Chapter 65: Dovid Leib, Shmerl Pihuk, and the Yellow Kohen

00:01 Shmerl the Yawner especially liked to deliver words of rebuke about how people must not be stingy, curse, or use foul language. When Shmerl got going, he was well worth listening to. The women especially liked hearing him. The children would gather around him too, but they waited for him to yawn from time to time, which they found entertaining. When a while passed without a yawn, they would call out, “Shmerl, give us a yawn!” Shmerl did not get angry with them, G-d forbid. He saw it as a natural wish on their part and greeted them with a smile, his face showing how pleased he was to be able to delight them, if only with something as small as a yawn. Dovid Leib spent three years in Atinka. During those years, he got to know a number of the travelers who passed through the village and came to recognize them as hidden tzaddikim. But he had not managed to establish anything about the Yellow Kohen. Besides the Yellow Kohen, other wandering Jews appeared in Atinka from time to time, and Dovid Leib could not discover who they were. He found it suspicious that all those whose true nature he could not uncover, like the Yellow Kohen, associated with Shmerl. Dovid Leib wondered what it meant. Shmerl himself lived in a small house, half sunk into the ground. The wind had torn away part of its thatched roof, and on rainy days the house flooded. Shmerl was married, and thanks to his wife he had food to eat. She spun wool and supported her husband and their two children. The children, both boys, had been sent to a distant town to learn a trade. Then one day a fire broke out in Atinka, and many houses went up in smoke, including Dovid Leib’s. The alley where Shmerl lived was untouched, and Dovid Leib rented a home there for his family. He thus became that curious fellow’s neighbor, and, whether he wanted to or not, began paying closer attention to him. And then

02:53 one winter night, Dovid Leib stayed late in the beis midrash, ostensibly to warm himself and catch a little sleep. By the time he left to go home, it was very late. His route took him past Shmerl’s house, where a sweet melody, full of heartfelt feeling, reached his ears. Dovid Leib stopped and listened closely. It was Shmerl davening Maariv. He was utterly astonished. That very evening, Shmerl had been at Maariv with the congregation. Dovid Leib had noticed that Shmerl hardly seemed to daven, but he had attributed this to the fact that, as everyone in the village believed, the man simply could not read the words of the prayers. Now he was hearing a prayer that showed Shmerl had a soul of fire. Only a great tzaddik could daven like that. Dovid Leib stood outside Shmerl’s door for a full hour, and Shmerl still had not finished. Dovid Leib longed to keep listening, but the cold was so fierce that he nearly froze where he stood. He had no choice but to leave before the prayer ended and go home. From then on, Dovid Leib knew that Shmerl was not the fellow people took him for. But how could he get Shmerl to reveal himself to him? Dovid Leib began listening to Shmerl’s conversations in the street with the women and children, most of which consisted of stories. He told the women about the lives and ways of our matriarchs Sarah, Rivkah, Rachel, and Leah, and of other well-known women distinguished by their good character. It was clear that Shmerl meant his stories to encourage the women of Atinka toward upright conduct, peace in the home, and the proper upbringing of their children. Dovid Leib was deeply struck by Shmerl’s particular devotion to helping women who had given birth. Immediately after every birth in Atinka, Shmerl would appear at the mother’s home and hang Shir Hamaalos placards on the walls, as was customary for protection. He did

05:35 all the work a household helper would normally do: he chopped wood, heated the stove, brought water into the house, and, when needed, even cooked and prepared food for the mother and for the children at home, who were left without their mother to care for them. Dovid Leib recognized that behind all this lay Shmerl’s extraordinary righteousness. He badly wanted Shmerl to reveal himself so that they could become close. Dovid Leib tried various ways to win Shmerl’s friendship. He even began discussing Torah in his presence, and once, when they were alone, whispered to him that there was really no need to hide from him, since he conducted himself the same way. Dovid Leib imagined this would encourage Shmerl to become close to him. Instead, Shmerl opened his eyes wide and gaped, looking like a man who had no idea what Dovid Leib was talking about. Dovid Leib had no choice but to give up hope of befriending Shmerl and leave him alone. Summer came. Despite the fasts and self-denial Dovid Leib had undertaken in the hope that Shmerl would draw close to him, Shmerl kept his distance. Suddenly the Yellow Kohen, whom Dovid Leib had noticed long before, appeared in Atinka again. As always, he joined up with Shmerl. Dovid Leib watched the two of them. He saw that they frequently went into the nearby forest and stayed there a long time. So once he went up to them and said, “I have something important to discuss with you. Let’s go out to the field.” Shmerl and the Yellow Kohen looked at him in astonishment and pretended not to understand what Dovid Leib could possibly want to discuss with them. But after he pressed them, they agreed to go with him. When they were far from Atinka, Dovid Leib said, “I now know for certain that you are hidden tzaddikim who serve Hakadosh Boruch Hu in your own distinctive way. I, too, am trying to follow my own path and devote myself

