Chapter 74: Reb Gavriel Enters the Life of the City of Dubrovna

00:01 We continue with the story of the two remarkable brothers, Shalom Shechna and Rafael Shlomo, the sons of the beloved Reb Avraham. Rafael Shlomo was known as “the rich beggar”: he would go through Vilna with a charity box, collecting donations for those in need. In this connection, he would cite the teaching of our Sages, “One who causes others to give is greater than one who gives,” referring to the greater merit of influencing someone else to give tzedakah than of giving it oneself. He would also say that the small coins collected from many people were dearer to Hakadosh Boruch Hu than the rubles donated by one person. In general, he said, a person should also engage in the work of collecting donations, rather than be content with giving tzedakah. That is why all the residents of Vilna called Rafael Shlomo “the rich beggar.” At the request of his mother, Sarah, Rafael Shlomo would from time to time add from his own pocket an amount equal to what he had collected in the charity box. Later, Sarah herself added an equal amount from her own pocket, and all the money was used for a special purpose: redeeming captives. This was a time when Christian priests often made false accusations against Jews. Many Jews faced such charges, and large sums were needed to defend and save them. Avraham the beloved and the righteous Sarah passed away at a ripe old age. Their sons, Shalom Shechna and Rafael Shlomo, carried on the remarkable family tradition, and their descendants married into prominent Torah families. In the year 5415, Vilna found itself at the center of a war between the Russians and the Poles. By then, the two brothers were already advanced in years. Their business had spread across the country and was managed by their sons and grandsons. When the Cossacks approached Vilna, the brothers provided wagons for all the Jews so they could flee the city in time. The first to be taken in these wagons were the rabbis and their families. The brothers received help from a Russian nobleman named Volkov, who had an estate near

03:02 Shvintzian. The estate had previously belonged to a Polish nobleman, and Volkov had bought it through the mediation of Shalom Shechna and Rafael Shlomo. The brothers had also lent him money for the purchase on favorable terms and, in keeping with the family tradition, persuaded him to appoint a Jew as manager of the estate. This Jew, whom the brothers had recommended to Volkov, developed and managed the estate well, bringing its owner good profits. For all these reasons, Volkov was grateful to the brothers from Vilna and was now glad to help them. On Tuesday, 22 Tammuz, the day before the Cossacks captured Vilna, Volkov sent carriages to the city to bring the two brothers and their families to his estate. Shalom Shechna and Rafael Shlomo did not want to separate from the other Jews, but the great Torah scholars of Vilna, Rabbi Moshe Rivkes and Rabbi Shabsai Kohen, instructed them to go to Volkov’s estate. In the middle of Elul, the brothers returned to Vilna. Much of the city had been consumed by fire. The fire in Vilna had burned for seventeen days. Miraculously, the homes of the charitable brothers remained intact. Shalom Shechna and Rafael Shlomo hurried to begin rebuilding the ruined city. They gave large sums of money to build homes, especially for the poor. Shalom Shechna was the first of the brothers to pass away. Tens of thousands of Jews and non-Jews attended his funeral. His brother, the rich beggar Rafael Shlomo, continued his charitable work. Eventually, he realized that he was too old to go from door to door with his charity box as he had done every day for more than forty years. Rafael Shlomo therefore called a meeting of Vilna’s wealthy and prominent residents. He told them that he was too weak to continue his holy work and offered to sell his established right to perform this mitzvah in exchange for a very large sum to be given to tzedakah. A wealthy Vilna resident, Yerachmiel Kohen, agreed and wanted to acquire this right. At the same time, he said he did not have the means—did not have the means

