Episode 140: The History of Rabbi Avraham the Gannen

00:00 In our story, we now return to young Baruch, the son, as we now know, of [unclear], the son of Moishe and the learned Rachel, daughter of Baruch Batlan. In other words, young Baruch was the grandson of Rabbi Baruch Batlan and Rabbi Moishe. In the course of his wanderings through mountains and towns, Baruch had reached Dobromysl [unclear]. Everything we have heard lately—the stories about his family, about Prague, and so on—concerns his family too, as he heard it from Yitzchak Shaul, a chossid of the Baal Shem Tov. Now we return our attention to Baruch himself. By this time, Baruch was no longer a bar mitzvah boy but a grown young man of marriageable age. Yitzchak Shaul thought of arranging a match between Baruch and his sister, and he wrote about it to his father, who, as we recall, was one of Rabbi Yisroel Baal Shem Tov’s earliest chassidim. But since Yitzchak Shaul had not yet received an answer from his father, he did not want to raise the matter with Baruch. What Yitzchak Shaul did not know was that Baruch was already involved in a proposed match with the daughter of Rabbi Avraham the gardener, for whom Baruch had worked for a time as a watchman in the orchards. Rabbi Avraham the gardener had been working to arrange a match between Baruch and his daughter Rivka. During visits to Vitebsk, Rabbi Avraham investigated Baruch’s background and learned that, in terms of family lineage, Baruch was a suitable match for Rivka. Knowing that Baruch made his decisions independently, on his own judgment alone, he spoke to him at the time about the honorable proposal of a match. To his surprise, Baruch replied that in this case he did not want to rely on his own judgment; he wanted his married sister Devorah to give her opinion. Rabbi Avraham was willing to discuss it with

02:17 Devorah and her husband Yosef Yitzchak as well. He assumed that in speaking with them, they would come to an agreement. Then Baruch disappeared, as we already know: he had set out for Dobromysl [unclear]. Rabbi Avraham the gardener knew that Baruch was accustomed to wandering from place to place. He would stay somewhere for a while, diligently devoting himself to Torah study and avodah. There was no fixed place where he could be found, but Rabbi Avraham the gardener firmly believed he would find Baruch sooner or later. Three and a half years passed before Baruch suddenly appeared in Vitebsk. There he met with his sister Devorah and her husband Yosef Yitzchak, the rosh yeshivah, and he also found his uncle Kadish and his aunt Freida. All of them already knew that Rabbi Avraham the gardener, from the Liozna area, wanted Baruch as a husband for his daughter Rivka. To Devorah’s surprise, Baruch responded to the proposal by leaving the decision in her hands—the sister from whom he had kept his distance all those years—and in the hands of his aunt Freida. They would decide whether the match was suitable. Devorah felt the weight of the responsibility of deciding whether Rivka was right for Baruch. Suddenly she had to be both a father and a mother to her brother. So she traveled with her aunt Freida to Liozna, where Rabbi Avraham the gardener had the orchards from which he earned his living. They got to know Rivka and her family closely. Devorah saw that Rivka truly was a suitable match for Baruch. She was not learned, but she was G-d-fearing, with good character and a heart of gold—good toward Heaven and good toward people. Rabbi Avraham was among those who believed that women should not study, so he had not taught her. The fact that Rivka was not particularly learned did not sit well with Devorah’le, whose mother Rachel had been

04:39 a highly learned woman from whom she had learned a great deal. Moreover, after marrying Yosef Yitzchak, the prodigy from Shari [unclear], she studied Talmud and the halachic authorities with him every day and became a great scholar herself. Even so, she valued Rivka and her fine character. What tipped the balance was a heart-to-heart conversation between Devorah’le and Rivka. During it, Rivka expressed her deep desire to study and truly acquire knowledge. Devorah’le promised to help her and began studying with her during the short time they were there. In that time, Devorah’le brought her to the point where she could study certain books on her own and progress without outside help. In the end, Devorah’le told her that she approved of the match, but asked that the engagement celebration take place specifically in her home in Vitebsk. So, some time later, Avraham the gardener, his wife Sarah, and their daughter Rivka came to Vitebsk for a modest celebration. Baruch, for his part, also agreed to the match, but stipulated that the wedding be put off for as long as possible. He wanted at least a year to continue his wanderings and complete his search for the right path in serving the Creator. For that reason, he hurried to hold the tena’im ceremony and immediately afterward set off again on his travels. While Baruch was wandering, Rivka, the bride-to-be, stayed in Vitebsk at the home of her future sister-in-law, continuing her studies under Devorah’le’s guidance. Meanwhile, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak, Devorah’le’s husband, had an opportunity to get to know Rabbi Avraham the gardener, Baruch’s prospective father-in-law, and learn about his lineage. Rabbi Avraham, for his part, already knew a great deal about Baruch and his family from the inquiries he had made over the preceding years. In the process, he had come to greatly admire Baruch’s stature and lineage. And now the time had come

