11. No one can stop you from becoming a Talmid Chochom

00:16 Here is another story for you, kindalach. This is a story with the Baalshem Tov, an amazing story. Many, many years ago, there was a little boy, he lost his mommy and his tatty when he was five years old. Can you imagine? His tatty died when he was four, and then his mommy died when he was five. So he had no mommy, no tatty, who's gonna take care of him? But his mommy had a brother, that was his uncle, who lived in the same town, and he, of course, took him into the house, took care of him, said, "You'll be like my child, and I will take care of you, and everything will be good." And of course, the uncle took care of his nephew, who had no mommy, no tatty, took care of him, gave him food and everything, and he gave him a bedroom, a room, his own room and everything. Took good care of him, and then he sent him to cheder, to school, to learn Torah. But the little boy did not know how to learn, because when he sat in the classroom and the rebbe said, "Say Aleph, Beis, Gimel," all the children knew the Aleph Beis. They learned. They, they knew how to repeat the Aleph, Beis, Reis, Gimel, Daled. But this little boy tried very hard, but he couldn't remember anything. No matter how much he learned the Aleph Beis, he could not remember anything. He didn't know. Even the rebbe asked him, "What is this?" He pointed to

02:02 the Aleph. And the, the... "I don't know. I don't know. I can't remember." And now the rebbe saw that the boy really tried hard. It wasn't his fault that he didn't know it. He just didn't have, you know, the ability to learn it. He wasn't able to learn it. So the rebbe told the other children when the boy wasn't in class, he said, "Nobody should laugh at him. Everybody should be nice to him. He doesn't have a mommy, he doesn't have a tatty, and we have to be very, very nice to him. So if he doesn't know the Aleph Beis and you guys are reading already Kamatz Alef and Patach Alef, don't laugh at him. Be nice to him." And of course, the boys were very nice to him. And so the boy tried to learn Aleph Beis, but nothing helped. He was still d- didn't know how to say the Aleph Beis. He got older and older, and finally he was 12 years old and still barely knew how to read Kamatz Alef, Patach Alef. But all the children were learning Chumash and Mishnah and Gemara, and he was still trying to figure out ka- what Kamatz Alef is because he didn't have the sechel. His head didn't have the proper sechel to understand, to be able to learn things. So his uncle decided, "Listen, it seems that Hashem did not give him the type of sechel to be able to learn, to learn Torah, so why, why don't we teach him work, how

03:45 to do work and make money? He'll get a job." And he found in the city a very nice person who made pots, pots made out of tin. He would take tin. Tin is like metal, like the pots that you have in the kitchen, and they take a piece and they heat it up with fire. You put it into the fire and it gets soft because of the fire, and then you make it into a pot, and that's a whole job. And then people... You cool it off and people buy the pot, and you make money. So the uncle said to his nephew, "You're 12 years old. Soon you're gonna be bar mitzvah. Why don't you learn a job? At least you'll make money. You'll be able to earn money, so you'll have... be able to buy a house and get married and have a family and have children." And so the boy said okay. But he still wanted to learn, but he didn't know how to learn. But so even when he was working in the store making pots, he always tried to repeat the Aleph Beis by heart because he didn't know anything else. He only knew the Aleph Beis. Also, he knew the berachahs for food. That's one thing he memorized. All the berachahs for food, he knew. He memorized, uh, Borei pri ha'eitz and borei pri ha'adamah, boreh minei mezonot, shehakol nihiyya bidvaro. But he wasn't sure exactly what beracha you make for which food. When he wanted to eat an apple,

05:22 he couldn't remember. "Do I say ha'adamah on this, or do I say ha'eitz, or do I say al netilat yadayim shel adam?" He couldn't understand wha-- couldn't remember what beracha to say for which food. He remembered all the berachahs but didn't know which beracha to say for what food. And so this man who made the pot, the pot maker who taught him, how the boy how to make pots, he helped him remember which berachahs to make. He taught him, "Say the berachahs right. This is the right beracha." And this boy so badly wanted to be able to learn Torah, but he couldn't, and he cried a lot and cried a lot- He davened to Hashem, "Please, I wanna be able to learn Torah like all the other children, but my mind, my brain doesn't get it. It doesn't understand it, and I don't know what to do about it." And because he wanted so much to say words of Torah, he would say a whole day while he was, uh, working with a, with a, with a metal, with a tin, making pots and sticking it in a fire and, and, and until it gets soft and making it into a pot. He would r- repeat berachos, just say berachos. So he would say berachos, words that are, that are halik, words that are, that are holy, right? Special words. He didn't know you're not supposed to do that. You're not supposed to say berachos, uh, if you don't eat food. It's a beracha l'vatala.

