Episode 99: Young Baruch Hears from Yitzchok Shaul a Particularly Interesting Story About Baruch of Vyazin

00:01 Pierre Louis, the assimilated Jew and friend of Prince Benedict of the Radziwill family, hears from Rabbi Nissan that the Baal Shem Tov says he must return to Judaism. Rabbi Nissan took his leave, giving Pierre Louis time alone to absorb all he had seen and heard. The third day was Friday. Prince Radziwill was strong enough to sit up, and after Shabbos he could stand and even walk. He now sent for Rabbi Nissan and began asking him about the medicines he had used to cure him so wonderfully. He also wanted to know more about the Baal Shem Tov and the new path of Chassidus. Rabbi Nissan explained everything in detail. “And what reward would you like?” Radziwill asked. “I want no reward. I only ask,” Rabbi Nissan said, “that you treat the Jews well and give them opportunities to earn a living.” A few days later, Prince Radziwill was completely well. He and his companions, among them Pierre Louis, left Horki and went on their way. But not many days passed before Pierre Louis returned to Horki. This time he went straight to Rabbi Nissan’s home. He told him, “From the day I left here, I have had no peace of mind. I could not bring myself to eat non-kosher food, and I could not remain among the non-Jews. My heart began drawing me toward the Jews. Something inside me urged me to return to my faith and my religion. I opened my heart to Prince Radziwill, and he told me that although he very much wanted us to stay together, he thought I should follow my heart.” Pierre Louis—or Pesach Tzvi, as he now preferred to be called—decided to stay among the Jews of Horki. First and foremost, he wanted to learn about Judaism. He looked for a learned young man who also knew the local language and could teach him Torah. When he found the right person, he began learning the

02:51 alef-beis as well. Within a year, Pesach Tzvi knew how to study, daven, and recite all the brachos, and he already knew Chumash. As Pesach approached, this was the scene: It was time to draw the water that would be left overnight for baking the matzos on the eve of Pesach. As in previous years, the occasion was celebrated with great ceremony in Horki. Horki’s elderly rabbi, Rabbi Nachman Yitzchak, sat at the front of the carriage belonging to the Jewish landowner and baal teshuvah, Reb Lipa Baruch. We have already heard about him in earlier stories. He drove the carriage to the river, and this time Pesach Tzvi also rode in it, his face shining with joy at taking part in the mitzvah. Wearing the high boots he had once worn while hunting, Pesach Tzvi—the former Pierre Louis—stepped into the river, supporting the elderly rabbi by the arms as the rabbi entered the water by means of a special platform so that he could be the first to draw the water. Prince Radziwill gave his friend Pesach Tzvi his estate near Horki, and gave the local Jewish residents the plots of land on which their homes stood. In this way, the whole town of Horki learned about the Baal Shem Tov and his disciples. Rabbi Nissan and his friends could not, and did not want to, hide the fact that they were chassidim, and the existence of the Chassidic movement became public knowledge. Baruch hears these remarkable stories from his friend Yitzchak Shaul, Rabbi Nissan’s son. We are still in Pesach, which Baruch is spending in Dobromysl at the blacksmith’s home, together with the blacksmith’s sons-in-law. Pesach, which Baruch, the father of the future founder of Chabad, spent in the Dobromysl home of the blacksmith Eliezer Reuven, came to an end. The blacksmith’s two older sons-in-law returned to the yeshivos where they served as heads of yeshivah or delivered their lessons. Shmuel Nachum, the blacksmith’s son, also left for yeshivah. This time he was headed

05:45 to study at the yeshivah in Vitebsk, where Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak, Baruch’s brother-in-law, delivered his lessons. But Baruch had still not found the path in life he was seeking, so his wanderings were not yet over. For the time being, he decided to stay in Dobromysl. He wanted to hear more stories from Yitzchak Shaul, the blacksmith’s youngest son-in-law, about Chassidus in general and the Baal Shem Tov in particular. Baruch had the feeling that Yitzchak Shaul was opening a door to a new world for him. Until then, Baruch had known very little about the new path of Chassidus. But here, in Yitzchak Shaul, he had found a flowing spring, an inexhaustible source of knowledge. Yitzchak Shaul’s stories and explanations about Chassidus and the Baal Shem Tov seemed endless. Baruch thought that after Pesach he would be able to spend time with Yitzchak Shaul as he had during Yom Tov, following him through the golden palaces of Chassidus, room by room. But Yitzchak Shaul was now busy in the smithy. His father-in-law, Eliezer Reuven, had gone on a trip through the surrounding villages to fill orders from the local non-Jews that had piled up in the meantime. So Yitzchak Shaul was left alone in the smithy with a great deal of work. As we recall, since inventing the improved plow, he had been flooded with orders to make them. Recently, Yitzchak Shaul had also been designing a new kind of implement for thinning out plowed soil. He had already tested it in several farmers’ fields, and they were very pleased with it. So Baruch used the days when Yitzchak Shaul was busy in the smithy to reflect on and delve into everything he had learned so far about Chassidus. At the same time, he tried to reach his own conclusions about the meaning of the teachings of Chassidus. In the evenings, when Yitzchak Shaul was free from work and studying Torah, Baruch had opportunities to discuss Torah with him and, along the way, to ask him for explanations or

