Episode 206 - Rabbi Yosef Baal Agalah, Part 3

00:01 The story of Reb Yosef the wagon driver continues. Reb Yosef was staying at an inn on the way to the town of Senno. Another guest at the inn wanted to leave early in the morning. Reb Yosef ate his evening meal, slept for about an hour, and then got up to recite Tikkun Chatzos, as was his custom. The guest woke up and was startled to hear someone crying. He got out of bed, opened the door, and saw the wagon driver sitting on the floor, reading from a book by the light of a wax candle and weeping. The sound of his crying entered the guest’s heart and brought back memories of his youth: his upbringing in his father’s home, his teachers, and his wife and children. He had left them many years before, gone astray following the stubbornness of his heart, and become involved with a non-Jewish woman, who bore him two sons and a daughter. The eldest son and the daughter had died; the younger son was still alive. Overwhelming bitterness seized him. Reb Yosef finished Tikkun Chatzos, recited the morning blessings with great feeling, and went to immerse in the river. When he returned, he put on his tallis and tefillin and began to daven with intense devotion. As he davened, Reb Yosef recalled a yechidus he had had with the Alter Rebbe in 5564. He could see the Alter Rebbe before his eyes and hear the echo of his voice saying, “For the good of your soul, it is better to be a wagon driver than a rabbi.” He thought of his life then, when he sat and studied Torah by himself and with students, compared it with his present life, and wept bitterly. The wagon driver’s voice reminded the guest of his father’s voice. His father, too, used to daven with deep feeling and fervor, and more than once he had heard his father say that his teacher, the tzaddik Reb Shlomo, davened that way. “Who knows,” the guest thought, “perhaps this wagon driver, too, is a disciple of some tzaddik.” He recalled an incident in their town. A very difficult halachic question had arisen, and the local rabbi had struggled to resolve it.

02:42 In the end, all the Torah scholars in the town of Tulchin, in the Podolia province, agreed with the opinion of his father, Reb Tzvi the carpenter. Reb Tzvi had a fine reputation throughout the region. He was known as a great scholar and a fervent chossid, and he had been offered rabbinic positions more than once, but did not want them. The guest, whose name was Shlomo Leib, recalled the details of his life as a young man and a newly married man, and the first steps he had taken away from the way of life in which his father had raised him. He had a gifted friend named Avraham Dov, an outstanding scholar who feared G-d. But suddenly Avraham Dov’s beliefs became corrupted, and he cast off religious observance and became one of the leading maskilim. This was the first reason Shlomo Leib abandoned his father’s way of life and fell lower and lower, until, after his father died, he left his town, his home, and his family. By a strange turn of events, he found himself at an inn with a landowner from the Chernigov province, who invited him to manage his estates. There he threw off the yoke of Judaism and became close to the young landowner. When the young man became engaged to the count from Bechikov’s daughter, Shlomo Leib traveled with him as his private secretary. It was there, too, that he met his non-Jewish wife. The innkeeper knocked on the guest’s door. The guest assumed he had come to tell him that the wagon driver he had sent for from the village would arrive soon. But the guest had decided not to travel with him; he would wait for the Jewish wagon driver. When he opened the door, the innkeeper told him he had hired a good wagon, which would come for him in an hour, and had prepared a hot drink for him. Shlomo Leib thanked the innkeeper for his trouble and said he had decided to stay a few more hours. He gave him a silver coin to pay the wagon driver for his trouble, since he had been summoned for nothing. He would not have a hot drink just yet. He hurried to close the door, for a flood of tears

05:16 burst from his eyes. The Jewish wagon driver’s davening had stirred his heart and opened a wellspring of memories. He thought of his wife and children. Who knew whether they were alive, or how they supported themselves? How much disgrace had they suffered because of him—shame and humiliation, poverty and hunger. And why? he asked himself. How much honor had his upright wife earned through her good character and conduct! How fond his learned, even-tempered father-in-law had been of him, and how much his kindhearted mother-in-law had respected him. “Cursed be the day,” he thought, “when I met my wayward friend Avraham Dov, who led me away from the right path.” He wept bitterly. An hour passed, then another and a third, and Reb Yosef was still davening with feeling and fervor. His trembling, pleading voice made a profound impression on Shlomo Leib, who paced his room from corner to corner and could find no rest. Reb Yosef’s supplications in the blessing Ahavas Olam, his plea to “our Father, merciful Father,” his request that “we not be ashamed or disgraced,” and his yearning as he said “Hear, O Israel” pierced Shlomo Leib to the heart. He swore to himself that from that day on he would do complete teshuvah. He would return to his wife and children, to his faith and to his G-d. He went to the innkeeper and asked to borrow a tallis and tefillin. He returned to his room, put them on, and davened with many tears. Reb Yosef finished davening, completed his regular Torah study, and began preparing for the journey. The guest was still shut in his room. When the innkeeper told Reb Yosef that the guest had borrowed a tallis and tefillin, he waited for him to finish davening. On this trip, Reb Yosef was transporting various goods from Beshenkovichi to Senno, so he was in no hurry and waited until the guest was ready to travel with him. After an hour, the guest opened the door. He called the innkeeper and told him he felt ill and could not travel. Since he very much wanted to go with the Jewish wagon driver, the innkeeper should try

