Episode 141: The Conclusion of the Story of Te'ovel and Chava Devorah

00:00 In the story of Rabbi Avraham the gardener, Rabbi Baruch’s father-in-law. We are now discussing the history of the city of Pinsk. There were three yeshivos in Pinsk, and right now we are talking about the history of one of them. That brings us to a Jew named Tevel. Tevel was a young man from Kobrin, near Karlin and Pinsk, and we meet him when he encounters the preacher Rabbi Yehuda Leib. Rabbi Yehuda Leib had a particularly dignified appearance and spoke with extraordinary eloquence. His sermons had an enormous impact both on scholars, who grasped his profound ideas, and on ordinary people. Rabbi Yehuda Leib’s sermon also made a deep impression on Tevel, who invited him to stay at his estate. Rabbi Yehuda Leib told Tevel that he planned to travel to Venice to print his book there. Tevel immediately offered to cover all his expenses, both for the journey and for the printing, on one condition: no one was to know about it. Rabbi Yehuda Leib, however, could not keep the secret entirely and told Rabbi Moishe Jaffe, the rabbi of Pinsk. We already know that the rabbi of Pinsk knew about Tevel, since Tevel had gone to consult him about how much maaser he needed to give. In any case, the rabbi nodded thoughtfully when he heard about the young Tevel and his charitable deeds. In those days, every Jewish community had someone whose task was to raise poor orphaned boys and girls. In Pinsk, that person was a Jew named Mordechai Leib, who raised orphans together with his wife. The boys were cared for until they reached bar mitzvah age. Those among them who showed no special aptitude for study were then taken in by craftsmen, who employed them as apprentices. They grew up in the craftsmen’s homes, learned a trade, and were later able to support themselves. The girls, once they reached

02:29 a certain age, were sent to various families to help with housework, or to estate owners to help with suitable agricultural work. In Pinsk there was a carpenter named Yaakov, a simple but G-d-fearing Jew. He davened with a minyan and was one of the regulars at the first minyan each morning. He earned very little, barely enough to meet his needs. Once, while working on a new building, a beam fell on him and broke his neck. He lay dying for three weeks and then passed away. Three months after his passing, his widow gave birth to a daughter, who was given the name Chava Devorah. When Chava Devorah turned three, her mother died, leaving her an orphan of both parents. The community placed the little orphan in Mordechai Leib’s home to be raised, and she stayed there until she was twelve. She was then sent to help with the housework in the home of a Pinsk householder. Chava Devorah spent six years in that man’s home, and they were very hard years for her, because they worked her to the bone. After six years, the householder’s brother came to Pinsk to visit him. This brother owned an inn not far from Tevel’s estate in Kobrin. When he saw how diligently Chava Devorah worked, he asked his brother to send her to him, since he needed help at the inn. The householder agreed at once, without it even occurring to him to ask Chava Devorah what she thought. This deeply upset her. Did she have no say in her own life? But she had no choice, so she bit her lip and kept quiet. No one would listen to any objection she made, and as an orphan she had no one to stand up for her. Besides, she thought to herself, perhaps it was for the best: surely things could not

04:51 be worse for her than they were now. And so she had to accept her fate. Before leaving with the brother, she asked her new master, the innkeeper, to give her one day off so she could visit her parents’ graves before saying goodbye to her hometown. But the innkeeper mocked her. “If you don’t go to them, they’ll come to you in a dream tonight.” He forced her onto the wagon and drove her away. She did not receive a single penny from her Pinsk employer for all those years of backbreaking work, but she was helpless and could do nothing. In general, Chava Devorah was a quiet, G-d-fearing young woman. She taught herself to read and made sure to daven three times a day. She could also study Chumash with a translation into the spoken language, and she recited various supplications with deep feeling. She was kindhearted, too, and tried with great compassion to help people in need. The work at her new place, the inn, was very hard. Both the innkeeper and his wife piled as much work on her as possible. On top of that, they constantly taunted and distressed her, making her life miserable ten times a day. The innkeeper’s wife, with her venomous tongue, was especially cruel to her. Chava Devorah endured the insults and curses in silence, without answering back. Only when she davened three times a day did she pour out the bitterness in her heart, shedding many tears in her prayers. Her one day of rest was Shabbos. She chose a regular spot beneath one of the trees not far from the inn. There she sat throughout Shabbos, saying Tehillim and studying Chumash. She tried to hold back her tears, because she knew one must not cry on Shabbos. Yet from time to time she burst into tears, for her heart was overflowing with suffering. She saw that she had been mistaken when she thought things could not be worse than before. Her situation now was many times worse

