20. Reb Binyamin’s Shul

00:15 Hello, kinderlach. I wanna tell you today, today I wanna tell you a story about a man, his name was Binyamin. Amazing story. This man, Binyamin, lived in the city of Lubavitch. You know, Lubavitch is the city where all the Chabad, most of the Chabad Rebbeim lived, right? From the Mitteler Rebbe, the Tzemach Tzedek, the Rebbe Maharash, the, the Rebbe Rashab, the Frierdiker Rebbe. Uh, Frierdiker Rebbe already lived in another city, in Rostov, and then he came to America. But many of the Rebbeim lived in Lubavitch. That's why we're called Lubavitcher Hasidim. We're called Lubavitcher Hasidim because most of the Rebbes lived in Lubavitch. Lubavitch was a small town. You know, when it started, that town wasn't always there. Maybe 5, 600 years ago, way before the Baal Shem Tov, before the Alter Rebbe, there was a man by the name Meir. Meir, Meir was a very special man. He loved everyone. He never, never hated anybody. He always loved every person, every Jew, and even Goyim, he was very nice to. He was nice to animals. He was nice to nature, to the trees, to the flowers, to the grass. He felt that everything Hashem makes we should love because Hashem made it. If Hashem is everywhere, He gives life to the plants, He gives life to the trees, He gives life to the flowers and, and the fruit, He gives life to animals, to insects, to big animals, small animals. He gives life to the sun and the moon, that we should love it

01:53 all, 'cause it's Hashem makes it, and if we love Hashem, we should love everything He does. So he decided he's gonna create a city in the middle of nowhere. He's gonna go in the middle of a forest, a big, big forest in Russia. He's gonna start chopping down trees and make space, and with the trees, he's gonna build wooden houses, 'cause from trees you make wood, and then you can build houses. And he's gonna invite many Jewish families with their tatties and mammies and children and zeidies and bubbies. They should all come and live in Lubavitch, and everybody would build their house. And slowly it'll grow and grow, become a bigger city, and more people will come. And everybody who comes in that city should know that this city, everybody loves each other. We have Ahavas Yisroel. We love each other, and we love... Even we're nice to the Goyim, and we're nice to the animals, we're nice to the trees, we're nice to everything Hashem makes, b- because we love Hashem so much. This Meir named this little town that he created. He made the town from scratch, from nothing. He started the first house. He built the first house, and there was another house, and another house, and another house, till it grew into a city. He called that n- the name of the town Lubavitch. You know why? 'Cause Luba, right, means love, and Lubavitch means the city of love. He wanted everybody to love each other. Okay. The city of Lubavitch

03:20 grew a little bit. It, it still was a small city, but it was in the middle of a forest. The forest was huge. Outside Lubavitch, there was a huge forest all surrounding the city, and the forest was huge. A lot of animals in the forest. Also, bad people. Robbers would hide in the forest. But, you know, for a long time, these robbers stayed in the forest. They wouldn't come into the city of Lubavitch, 'cause Lubavitch had a lot of people now. There were a lot of houses, and these robbers weren't gonna go into the city and start stealing stuff because then they would get caught. The people of Lubavitch would fight them off. The police would come, right? So they stayed in the forest. But when people had to travel to another city, you had to go through the forest, because the whole Lubavitch was surrounded by huge forests. In the forest, there were, like, all kinds of animals, wolves, and who knows what kind of animals. Bears maybe, foxes. But there were also these little robbers, little groups of robbers that wanted to steal and rob people. When they saw people traveling through the forest, they would catch him and take all his money away. So people had to travel in large groups to make sure that they can defend themselves so the robbers wouldn't be able to attack them. But in the city of Lubavitch, they never came. They never came out of the forest into the city. They were afraid. But then

04:53 one day, one day, the robbers decided, "You know what? We think the people of Lubavitch are very afraid of us. They're afraid of us. You know what? Let's send two robbers, sneak into the city. They'll go to the first house that's at the edge of the city, the end of the city, right closest to the forest. They'll go to the first house. They open the door. They break the door open, and they'll steal everything. Then they'll come quickly back into the forest and hide. Let's try it." So these two robbers, they were armed. They had all kinds of things that I don't wanna say, but they were mean and strong, and they walked from the forest towards Lubavitch. And when they came to the city, they saw the first house, the first house that was right by the edge of the city, closest to the forest, and they went straight for the door, and they opened the door, and there was no one in the house except for a girl. A girl, she was 14 or 15. When the robbers came in and the girl saw the robbers come in, she was so frightened. She was scared. She wanted to scream, and she started screaming, "Help!" But the house was by the edge of the town. It was close to the forest, so people couldn't hear her that well. She was too far. She wasn't in the middle of the city. She was at the end of the city. So she screamed for help, but