07:58 to persuade him to wait until he recovered. He was willing to pay him for waiting, in addition to the fare, and would also pay for his meals during those days. Reb Yosef agreed to wait. Toward evening, the guest’s illness worsened. He was lying in bed with a high fever. All night he spoke feverishly in disconnected fragments. He mentioned the names of various men and women, Jews and non-Jews. He raged at some and cursed them fiercely; he pleaded with others. He went on like this all night, until dawn, when he grew a little calmer and fell asleep. Early in the morning, Yaakov Leib, a wagon driver from Bechikov, stopped at the inn with passengers traveling to the various fairs in the Senno region. When Yaakov Leib saw the sick guest, he recognized him at once and said that he was the confidant and adviser of the young count, the old nobleman’s son-in-law. His name was Solomon Gometsky. Yaakov Leib spoke of his bad habits, misdeeds, and sins, and said that he had a non-Jewish wife who had borne him a son. “But,” Yaakov Leib said, “Gometsky the heretic, as they call him in Bechikov, does have one good quality: he favors the Jews. Since he arrived with the young nobleman, all the produce from the estates of the old nobleman and the young one, the watermills and windmills, the fishing rights on the rivers, and the inns at the crossroads have been sold or leased only to Jews, on favorable terms that allow them to earn a good living.” When Shlomo Leib awoke, he asked the innkeeper to call the Jewish wagon driver into his room. When Reb Yosef came in, Shlomo Leib asked him to sit down and told him the story of his life from beginning to end: everything he had been through since straying from the right path, and how yesterday he had decided to do complete teshuvah. Whatever might happen to him, he would leave his wicked ways and return to his wife and children. When he finished speaking

10:30 He fell silent for a few moments, then burst into tears, his whole body trembling. Rabbi Yosef was alarmed by what he had heard, and the changes in the man left him bewildered. One moment he was angry; the next, he felt pity for him. But when he saw how deeply moved the man was, and recognized that he had truly repented and regretted his evil deeds and schemes, he felt great compassion for him and began to calm him. Rabbi Yosef’s words of comfort moved Shlomo Leib even more. He wept bitterly and said that for a sinner like him there was no remedy but death through terrible suffering, and that such a punishment would atone for his sins. He said he accepted upon himself the greatest suffering, if only he could be freed from his non-Jewish wife and the son born to them in impurity, return to his Jewish wife and their Jewish children, and remove the disgrace he had brought upon them. After an hour he calmed down and asked Rabbi Yosef for his tallis and tefillin so that he could daven. Since he was weak, Rabbi Yosef helped him put them on. After he davened, his fever rose and he spoke in broken phrases. But Rabbi Yosef, who knew what he had been through, recognized in those fragments words of teshuvah and regret for the past. At noon, a wagon traveling from Polotsk to Vitebsk arrived. Among its passengers was the physician Rabbi Yitzchak Zelig of Polotsk, who was well known throughout the region. At the innkeeper’s request, he examined the sick man, said that his condition was very dangerous, let some of his blood, gave him medicines, and went on his way. Since the guest, Shlomoli, had confided his secret to him, Rabbi Yosef decided he could not leave him in this condition. When Hashem granted that he recovered, Rabbi Yosef would help him fulfill his vow to return to his Jewish wife and children. And who knew what the day might bring? If some calamity befell the sick man and no one knew his secret, his abandoned wife and children would know nothing. He decided that he would not