06:49 It's, it's an aveira to say a beracha in vain for no reason. But he didn't know that. So finally somebody told him, "You can't just say berachos a whole day because you wanna say something very holy, something very special. You can't just say it because it's a beracha l'vatala. You're saying Hashem's name. You're not allowed to say Hashem's name for no reason." So he said, "Well, sh- so what should I do?" Then he thought, "Oh, I'll say Alef Beis all day." So all day he kept saying Alef, Beis, Veis, Gimmel, Daled, Heh, Vav. He said, "These letters are letters from the Torah, so even if I can't read Torah and don't know how to read, I'll say the letters, and I'll say Kamatz-Alef for a whole day, Kamatz-Beis-Vav, Kamatz-Gimmel-Vav, Kamatz-Daled-Vav." And Hashem listened to this boy. He saw... Hashem saw that this boy so much wanted to say Torah words and learn Torah and be close to Hashem, but he just can't do it. Time went by, passed, and this little boy became older and older. Finally, he had to get married. So he got married to the daughter of a, uh, a man that lived in a village not far from there. And this man, his job was digging mud in the forest. He would make mud in the forest and bring it into the town, and he would sell it to builders. People that build, they need mud, you know, to cement, to make bricks. So that was his job. He would go

08:21 to the forest and dig holes, make, make... take dirt and water and make it into cement, and then he would-- he would always be very dirty and from all the cement and the dirt that he was digging in. But he was a good man. He was a good Jew. And he had a daughter and, and, and, and this little boy, this boy that now grew up, married this girl, and he moved into the village where his father-in-law lived, and he opened a store where he was making his own pots, and he was doing very well. He was-- sold a lot of pots. He became rich. He made a lot of money and had a beautiful house. But he was always crying and crying to Hashem. And he would tell his wife, "I'm so upset. I feel so bad that Hashem didn't give me a sechel that I can learn Torah. I so much wanna learn Torah to be close to Hashem." And he cried and cried and cried. Finally, one day, there was a man came to the village. Nobody knew who he was. He was a guest. The man looked very sick. His body was full of wounds. Wounds, oy, terrible wounds. It was very painful. And in that village, there was a custom. If there ever was a guest that came to town, everybody wanted to do the mitzvah of achuzat orchim, bringing a guest into the house, right? But not everybody could take the same guest into the house. Uh, everybody wanted

09:57 to have him. So what did they do? They made a lottery. Whoever wins the lottery can get the guest to stay in his house. And this time, this man that nobody knew that came to the village to visit and was very sick and had wounds all over his body, everybody wanted to have him as a guest, including this boy who now is a grown-up man and is married, the pot maker of the village. He also wanted to have the guest, and you know what? He won the lottery. He was so excited, so happy. Told his wife, "We have a guest. Make a beautiful meal. It's such a big mitzvah." And so he brings his guest home, and he feeds him, and he gives him a special shower where he can wash away his wounds, and he gives him cream and medicine, and the guest felt so much better. And he stayed a few days in his house. After a few days, he wanted to leave, so the, so the, the, the pot maker says to him, "Oh, no, no. Please stay a little longer. I want, I want you to stay a little longer." He said, "Okay, I'll stay a few more days." So one day they're sitting down for dinner, and they're eating a meal, and the pot maker says to this guest, "Why are you so sick? What's the matter? Where did you get all these wounds on your body? What hap- what happened to you?" And the man says, "I'll tell you

11:28 what. I learned a lot of Torah when I was very young. I knew the whole Gemara, everything by heart. Everything, the whole Torah by heart. But I wanted to learn more. I wanted to learn not only the whole Torah, I wanted to learn all the commentaries on the Torah, and I wanted Hashem to help me that I should be able to learn all these commentaries. So I decided to fast. I would fast every day from morning to night. At night I would eat a piece of bread and drink some water, but every day I would fast for a whole day. I wouldn't eat. And from that I got very sick, and that's why I'm sick." Well, a few days went by and the guest left. Our pot maker who still was thinking how can he, how can he ask Hashem to help him learn, that his mind should open up to be able to learn Torah. So when he heard what the guest said, that he fasted and davened, he cried to Hashem, he should be able to learn more Torah, he decided he's gonna do the same. He started fasting every day. He went into the forest, sat down under a tree, and would cry and cry and cry. He knew how to read a little bit, so he would say Tehillim and cry to Hashem, "Please help me. I want to learn Torah, and I can't. My mind doesn't get it, and I want to be able to learn." One day he's sitting