07:00 because of both the backbreaking work imposed on her and the barrage of insults and curses. She was also distressed by the company her employers kept. They were coarse, uncouth people who lived among non-Jews and had learned to live and speak like them. At least in her previous employers’ home, she had been among Jews on Shabbos and Yom Tov. She would go to shul and, from the women’s section, listen to the congregation’s prayers and to the preachers’ sermons. Here she was cut off from the Jewish world and left alone and isolated. Her situation pained her deeply. In her prayers she pleaded with Hakadosh Boruch Hu to have mercy on her and take her out of her harsh exile. Chava Devorah had no relative or anyone to turn to before whom she could pour out her heart and ask for help. Only before Hakadosh Boruch Hu did she pour out her soul in prayer. In the summer especially, she would go out to the garden toward evening. There, beneath the open sky, she would daven with great concentration and recite chapters of Tehillim and supplications. The orphan was certain no one could hear her, so she felt free to pour out the bitterness in her heart without restraint. One morning, Tevel was walking to Karlin, as he usually did, to daven with the first minyan. On his way he passed the inn near his estate, and suddenly he heard a woman crying as she prayed. Tevel stopped and listened to her heartfelt prayer. He wondered who she could be. Surely, he thought, it was not the innkeeper’s wife. He knew her and her husband as coarse, uncouth people, incapable of praying with such an outpouring of the soul. Of course, it never occurred to him that a housemaid might be davening with such deep feeling. He decided to look into it, but because he was hurrying to daven, he put it off until he returned from shul. When Tevel came back, he went into the inn. He saw the innkeeper sitting among a group of peasants, joking around with them in the manner of non-Jews. As he stood

09:25 Before he had a chance to speak to anyone, Tevel heard angry shouting and insults. It was the tavernkeeper’s wife yelling at Chava Devorah. “Well, here’s something new—a servant who thinks she’s a rebbetzin!” she screamed. “She shirks her work and spends her time praying and saying Tehillim instead. Who ever heard of a maid praying and saying Tehillim?” After pausing for a moment, she warned the orphan sharply, “If I see you with a siddur in your hand one more time, I’ll break your neck! You’ll remember what I give you for the rest of your life, you ugly spinster!” Tevel needed no explanation; everything was clear. He looked toward the corner where the shouting was coming from and saw Chava Devorah standing before her mistress, frightened and ashamed, as though bracing herself for a beating. The woman went on shouting for quite some time, showing no sign of calming down. Tevel’s heart went out to the girl. From then on, he looked for an opportunity to enter the tavern and speak with Chava Devorah, hoping to find a way to help her. But he could not talk to her under her employers’ watchful eyes. One Shabbos afternoon, when Chava Devorah was sitting as usual in the shade of a tree, saying Tehillim, Tevel approached her and began to talk with her. Their conversation went on for a long time. He wanted to hear as much as he could from Chava Devorah about her situation. For her part, she was willing to tell him everything: for the first time in her life, someone wanted to listen to her. She told him that life with her new employers was far worse than it had been in the home of the tavernkeeper’s brother. Once Tevel had heard all the details, he hurried to Rabbi Moshe Yaffe, the rabbi of Pinsk, through whom he distributed most of his charity. He told the rabbi everything he knew about Chava Devorah, the orphan. During their conversation, he asked for the rabbi’s opinion

