen to the others pray. He would content himself with answering “Boruch Hu uvoruch shemo” and “Amen,” and did the same at the other prayers of the day. As a rule, Shloime ate only bread and drank only water. Why? Because he could not say any blessings over food other than Hamotzi and Shehakol. Yosse the tailor was also a very simple man. He did, however, know how to read, and he knew the daily prayers and the entire Book of Tehillim by heart. Yosse was scrupulous in his observance of mitzvos, especially the mitzvah of hospitality. He was particularly careful about guarding his speech. He never said a bad word about any Jew, and in general he spoke briefly, saying no more than was necessary. Because of these two old men’s piety, Rabbi Ber spent time with them. He did whatever he could to help them learn. Zalman Leib seized on this as another way to mock Rabbi Ber, as though it proved his ignorance. Once, Zalman Leib had an excellent opportunity to make Rabbi Ber’s life miserable. A question was brought to Rabbi Ber about the lung of a cow that had been slaughtered to provide the residents with meat for Shabbos. After a lengthy explanation, Rabbi Ber ruled that the animal was kosher. Zalman Leib pounced on this. In his opinion, the animal was treif. He caused an uproar, claiming that Rabbi Ber was feeding the Jews treif meat. The simple Jews, who knew very little about such matters, were seized with fear. They knew that Zalman Leib was always looking for faults in Rabbi Ber and had very little respect for him. But when they heard

17:21 that he firmly maintained that Rabbi Ber had declared a treif animal kosher, they lost their peace of mind.