07:04 for him to share what he knew with Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak, who was interested on Baruch’s behalf, since Baruch had not had time to hear much on the subject before setting out. It emerged that Rabbi Avraham was a man who perfectly combined Torah, fear of Heaven, and earning a living by the work of his own hands. He was a great scholar and a great tzaddik, yet he earned his living as a gardener. That work also gave him the satisfaction of fulfilling the verse, “By the sweat of your brow you shall eat bread.” Rabbi Avraham came from a family of distinguished lineage. He was a fourth-generation descendant of the gaon Rabbi Avraham Chaim, author of Toras Chaim and Tzon Kodashim. He was also the son of Rabbi Naftali Hirsh, of the Bechor Shor family, who had come from Moravia to Poland in the year 400 of the sixth millennium—that is, around 1640. As a young man, Rabbi Naftali Hirsh was taken with great honor from one of the yeshivos and became the son-in-law of a very wealthy man in Polotsk. For forty years he was supported at his father-in-law’s table and occupied himself with Torah throughout. One thing helped him: he had only daughters, not sons. At the age of seventy-eight, after he was widowed, he married a second time. Rabbi Avraham was born of that marriage, and Rabbi Naftali Hirsh lived until the boy reached bar mitzvah age. In accordance with Rabbi Naftali Hirsh’s will, Avraham and his mother moved to Beshenkovichi. There Avraham studied Torah under Rabbi Avraham Zev, a great scholar who had been a friend of his late father. His mother opened a shop to support herself. Since she was still a young woman, she married a rosh yeshivah and had a son and a daughter with him. The son became a renowned rabbi. The daughter married the gaon Rabbi Aryeh Leib, who had studied alongside the prodigy from Slutsk [unclear], the man who later became famous as the Gaon of Vilna. At the same time... Rabbi Avraham the gardener continued... no, not continued; Rabbi Avraham the gardener had connections with distinguished people.

09:39 Through the generations. Some of them later became leaders of the movement of hidden tzaddikim, who prepared the ground for the emergence of Chassidus. So Rabbi Avraham had much to tell about great Torah scholars and tzaddikim of earlier generations, as well as those of his own generation. Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak, the prodigy from Shari[unclear], was very interested in hearing the stories told by the future father-in-law of his brother-in-law Baruch. Among other things, Rabbi Avraham the gardener told of a visit by Rabbi Eliyahu, the Baal Shem of Worms, who founded a group of Kabbalists and hidden tzaddikim in Pinsk. Rabbi Avraham the gardener related that Pinsk was famous for its yeshivos, and three of them were especially renowned. This is how Rabbi Avraham tells it: One yeshiva was named for Reb Tevel and his wife Chava Devorah. The second was Rabbi Shimon’s yeshiva, and the third was a yeshiva named for Golda Leah, the grandmother. Rabbi Avraham the gardener knew a great deal about the yeshiva named for—let’s recall that he was telling this story to Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak in Vitebsk, Devorah Leah’s husband. Rabbi Avraham knew a great deal about the yeshiva named for Reb Tevel and his wife Chava Devorah. Who were they? Reb Tevel was an interesting character. He was born in Kobrin, on the other side of the Dvina River. Kobrin and Pinsk were, in fact, neighbors; only the Dvina River separated them. Tevel inherited a plot of land from his father with beehives on it. He sold the honey he harvested and made his living from it. Various flowers also grew on the farm, providing nectar for the bees. Tevel had no fewer than 120 hives on his property. They produced a great deal of honey, and he became wealthy from it. As we said, Tevel’s estate was near Kobrin. Tevel’s mother died when he was a

12:10 small child. His father died when Tevel was seventeen. Although he was a simple young man, Tevel was deeply G-d-fearing. He prayed with concentration three times a day and made a practice of setting aside a tenth of his income for tzedakah. Whenever he had free time, he would recite Tehillim with great fervor. He could read, though he understood little of what the words meant. Despite being very young when his father died, Tevel knew how to run his business, tend the hives, and sell the produce. He also understood that it was much wiser not to let outsiders know how much he earned, so as not to arouse envy. Envy could lead to real harm. From Hakadosh Boruch Hu, however, he did not conceal his income, and he was careful to set aside a tenth of his profits for tzedakah. Even so, it troubled him greatly that he did not know which charitable causes should receive that money. He was very uncertain about it and inexperienced, too. On top of that, he wanted his giving to be done discreetly. Tevel thought to himself: What should I do? He did not want to rely on his own judgment, so he went to Rabbi Moshe Yaffe. Rabbi Moshe Yaffe was the rabbi of Pinsk, near Tevel’s home in Kobrin. Tevel laid out his difficulty in distributing the funds before him. Rabbi Moshe Yaffe asked Tevel to bring him his records of income and expenses. From those records he calculated Tevel’s profits and how much he needed to give to tzedakah. Tevel left nine-tenths of that amount with the rabbi to distribute as he saw fit. He kept one-tenth of it to give to charitable causes of his own choosing. Tevel followed this practice for five years, and his wealth grew considerably. The more he gave,

14:39 the more his profits grew. In time, Tevel began lending money to estate owners in return for a claim on the produce their fields would yield. He was successful in this as well. Young Tevel became a very wealthy man, but no one knew it. At that time, there was a yeshiva in Pinsk that had been founded forty years earlier. Its head was Rabbi Shimon, a friend of the great Torah scholar Rabbi Shlomo Luria, the Maharshal. After Rabbi Shimon, his son Rabbi Rafael held the position. When Rabbi Moshe Yaffe was appointed rabbi of Pinsk, he himself became head of that same yeshiva, founded, as we said, forty years before. Its students were all outstanding young Torah scholars. Most were married men who had undertaken to devote several years exclusively to study, and Rabbi Moshe Yaffe took care of their material needs. He therefore directed one-third of the money he received from Tevel to the yeshiva. Thanks to this, the yeshiva was able to grow and admit more students. During that period, a Jew named Rabbi Yehudah Leib Puchovitzer would come to Pinsk from time to time. He was the rabbi of the town of Bykhov in the district. Rabbi Yehudah Leib Puchovitzer was renowned as an outstanding preacher. He traveled over mountains and through forests to inspire Jews in their service of Hashem. On one visit to Pinsk, the leaders of the nearby Karlin community came to him and invited him to deliver a sermon there. Rabbi Yehudah Leib agreed, of course, and spent the following Shabbos in Karlin, where he delivered his sermon in the local shul.