06:01 to contribute from his own pocket an amount equal to what was collected. He was willing to go from door to door. He was also willing to pay the required sum to acquire the right, but only on condition that he personally contribute one-fifth of the amount collected in the box. Rafael Shlomo said that the entire undertaking was being offered together, including matching the sum collected, and so he did not accept Yerachmiel’s condition. Six other Jews at the meeting, however, undertook to contribute the remaining four-fifths from their own money. And so, for thirteen years, Yerachmiel Kohen walked through the streets and courtyards of Vilna with the rich beggar’s charity box in his hand, collecting small coins from house to house. Each evening, when he returned home, he counted the money, recorded the amount in a ledger and added the matching one-fifth from his own funds. At the end of each week, the other six Jews gathered and, after a precise accounting, contributed the remaining four-fifths from their own pockets. Rafael Shlomo’s passing made a deep impression on the residents of Vilna. The two wandering visitors, Zechariah Yerucham, the prodigy from Nemirov, and Nachum Tuvia, one of the hidden tzaddikim, could not contain their admiration for his deeds and those of his family. At that time, an order arrived in Vilna from the authorities forbidding Jews to employ non-Jewish maids and wet nurses. The leaders of Vilna’s Jewish community did not regard the order as a harsh decree; on the contrary, they saw it as something that would bring good results for the Jews. The two wanderers, Zechariah Yerucham and Nachum Tuvia, continued their travels. Zechariah Yerucham had learned, among other things, that Nachum Tuvia came from the city of Polotsk, and they made their way from Vilna toward Polotsk. Nachum Tuvia’s custom was to eat only bread and water on weekdays. On Shabbos and Yom Tov, he ate his meals with challah, over which he also made Kiddush. On Pesach, in addition to matzah, he ate maror and charoses and drank the four cups. While traveling, he would fast all day. In the evening, he would enter a Jewish home and ask for a slice of bread. With that slice

09:02 he would have his meal in the beis midrash after Maariv, drinking a cup of water afterward. On Friday, he would ask someone for challahs for his Shabbos meals. In his hometown of Polotsk, Nachum Tuvia led a small group of scholars who studied Kabbalah, practiced many forms of self-denial and fasting, and spent much of their time in seclusion. Zechariah Yerucham wanted to join the group, but they would not accept him, since one of their rules was that unmarried men could not join. Later, Zechariah Yerucham became the son-in-law of one of Polotsk’s prominent residents, and he was then accepted into the group of Kabbalists. In 5423, Zechariah Yerucham’s first son was born and given the name Gavriel. I should mention here that we are also discussing the history of the rabbi of Dobromysl; in fact, we are telling the story of the family and how events unfolded within it. So Zechariah Yerucham’s first son, Gavriel, was born. Two years later, he had a second son, Yechezkel. In 5440, when Gavriel was seventeen, his father arranged a match for him with the daughter of the great Torah scholar Tanchum Shmuel, the rabbi of Dobromysl. Three years later, he married off his second son... married off his second son. Gavriel had two children, first a daughter and then a son. When that son reached bar mitzvah age, his grandfather Zechariah Yerucham came to Dobromysl for the celebration. The town accorded the great Torah scholar Zechariah Yerucham the honor due to him, and after a short stay in Dobromysl he returned home. But a short time later, his bar mitzvah grandson fell ill and passed away. As for the father, Gavriel, the rabbi’s son-in-law, he won the affection of the residents of Dobromysl as soon as he arrived, thanks to his Torah scholarship, cheerful nature and keen mind. Because of the rabbi’s frailty, the residents preferred to turn to his son-in-law Gavriel with every matter. Gavriel was especially gifted at bringing peace between husbands and wives. As a result, the number of divorces in Dobromysl declined and the number of marriages increased. Thus, from the time Gavriel arrived in Dobromysl, there began

12:04 the community to grow and develop. Tanchum Shmuel himself, the rabbi of Dobromysl, was born in the town. He was born in the year 5360 to his father, Malkiel Tzvi, who had also been the rabbi of Dobromysl. Tanchum Shmuel was thirty when his father passed away, and he then became the town’s rabbi. He was distinguished not only by his brilliance but also by his humility and good character. He never left the four cubits of Torah. He fasted all day, every day except Shabbos, and when he ate, he ate only potatoes, not bread. Two interesting figures from that period in Dobromysl are also known to us. One was Feivel, nicknamed “the Dancer.” The other was Chana Tuvia, called “the Kisser.” Feivel earned his nickname because whenever he reached Ein Elokeinu in the prayers, he would dance with joy and enthusiasm. Chana Tuvia the Kisser would kiss every pair of tefillin and every pair of tzitzis he saw in the beis midrash. Both were students of the tzaddik and miracle worker Chaim Yitzchak. Let us return to Chaim Yitzchak. He was ninety years old when Tanchum Shmuel became bar mitzvah and his father brought him to receive the elder’s blessing. The elder blessed him and said that he had a lofty soul. Before his passing, Chaim Yitzchak said that Tanchum Shmuel experienced revelations of Eliyahu. Tanchum Shmuel was the son-in-law of Yirmiyahu, a Torah scribe. Tanchum Shmuel lived with his wife for thirty years without having children, and then she passed away. He married a second wife, but sadly, she too passed away without leaving him any children. Only in his third marriage, three years after the wedding, was a daughter born to him—the daughter who later became Gavriel’s wife. Dobromysl was generally known as a peaceful town with few disputes, but there were many quarrels within families. Disputes between husbands and wives were very common, and this was because of