08:33 stories from which he could draw conclusions and learn lessons about the teachings of Chassidus. One evening, Yitzchak Shaul told Baruch a remarkable story about another Jew named Baruch. He was called Rabbi Baruch of Vyazin—Vyazin was the name of a town. This story about Rabbi Baruch of Vyazin made a deep impression on the young Baruch. Who was Rabbi Baruch of Vyazin? Rabbi Baruch of Vyazin was the son of a Jew named Yosef, who came from the town of Ilya near Vilna. Even as a child, Baruch of Vyazin became known for his Torah learning. When he reached bar mitzvah age, his father Yosef took him to Slutsk, to the local yeshivah headed by Rabbi Elchanan of Zelkova[?], which was renowned as an outstanding place of Torah study. Rabbi Elchanan was a student of the gaon Rabbi Shachna of Lublin. When Rabbi Elchanan tested the young Baruch of Vyazin, he was greatly impressed by his knowledge and sharp mind, and immediately admitted him to the yeshivah, where Baruch of Vyazin was the youngest student. His father Yosef had brought a sack from home containing dry bread and dry cheese. He gave it to his son Baruch so that he would have something to live on until he was settled in the yeshivah as a regular student. The custom was to provide for yeshivah students at the community’s expense or in the homes of private householders. But Baruch did not want to benefit from a gift from another person, so he decided to earn his bread through his own labor. When the food his father had left him ran out, he would go from time to time to the nearby forest, chop wood, carry it into town on his shoulders, and sell it. With the proceeds, he bought himself food. In doing so, Baruch showed his fine character. For example, he never told a buyer how much he wanted for his wares. He accepted whatever sum was given to him; from poor people, he refused to take any money at all. And when he learned of a poor family that had no wood to heat its stove,

11:25 For heating or cooking in honor of Shabbos and the like, he would bring a bundle of wood, leave it by the entrance to the house, and disappear. Whenever he finished his work, Baruch would hurry straight back to the yeshiva and sit down to study with great diligence. Unlike the other yeshiva students, Baruch made no friends and hardly spoke at all, so they called him “the silent one.” Baruch studied at this yeshiva in Slutsk for two years, then returned to Ilya with a wealth of Torah knowledge. Over time, he had adopted the practice of living only by the work of his own hands. He considered it a vow, and so he would not even eat for free in his father’s home. Our Sages’ advice to “exile yourself to a place of Torah” guided Baruch, and he decided to leave Ilya again. There were great scholars there who studied Torah diligently, and he very much enjoyed the Torah insights they shared with him. Nevertheless, he set out for Vilna, which also had a reputation as a place of Torah study. Although Ilya was not far from Vilna, the journey took Baruch several weeks. Why? Because he had to travel on foot, and he also stopped in various places to earn his bread. When he arrived in Vilna, the city made a strong impression on him, especially its scholarship and its service of Hashem. Even so, Baruch of Vyazin stayed in Vilna for only three months. The reason was that, on the one hand, he wanted to live only by the work of his own hands. On the other hand, whenever he considered taking a job, he felt he would be taking away the livelihood of someone else who could do that work. As a result, he had great difficulty finding a way to earn a living. He concluded that it would be easier to earn his bread in a small town, where working hands were in short supply, and so he came to the town of Troki. But this town was made up entirely of simple people and was not a place

14:05 for Torah study. So Baruch of Vyazin began going from town to town until he reached Vyazin. The great scholar Rabbi Shaul lived and worked there. He was renowned as one of the leading teachers of Torah and ran a celebrated yeshiva. Near Vyazin... Near Vyazin lived a widow who owned a dairy and needed an assistant to bring the milk and dairy products into town. Baruch took on the job. Twice a week, he brought the products to Vyazin and distributed them to the customers. He also bought various supplies and brought them back to the widow’s home, where she ran a small shop as well. The work did not take much of Baruch’s time, and it paid well enough that he could even save a little money after giving a tenth to charity. Baruch spent two months at Rabbi Shaul’s yeshiva and studied there diligently. He was pleased with the head of the yeshiva, from whom he learned a great deal, and with the students as well. One from Brisk... Baruch especially benefited from the spiritual influence of two students, one from Brisk and the other from Pinsk. An elderly man named Lipa Wolf also had a great influence on him. Lipa Wolf lodged in one of the town’s study halls. Baruch moved there from another study hall where he had initially slept, so that he could be closer to Reb Lipa and learn Torah and good character traits from him. Elderly Lipa also practiced many forms of self-denial. He prayed with deep concentration and would weep during his prayers. Well, it seemed like a very suitable arrangement, and there is no doubt that Baruch would have remained in Vyazin, where he felt at ease. But in the middle of winter, something happened that made his life miserable.