11:39 and advice about an idea that had occurred to him: that he should marry the orphan. She seemed suited to him, though he was troubled by the fact that Chava Devorah knew more than he did about reading and learning. He could barely read, while she understood the prayers and other things as well. He shared this concern with the rabbi and waited for his advice. Tevel was so kindhearted that, if the rabbi felt the orphan was not a suitable match for him, he was prepared to pay for her marriage to someone suitable and provide her with a dowry and everything she needed. His immediate concern was to rescue the orphan from her cruel employers, who were making her life miserable. The rabbi listened with great interest to the young estate owner and immediately summoned the tavernkeeper and the orphan. He ordered the tavernkeeper to release her at once, then sent her to the home of one of Pinsk’s respected merchants to rest and regain her strength. He asked the merchant to keep her in his home for a while, during which she could help in his business as much as she was able. Meanwhile, the rabbi intended to learn about the orphan’s personality and character so he could decide whether she was a suitable wife for kindhearted Tevel. He felt responsible for both Tevel’s future and Chava Devorah’s. Both were lonely orphans, without a father or mother. A few weeks later, the rabbi of Pinsk summoned Tevel and told him that, after making inquiries, he had concluded that Chava Devorah was a suitable match for him. Tevel was overjoyed, though he expressed doubt that Chava Devorah would agree to marry him. The rabbi sent for Chava Devorah and presented her with the honorable proposal of a match with Tevel. She agreed at once. The tena’im were written, and a wedding date was set. Tevel asked that the tena’im include a provision that, until the wedding,

13:45 each of them would retain full credit for the mitzvah of tzedakah they performed on their own. After the marriage, however, both their possessions in this world and the merits of their good deeds in the World to Come would belong to them equally. He wanted Chava Devorah to be his full partner. He immediately put his considerable property in both their names, giving them equal rights to it. He asked the rabbi to calculate the value of his property and the share belonging to Chava Devorah, and she immediately gave a fifth of her new property to tzedakah. The couple made their home on Tevel’s estate. Since Tevel was entirely unlearned, while Chava Devorah had some knowledge, she began teaching him what she knew. Within a year, Tevel was able to learn a passage from Chumash, read a chapter of Tehillim, and understand a little of the meaning of the words. “Now,” said Chava Devorah, “let’s find a teacher for both of us so we can continue to progress.” They immediately brought a suitable couple to their estate for this purpose. The husband was a young scholar from Rabbi Moshe Yaffe’s yeshiva, and the wife was a friend of Chava Devorah’s. The young man’s name was Nosson Aryeh. The couple were given a home on the estate and a respectable salary. Tevel and his wife treated them with great honor, provided for all their needs, and increased their salary from time to time. Nosson Aryeh was to learn every day with the estate owners, Tevel and Chava Devorah. For fifteen years, Tevel and Chava Devorah gave their tzedakah funds to the rabbi of Pinsk, as they had pledged, based on their income, which the rabbi reviewed each month. When Rabbi Moshe Yaffe left Pinsk, Rabbi Naftali Katz of Prague succeeded him. With Tevel’s consent, Rabbi Moshe Yaffe revealed the secret to Rabbi Naftali, who from then on took charge of the couple’s giving in secret. Meanwhile, Tevel had become

16:08 a Torah scholar through his diligence and the progress he made learning with Nosson Aryeh. Chava Devorah, too, had advanced greatly in her studies. But just as they did not want the public to know about their charitable deeds, they did not want anyone to know about their Torah study or how much they had learned. They asked Nosson Aryeh to keep these matters secret. In everyone’s eyes, they remained what they had always been: simple, honest, kindhearted people. In time, they were blessed with children, who grew up and established homes of their own among the Jewish people. The parents, meanwhile, continued to live modestly, studying Torah in secret and giving generously to tzedakah. From time to time, they traveled to visit the major yeshivas of the day in Ostroh, Brisk, Slutsk, Minsk, Vilna, Krakow, and Prague. In each place, they left large sums to support the yeshivas, on condition that their gifts be kept secret. Many years passed. No one knew that Tevel and Chava Devorah were remarkably learned, that they were very wealthy, or that they gave a large portion of their money to tzedakah. After serving as rabbi of Pinsk for twenty-five years, Rabbi Naftali Katz left the city. He was succeeded by Rabbi Naftali Hertz of Poznań. We have heard about Poznań before, of course. His predecessor told the new rabbi the details of Tevel and Chava Devorah’s lives, and he insisted that they allow him to make public the great charitable deeds they had been doing for decades. And so the wider public suddenly learned that Tevel and Chava Devorah were a couple who had hidden their greatness