15:03 excessive mutual suspicion. A great deal of gossip circulated in the town and led to many divorces. Tanchum Shmuel, the town’s rabbi, saw the many instances of broken domestic peace as a terrible curse and tried to change the situation. When a couple came to him with complaints about each other, he would try to speak to both of them affectionately and gently, and persuade them that their suspicions had no basis. He would often weep with the couple over their distress. He tried to dissuade them from divorcing by citing teachings of our Sages, such as the Gemara’s statement in Sanhedrin that “whoever divorces his first wife, even the altar sheds tears for him.” But almost none of this helped, and only rarely did Tanchum Shmuel succeed in persuading a couple not to divorce. These divorces caused great damage to Jewish life in Dobromysl. If the husband who gave the divorce was a Yisroel, the couple would sometimes reconcile and remarry. But if he was a Kohen, he could not marry her again. And Kohanim are known to be particular. Tanchum Shmuel therefore frequently proclaimed fasts and called on the community to do teshuvah in order to curb the wave of divorces in Dobromysl. Many times he went with the entire community to the cemetery, where they recited many prayers and sounded the shofar, but the number of divorces did not decline. This changed, however, when Rabbi Gavriel, the rabbi’s son-in-law, arrived. Tanchum Shmuel referred to his son-in-law all the family disputes brought before him. Gavriel took his own approach, being even-tempered by nature. Whenever a case of disrupted domestic peace came to him, he first devoted several days to finding out why the husband and wife could not live together peacefully. He knew that, as with any dispute between husband and wife, the more public it became, the worse it grew. He did everything in complete confidence, so that no outsider knew anything about it. During

17:47 his inquiries, which sometimes continued for several weeks, it often emerged that the original causes were baseless suspicions, created or reinforced by the gossip of troublemakers. The couple would suddenly realize that they had been misled by idle talk. Now the rabbi’s son-in-law had an easier task. The couple returned home reconciled, with peace restored to their household. In this way, the number of divorces in Dobromysl fell sharply, and domestic peace was restored in the town. More broadly, Gavriel worked to improve the spiritual state of Dobromysl’s Jews. He taught them to avoid gossip and to improve relations not only between husband and wife, but also between neighbors and friends. Gavriel knew all too well from bitter experience that the gossip neighbors spread about one another destroyed community life and brought many troubles. After Gavriel became the son-in-law of Dobromysl’s rabbi, he also began paying closer attention to the daily lives and needs of the local Jews. Although they were behind spiritually, they were doing well materially. Every family had its own garden, which provided produce throughout the year. They also had a cow, a goat, poultry, and a small farm. Some managed to lease larger plots of land, where they planted grain, potatoes, and the like. There were craftsmen and merchants as well. One reason for the earlier lack of domestic peace was that the Jews of Dobromysl arranged marriages only among themselves. Matches with families from the nearby towns of Lublin and Babinovitch[?] were rare. Gavriel therefore began persuading Jews in Dobromysl who had daughters of marriageable age to take yeshivah students from elsewhere as sons-in-law. In this way, young Torah scholars came to Dobromysl and had a positive influence on the town. Gavriel set himself two tasks. First, he worked to get the town’s householders, merchants, and craftsmen to attend the various Torah classes he established.

20:27 Second, he encouraged the young Torah scholars to connect with the people and go out into the streets. He also taught them to value those who earned their living through their own labor, pointing to the teaching of our Sages: “Torah study is good together with earning a livelihood.”