06:34 the robbers, when they heard her scream, they didn't want people to hear her scream. Then they would all come to the house and, and, and, and, and stop them and fight against them. They didn't want that to happen. So what did they do? They grabbed the girl. One of them grabbed the girl, put his hand on her mouth so she couldn't scream, and hold her very strong. She couldn't run away because she wanted to run to the door and run outside and scream that people would come and help her. But one of the robbers held her with his strong hands and didn't let her run out. And the other robber, in the meantime, was looking through the house to steal things, putting things in a bag. All the stuff he found, maybe money, maybe jewelry, anything which they thought could be good for them, like it's, it's, it's expensive, it has... They can use, so they put it all in the bag. But the girl was fighting. She wanted to go free. She didn't want this robber to hold her so tight. She wanted to run out and scream. So she fought him and kicked him. And the robber was punching her, and she was bleeding. Oh, no. But she didn't let go. She kept kicking. And every two minutes, when, when his mouth went off, when his hand, the hand of the robber, fell off her mouth, she would scream quickly, and then he would put his hand quickly back on the mouth. But

07:54 Hashem, who wanted to help this little girl, sent a Jew by the name Binyamin. Binyamin was walking not far from the house, and he heard these few screams that the girl let out, and he came quickly to the door. This Binyamin was a short man, very skinny, and not strong. He, he was poor, didn't have money, so he didn't eat a lot. So he wasn't strong. The robbers were big and strong with big muscles. But Binyamin heard the screams. He went straight to the house and opened the door. And when the robbers saw Binyamin by the door, they said, "Oh, no. Let's go quickly grab him because he's gonna tell everybody to come." So the robbers ran to him. In the meantime, the girl could run away. And they ran to Binyamin. But as they were running to Binyamin, Binyamin stood there and just said a few words. Nobody knows what he said. He just said with his mouth a few words in Hebrew. No one understood what it was. And as soon as he finished saying those words, the robbers suddenly stopped and froze. They couldn't move. And they don't know what happened to them. They dropped everything from their hands and couldn't move. And then they felt faint, and then they fainted. They fell down on the ground and shut their eyes as if they were sleeping. They fainted. They couldn't move. The girl saw this. She said, "Wow. Binyamin didn't even fight them. He just said a few words." She couldn't believe

09:47 her eyes. So Binyamin said to the girl, "Go call the police, and we're gonna arrest these two robbers, and everything will be good." The girl ran outside. She got the police. Police came, and they tied up the two men, and they put them in the prison. And in the prison, they woke up, and the police came, and they questioned them, and they told them they must tell the police where the rest of the robbers are hiding in the forest so we can sell or send the soldiers and the police officers to catch the rest of the robbers so there will never be a problem anymore from those robbers. Even when people travel through the forest, they won't have to worry about the robbers anymore because we're gonna get all the robbers into prison. And the two robbers revealed and told where the other robbers are hiding in the forest. The police went and caught all the robbers, and from that day on, there was no more robbers in the forest. And Jews could travel from Lubavitch to other cities, and everything was great. But who is this Binyamin, and what did he say? Well, nobody knew. Binyamin was this very quiet man who everybody thought was just simple, doesn't know how to learn Torah well. He just knows how to read the siddur. He can daven, he, and, and he would do all the mitzvahs that he knew. You know, he was like, um, he was a peddler. He had a little garden next to

11:23 his house in Lubavitch, and he grew vegetables, and he had a big garden, and he would go with a bag of s- stuff that he would sell, and he would go to other cities and sell little things like needles and buttons, sometimes fruits and vegetables that he grew in his garden. And that's how he made a living. He wasn't rich. He was very poor, but he was a big yirashamaim. That means he was afraid of Hashem and did all the mitzvahs right, and he was careful to do mitzvahs, and he gave tzedakah as much as he could. He and his wife had no children. This was Binyamin, and everybody thought, you know, that this Binyamin is a, um... You know, very simple person, doesn't know how to learn. You know, he's a good Jew, he does good things, but he's not some great person, right? Some great tzadik or something. Nobody thought he was a great tzadik. But when this happened with the girl, Binyamin suddenly said a few words, and that caused the robbers to fall down and faint. Oh, some people started thinking, "Hey, this Binyamin may be a big tzadik. Maybe he's a hidden tzadik. Nobody knows what a great tzadik he is. He could with his... a few words kill the robbers." Only great tzadikim could do such things. They say a few words, and then they can create miracles, a nes. But nobody had time to think about him, so... And Binyamin didn't want anybody to think that he's a