12:54 leave until the sick man’s condition improved. Rabbi Yosef also thought that, since the man had repented and regretted his past, it was his duty to help him. So Rabbi Yosef entrusted the goods he had been carrying in his wagon to Yaakov Leib, a wagon driver traveling to Seno, and stayed at the inn with the sick man. The medicines given by Rabbi Yitzchak Zelig did not help. His fever rose hour by hour, and he spent three full days with a high fever. Meanwhile, word reached Count Davichikov’s estate that the young nobleman’s confidant and adviser had fallen ill and was lying in the Jewish inn at the crossroads. The count ordered his court physician to hurry to the inn and bring the sick man to his home. If he found his condition serious, he was to take him to Vitebsk, the provincial capital, where the medical care and doctors were better than at the estate. He also ordered the physician to take care that the sick man not learn of the tragedy: three days earlier, his wife and son had gone boating on the river, their boat had overturned, and they had drowned. The court physician found the sick man in a most dangerous condition, suffering from inflammation of the brain, and impossible to move. He gave him various medicines and sent a messenger to inform his master, the nobleman, of his condition. The physician said he could not promise that the man would not die: the fever was rising hour by hour, the patient was struggling against death, and only Hashem could save him. The young nobleman sent a special messenger to Vitebsk, the provincial capital, with a letter to one of its leading physicians, asking him as a kindness to travel to his confidant and adviser, the sick Gamotsky, who was lying in the inn at the crossroads. The physician complied. On the third day—the seventh day since the guest’s arrival at the inn—he came and found that the sick man’s condition had improved somewhat, though he was still in danger. He consulted with the court physician, and together they gave him medicines to strengthen

15:25 his body so that he could withstand the illness. Seeing how dangerously ill the man was, Rabbi Yosef undertook a two-day fast, two consecutive days and nights until Shabbos. He recited chapters of Tehillim and prayed for mercy on his behalf. On Sunday, Rabbi Yosef resumed his fasting and undertook a fast of three consecutive days. On the third day, the sick man regained his senses. He recognized the court physician, but when the physician, intending to reassure him, said that his wife would come to visit him tomorrow or the next day, he became deeply agitated. He lost consciousness again and lay as still as a log. Meanwhile, word reached the inn of the tragedy that had befallen the sick man’s wife and son: their boat had overturned while they were out on the river, and they had drowned. Dozens of peasants were searching for their bodies all along the river, which flowed into the Dvina, but they had not yet been found. The physician told the innkeeper that the sick man was worried about his wife and son and apparently loved them deeply. That, he said, was why the illness had returned today: when he had comforted the man by saying that his wife and son would visit him tomorrow or the next day, the man had sighed deeply and lost consciousness. Strong medicines had failed to revive him, and the physician feared these were his last hours. He therefore had to send a special messenger to the estate to report his condition. Rabbi Yosef, meanwhile, was occupied with his fast and the recitation of Tehillim, and knew nothing of what was happening with the sick man. When he returned to the inn, the innkeeper told him what the physician had said and that a special messenger had already been sent to inform the young nobleman of the sick man’s condition. Rabbi Yosef understood at once that the mention of the man’s non-Jewish wife and son had upset him. He asked the physician to let him visit the sick man and say Vidui with him, since he was in danger and death could come at any moment. The physician looked at Rabbi Yosef in astonishment and said to himself, “The sick man

17:46 is lying there as still as a log, and this old man wants to say Vidui with him.” Rabbi Yosef told him, “I will look after him. We’ll get him to open his eyes, and then I’ll say Vidui with him.” “Do as you wish,” said the physician. “I won’t stop you. Look after him. His pulse has grown very weak, and although he is still breathing, he is dying.” When Rabbi Yosef entered the sick man’s room, he closed the door behind him, bent over him, and whispered in his ear that his non-Jewish wife and son had drowned in the river. Now he could return to his Jewish wife and children without anything standing in his way. He repeated this two or three times, until he saw a faint flush come to the sick man’s cheeks. He repeated it several more times, and then the man opened his eyes and looked fearfully from side to side. Rabbi Yosef told him what had happened to his wife and son, and said that the sun had not yet set, so he could still fulfill the mitzvah of putting on tefillin. That evening, when the physician returned from a walk, he entered the inn and was startled by what he saw. The sick man’s bed stood in the middle of the large room, with several Jews sitting and standing around it, eating and drinking. The physician stared at them in astonishment. The innkeeper noticed and hurried over to explain that the sick man had suddenly opened his eyes and asked to be moved to the large room, and for all the guests at the inn to eat something and make a blessing for him. The physician went over to the sick man, felt his pulse, and said to send a fast messenger to the estate with news of his condition. He told the sick man that in a day or two he would be able to travel home, and that he himself would leave early the next morning. The next day Rabbi Yosef wanted to return home, but the guest stopped him. He said that Rabbi Yosef was the only person who knew his secret and must help him fulfill his vow to return to his Jewish wife and children. Since he was still weak, he asked Rabbi Yosef to wait until after Shabbos