12:57 under the tree. It's-- He's alone in the forest and reading Tehillim and crying to Hashem. He sees an older man with a long white beard and with a bag behind his back hanging on a stick who's walking over to him. At first, he got scared. "Who is this person? I don't know him." But then the old man started speaking to him and said, "Why are you crying? What's the matter?" And so the pot maker said, "I'm crying because I want to learn Torah. All my life I wanted to learn Torah, but Hashem made something that in my mind I cannot learn. No matter how much I try, I can't... I don't get it. I'm s- I'm already an older person, and I don't know how to, how to daven properly." So the old man said to him, "I'll tell you what. I have an idea for you. I need you to do the following. If you want to be a Talmid Chacham who learns, you have to come with me for three years. Wherever I go, you follow me, and after three years, you come home, you'll be a Talmid Chacham. But on one condition, you have to give me everything you have. All the gold and the silver and everything that you have, you have to give me. Even your house, you have to sign over to me. You make a, a contract that you are selling, giving me, giving me your house. And everything in your fields and everything that you have, all

14:35 your animals, everything will be mine. And if you do that, then I'll take you with me for three years, and I'll teach you the entire Torah, and you'll be a big Talmid Chacham." The man says, "Yeah. I'm excited. I'm ready to give everything away. No problem. I'll g- Please make me a Talmid Chacham." So the old man said, "No, no, not so fast. First you gotta ask your wife's permission. Maybe she doesn't want to give away everything. She's your wife. You have to ask her permission first." So he said, "Okay." So the old man says like this, "You go home to your wife, tell her what I suggested. You come back here in eight days from now in the exact same spot. I'll come back and meet you here, and you tell me what she says." And so the pot maker went home, told his wife what happened to him in the forest, and she said, "Oh, if somebody offers to make you a Talmid Chacham and you cried so much to Hashem, go. Give him away everything. I don't mind. I'm very happy. But one condition, this man that we're giving away, whoever he is, he must be some tzadik, some hidden tzadik. We'll give him everything we own, everything. We'll be poor. Who cares? As long as I can be... You can be a Talmid Chacham. But I need one thing you should do. Before we give him everything away, I want him to come to our house for one meal, for, for

16:04 supper, so we can do the mitzvah of Echadas La'achim one last time. 'Cause after we give everything away, we're not gonna have anything to make Echadas La'achim with. We wanna do one more time the mitzvah, so he has to come and have a meal with us so we can do the mitzvah of Echadas La'achim one more time, and then we'll give everything away, and he'll take you for three years on a trip, and you'll learn the, the whole Torah with him." So the man went back to the, to the forest eight days later, and the man, the old man met him, and he said, "Okay, my wife wants you to come to the house for one more meal, and then she's willing to give away everything." So the old man asked him, "And what did your father-in-law say? I mean, the father of your wife. Is he also think it's a good idea that you give away everything you have and then travel and leave your wife and children alone for three years?" He says, "Well, my father-in-law, when I asked him, he said, 'Oh, no, it's not a good idea.'" So says the old man, "No? So why don't you listen to your father-in-laws?" He said, "No, no, no, I wanna do what my wife says because my wife says, 'Yes, I should do it.' She's such a tzadekes. She's such a good woman. She says I should-- we should give away everything. It's just that I should be a Talmid Chacham." And so

17:28 the Baal Shem Tov... Well, I already told you who he is. This was the Baal Shem Tov. People didn't know that this was the Baal Shem Tov 'cause he was hiding, but he was the Baal Shem Tov. And he came to their house for dinner, and they did Echadas La'achim. And the next morning he said, "Okay, all the stuff, let's take a big bag. All your gold and silver, everything goes in the bag, and I'll take it with me. It's mine now. And also the house, you sign over to me. But I'll let your wife and kids live in the house for three years, and I'll let them use the garden outside the house to plant things, and I'll give them some seeds and stuff so they can plant things and have enough to eat till we come back after three years." And that's what they did. And three years later, they came back, and the husband was a big Talmid Chacham. He knew the whole Torah. Not only that, he became a, a hidden tzadik, one of the hidden tzadikim friends of the Baal Shem Tov. They moved to another city, and he became rich again. He made a lot of money, and he became a big, big tzadik. And when he passed away, the neshama of this pot maker, they brought him straight to Gan Eden, to the place of all the great tzadikim. And as you know, neshamas in Gan Eden, every once in a while, every Yom Tov, every Shabbos, every

18:49 Yahrtzeit, you take the neshama and bring it to a higher place, to even a greater place and a greater place. And every time they took his neshama to a higher place, they would bring his wife's neshama and say to her, "You see, everything that he has is because of her. She's the one who encouraged him and pushed him to... And that... And her zechus, her greatness, is even greater than his because she's the one who made him so great. She's the one who made him a Talmid Chacham." That's the story.