08:09 to Torah and to serving Hashem in secret. I know for certain that I have much to learn from you. Have mercy on me and teach me your ways.” Then Dovid Leib burst into tears from emotion. His words and his broken heart moved Shmerl and the Yellow Kohen. They saw that Dovid Leib spoke from the heart and meant every word. They therefore agreed to reveal themselves to him, after warning him not to disclose their secret—that they were learned men. The three returned to the village, and none of the people who saw them had the slightest idea what their walk together had meant. From then on, a deep friendship grew between Shmerl and Dovid Leib. For an entire year they studied together at night, learning Kabbalah and works of Jewish philosophy. Shmerl became Dovid Leib’s principal teacher, both in Torah and in serving Hashem. Dovid Leib was happy not only to have won the friendship of tzaddikim such as Shmerl and the Yellow Kohen, but above all to have discovered a new path in Torah and in serving Hashem. Much later, Dovid Leib learned more about the Yellow Kohen, who visited Atinka often and associated with Shmerl. The Yellow Kohen was a Jew named Sender. For many years he had served as a teacher in the city of Kalisk, where he was known for his scholarship and righteousness. Then, suddenly, he left his teaching position and began wandering through Jewish cities and towns to teach Jewish children good character traits and inspire them to serve the Creator. Dovid Leib continued living in Atinka until his son Avraham Yitzchak turned nine. He now felt the need to move to a larger city so that his son could be educated in a yeshivah. Immediately after Sukkos, Dovid Leib moved to Kalisk and sent his son to the yeshivah headed by Rabbi Naftali. Avraham Yitzchak studied in that yeshivah for two years, and in the evenings he studied with his father.

10:50 His father’s devotion to caring for widows and orphans made a deep impression on Avraham Yitzchak. Dovid Leib saw it as his special role in Kalisk to help poor and unfortunate people. When he saw a poor child walking barefoot or in torn shoes, he would make him a pair and send Avraham Yitzchak to leave them in plain sight by the child’s door at night. Many times, Dovid Leib, who was poor himself, sent his son with bread and food for widows, women who had just given birth, and poor people lying on their deathbeds with no one looking after them. Avraham Yitzchak knew just how far his father’s righteousness went, but his father warned him not to tell anyone. At the time, no one in Kalisk knew who Dovid Leib the shoemaker really was. Many did notice, though, that his son was an outstanding child. “Just look!” people would say, pointing to him. “Only the son of a simple shoemaker, and yet such a fine boy.” These remarks, which reached Avraham Yitzchak’s ears, weighed heavily on him. In secret, he would cry because his father was not properly appreciated. More than once he longed to tell everyone that his father was no simple shoemaker, as they thought. But he held back, remembering his father’s command to keep what he knew about him a secret. For nine years Avraham Yitzchak studied with great diligence in Rabbi Naftali’s yeshiva. His father then sent him to Smorgon, home to one of the great yeshivas of the time. Avraham Yitzchak studied there for three years. When he returned, he had rabbinic ordination and letters from the yeshiva’s heads praising his scholarship and fine character. Over the years, Dovid Leib himself grew in learning and righteousness. He was now one of the prominent figures among the wandering hidden tzaddikim. When they came to Kalisk on secret missions, they would stay at his home. Yet

13:18 it never occurred to anyone in Kalisk that Dovid Leib was anything more than a simple shoemaker. Meanwhile, Avraham Yitzchak lived in his father’s home and continued his studies. There was no shortage of income, since there was enough work to make a living. Through his contact with the hidden tzaddikim, Dovid Leib also came to know Zalman Chaim, the shammash of the synagogue in the Yanovitch marketplace. Zalman Chaim and Reb Sender, known as the Yellow Kohen, acted as matchmakers for Avraham Yitzchak. Drawing on their connections in a number of towns and cities, they arranged his match, as we already know, with the daughter of Mordechai the miller. In practical terms, Avraham Yitzchak took Zalman Chaim’s place when that remarkable shammash disappeared from Yanovitch. Zalman Chaim’s actual replacement, however, was a wandering Jew named Reb Yosef, known as Yosef Moishe. He arrived in Yanovitch without anyone knowing where he had come from or why. Nor did anyone know the nature of the connection between Zalman Chaim and Yosef Moishe. But the elderly recluse Reb Leib, who studied and slept in the beis midrash where Zalman Chaim served as shammash, related that as soon as Yosef Moishe arrived in Yanovitch, Zalman Chaim began preparing to leave his post. We also learn from that same recluse that during that year, Reb Zalman Chaim grew very close to another recluse named Zundel Wolf, and they studied together in secret. No one knew what they studied. But when Zalman Chaim handed over his duties as shammash to Yosef Moishe before leaving Yanovitch, Zundel Wolf announced that he too was leaving and would join Zalman Chaim. From what they said to each other, it was understood that they were traveling to a distant city where a great Torah scholar was surrounded by many learned men. Now that Boruch had learned about Avraham Yitzchak’s past, he also had a clearer picture of Zalman Chaim the shammash, whom he

15:51 had hoped to meet in Yanovitch. But, as we know, he did not find him there. So Boruch had no further reason to stay in Yanovitch, and he set out to visit other towns where he had spent time in previous years, especially Dobromysl.