20:04 Kodesh. In the meantime, they worked out how to arrange matters. Rabbi Yosef agreed to Shlomo Leib’s request. On Shabbos, one of the nobleman’s officials arrived with a carriage drawn by two horses, carrying a letter from the nobleman. He advised Shlomo Leib that, since he was still weak, he should travel to the provincial capital, Vitebsk, to consult the doctors there and wait until the nobleman himself arrived at the end of the week. Shlomo Leib asked Rabbi Yosef to travel with him to Vitebsk, but Rabbi Yosef declined and returned home to Bishenkovitch, while Shlomo Leib went to Vitebsk. When Rabbi Yosef arrived home, he found that many of the elder chassidim were preparing to go to the Mitteler Rebbe in Lubavitch. This was after the passing of the Alter Rebbe, and they were due to set out the following week. Rabbi Yosef, too, was moved to join them. He rented out his horse and wagon to a wagon driver until his return from Lubavitch, and joined the group of chassidim traveling there. About four minyanim set out from Bishenkovitch. In every town and settlement they passed, more chassidim joined them, so that by the time they reached Vitebsk they numbered some eighteen minyanim. There they found still more groups ready to leave for Lubavitch. “More than two hundred minyanim of guests,” Rabbi Yosef told his son Abba Zelig, “came to Lubavitch that Shavuos. There is no describing the tremendous joy we felt in realizing that, with Hashem’s help, the Alter Rebbe had left us a son, a Rebbe, who illuminated for us the paths of life with true life.” “One day,” Rabbi Yosef told his son Abba Zelig, “to my great astonishment, I met Shlomo Leib Gamosky—the man who had been ill at the inn on the way—walking down a street in Lubavitch with one of the young chassidim. He recognized me at once and was very, very glad to see me. He told me everything that had happened to him since then: the nobleman had come to Vitebsk and told him that, on business, he wanted to send him to Ukraine. His intention was to send him away from home so that he would not

22:35 learn of the tragedy that had befallen him. ‘But I,’ Shlomo Leib told Rabbi Yosef, ‘decided to tell the nobleman that I knew what had happened, that I did not wish to return to the place where it had happened, and that, if he thought well of me, he should release me from his service.’ At first the nobleman would not hear of it, but a few days later he said that he knew of a holy man of G-d, a great rabbi in Israel, in a town near Lubavitch. ‘Go to him, and do whatever he tells you.’” So Shlomo Leib came to Lubavitch. The Mitteler Rebbe prescribed a path of correction for him, and he became a full-fledged baal teshuvah. The Rebbe instructed him to leave the nobleman and his acquaintances and return home to his wife and children. That summer, the Mitteler Rebbe’s Yiddish booklet on teshuvah, called Pokeach Ivrim, was published. It set out a way of life for a baal teshuvah. Rabbi Abba Zelig, telling the story in the name of his father, Rabbi Yosef, relates that Rabbi Yosef remained in Lubavitch for about two months. When he entered yechidus with the Mitteler Rebbe, the Rebbe charged him with taking the place of the late elderly Reb Nachum and leading the minyan of Anash on Market Street. He told him: “My father, the Alter Rebbe, came to me and told me that Yosef of Bishenkovitch would carry out the intention.” The Mitteler Rebbe concluded: “For a personal good deed, my father turned a scholar into a wagon driver; and because of a good deed for the community, he commands me to turn a wagon driver into a mashpia. You are to be the mashpia and leader of the chassidim at the minyan of Anash in the market in Bishenkovitch.” Rabbi Abba Zelig continues: “When my father, Rabbi Yosef, returned home from Lubavitch, he sold his horse and wagon, gave up working as a wagon driver and became a mashpia of Chassidus. Until his final years, he would walk to Lubavitch. When his strength failed him in extreme old age and he could no longer walk there, he refused to travel by wagon, saying, ‘To Jerusalem, one must walk.’ When the chassidim of Bishenkovitch came to Lubavitch, the Mitteler Rebbe would

25:15 ask them, ‘How is our elderly Rabbi Yosef, the mashpia?’”