13:02 tzadik. The truth is Binyamin was a big tzadik, and he knew the whole Torah. He knew everything. He was a big talmid chacham, but he didn't want anybody to know. He didn't want people to give him kavod and honor. He wanted people to think that he's stupid, simple, and doesn't know much, you know, just a simple Jew. But he was really a great tzadik, and he didn't want anybody to know. But here, when he saw that this girl was in danger, the robbers came in, he had no choice because he couldn't fight them. He wasn't strong enough. They were much stronger than him. But then he used special powers that he had. The special powers were that he knew secrets in the Torah, that if you use certain words that are connected to Hashem, you can make miracles, and he w- did a miracle. He did a nes, and he caused these robbers to fall down, and they couldn't do anything anymore. They couldn't hurt anybody. People started talking, "What happened? How did Binyamin do this?" But people were busy. But still, a lot of people started talking and talking, "Maybe this Binyamin is not who we think he is. Maybe he's really hiding. He's really a great tzadik, a, a talmid chacham." And Binyamin didn't like it. He didn't like it. He didn't want people to think that about him. But then one day, a great rav, a big famous rav came to Lubavitch. His name was Reb Tzalel Uri. Tzalel Uri was very

14:36 famous, a big talmid chacham, and he came to visit Lubavitch, and he started telling people, "I'm looking for someone, Binyamin. Binyamin, the, the, the peddler. He was peddling. He was selling little tchotchkes, little things to people. The Binyamin." They said, "Reb Tzalel Uri, you're such a big rav. You want to meet Reb Binyamin, the little simple guy? Binyamin, he's not an important person." And Reb Tzalel Uri said to them, "Oh, you guys don't know who this Binyamin is. Binyamin is a big tzadik. He's a big chacham. He's a big talmid chacham. You know the, how he did this with the robbers, how he got the robbers to fall down? Because he's a big tzadik, and he did a miracle. He used words from Kabbalah, words from the Torah, and he was able to create this miracle and make them fall down. He's not a p- simple person." When everybody in Lubavitch heard that, they wanted to find Binyamin and give him honor and make him... Oh, say, "Oh, Binyamin, we're so sorry we treated you like a simple person." But nobody could find Binyamin. Binyamin happened to be out of town. He went with his bag to sell stuff in other cities. But on his way back to Lubavitch, he came to a town that was not far from Lubavitch, and he hears in the shul, the name of the city was Dobrimisl. Dobrimisl. He hears people in the shul talking to each other, "Did you hear about a guy, Binyamin? He's a peddler, and

16:02 everybody thought he's a simple person, but really he's a big tzadik, and he's the one who was able to get the robbers to fall down, and from then on, there's no more problems with robbers. Did you hear what happened?" When Binyamin heard the conversation, they didn't know this, this was him. They didn't recognize his face. But he realized that in Lubavitch everybody found out that he's a great person, so he d- was very concerned, so he decided he's going back to Lubavitch, and maybe he's gonna pack up and leave the town. He doesn't want people to give him honor, doesn't want people to give him kavod and say, "Oh, you're such a great tza-" He don't want people to know about him. But he came back to Lubavitch, and Hashem resaw that Binyamin doesn't want people to think that he's a great person, so Hashem made something happened. A fire broke out in Lubavitch, and f- and Lubavitch was a town where all the houses were made out of wood. So if a fire starts in one house, it spreads quickly to the other houses. And many of the houses, including the shul, everything was burnt down. People didn't have homes anymore. All the houses were burnt down to ashes. So people got very busy with their homes. Everybody has to rebuild a new house. They went into the forest to cut down trees to make wood, so they can start building new houses. And because people were so busy with the houses, they forgot

17:24 about Binyamin and the whole story, and nobody thought of Binyamin anymore. So people forgot about him, and they forgot about the story with the robbers, and Binyamin was able to live again a quiet, secret life where nobody knew how great he was. When people were building their homes, everybody was going to chop down trees and build a house so they, the families have where to live. They needed a place to live. Binyamin is the only one who was building this huge house. Everybody see Binyamin is also building, but he's not building a normal house. He's building this huge place. People ask Binyamin, "What are you building? Are you building a palace for yourself?" Binyamin was a simple person. Why is he building such a big house? But then people realized he wasn't building a house for himself. Binyamin realized that everybody's so busy building a house for their family that they forgot to build a shul. First you gotta build a shul. Where are people gonna daven? The shul is also burnt down. So Binyamin said, "Before I build my house, I'm gonna build a shul." And he built a big place. And when everybody saw that he was building a shul, said, "Oh, Binyamin, he's building a shul." And from that day on, that shul was called Binyamin's Shul. And that shul may be still standing today, I don't know, but it lasted for a very long time. People called it Binyamin's Shul. And that's the story with this holy tzadik, the hidden tzadik.

18:54 Didn't want anybody to know about him, didn't want anybody to know how great he is. He wanted everything to do secretly. And the shul that he built, and this is the story behind the Binyamin's Shul.