220. The Baal Shem Tov Visits A Strange City Where All The Boys And Girls Have The Same Names

00:15 Shalom Aleichem, kindalech. I wanna share with you a story with the Baalshem Tov. Beautiful story, the way the previous Rebbe tells it. There was a man at the time of the Baalshem Tov, his name was Rabbi Moshe Shlomo. His wife's name was Rivka. They were both very big Hasidim of the Baalshem Tov. Rabbi Moshe Shlomo was a very simple man. He was twenty-eight years old. He did business in different villages and he became very rich. He would give a lot of tzedakah. He gave a lot of money to the Baalshem Tov, who supported a lot of the hidden tzadikim. The Baalshem Tov had a whole group of tzadikim, who were hidden tzadikim, that would go to the different towns and villages and teach Jews Torah, the simple Jews and the children, and they would do a lot of work for the Baalshem Tov. He would give a lot of money to support the tzadikim. He would also give a lot of tzedakah for saving Jews that were taken into prison by the Peritz in different towns. And, um, he was always giving tzedakah everywhere to everyone, especially the Baalshem Tov. Baalshem Tov gave him a lot of brochos, and he became so wealthy, so rich. He became richer and richer every single day. Fifteen years passed since Rabbi Moshe Shlomo was married, but he didn't have any children. No children. Every time Rabbi Moshe Shlomo asked the Baalshem Tov, "Please daven for us, for me and my wife, Hashem would send us children," so the

02:11 Baalshem Tov would respond by giving him a brocha to be even richer, wealthier, more money. He would make more money, being even much, much richer than before, but never responded and answered, "Oh, Hashem should give you children." He never said it, which was very strange that Baalshem Tov is asked for a brocha for children. Instead, he tells him, "Hashem should give you a brocha. You should be very, very rich. You should be able to give a lot of tzedakah." Now, the talmidim of the Baalshem Tov, the great tzadikim, great gaonim, they loved Rabbi Moshe Shlomo because they saw he was a real, real good J- good Jew. He davened, he learned, and he, he, he did business very honestly, and he gave a lot of tzedakah, and he was just very nice, very kind-hearted. He was very generous with everything, helping people all the time. His wife also, Rivka, she was such a special person, giving tzedakah, always hachnasas orchim, inviting all the guests. Anyone who just needed a place to stay and eat, she would invite them into the house. So the talmidim of the Baalshem Tov, when they saw that Rabbi Moshe Shlomo is asking the Baalshem Tov for so many years that he wants a brocha to have children, and the Baalshem Tov is not answering. He's just giving him a brocha instead to be very rich. So they decided that they are going to ask the Baalshem Tov, "Uh, the Baalshem Tov should daven for, for Rabbi Moshe Shlomo. He's such

03:54 a special person. He and his wife are so special. The Baalshem Tov should give them a brocha and daven for them." The Baalshem Tov didn't answer. No matter how much the talmidim asked and how much Rabbi Moshe Shlomo and his wife, Rivka, were asking the Baalshem Tov for brocha for children, he totally ignored it, didn't answer it, and instead gave him other brochos. Brochos for money, for health, but he never gave him a brocha for children. One day, it was the summertime. This is after Rabbi Moshe Shlomo and Rivka had asked the Baalshem Tov so many times for a brocha for children. The Baalshem Tov ignored it, didn't answer it, and they became very depressed and very sad because they can't have any children. So one day in the summer, the Baalshem Tov called Rabbi Moshe Shlomo and his wife, and he said to them, "Why are you so sad? Why are you so depressed? Hashem gave you so much richness, so much money, and Hashem gave you such good hearts, and you're giving so much tzedakah. You should be happy that you have this p- pchos, this special pchos to be able to give so much tzedakah." So Rabbi Moshe Shlomo and Rivka said to the Baalshem Tov, "But we don't have any children. We would love to have children," and they started crying, crying bitterly. So the Baalshem Tov said to them, "So what if you don't have children? You have money. You can give tzedakah." So Rabbi Moshe Shlomo and his wife

05:28 said-- Rabbi Moshe Shlomo said with his wife, "Why do we need all this wealth? We're gonna have a lot of money, and then what? If we don't have any children, then, uh, you know, when, when people die, they'll leave all the money behind, and then what's the point of having money? We want children that can continue our work, that can continue to give tzedakah from the money that we're gonna leave them." The Baalshem Tov said to Moshe Shlomo and his wife, Rivka, "Tomorrow, I'm going to travel with some of my talmidim to a certain city. I'd like you to come with us, so get ready for the trip." Because it's gonna be a trip for a little while, for a few days, and I'd like you to come with us." So the next day, the Baal Shem Tov chose 10 of his talmidim from the special chavrai yekedisha, the holy group of talmidim, and he also, Rabbi Moshe Shlome and his wife, they all took wagons and, and, um, and they traveled. The Baal Shem Tov was sitting in his own wagon in the front, and everybody-- all the other wagons with all the other talmidim and Rabbi Moshe Shlome and his wife, they were traveling behind the Baal Shem Tov's wagon. As we always know, the Baal Shem Tov's wagon, uh, had a horse and a, and a, a- and a wagon driver who would just, uh, go to sleep, and the w- horses would know where to go by themselves. The Baal Shem

06:56 Tov, um, you know, with his holy thoughts, was able to guide the horses. They would go where they need to go, and they would stop where they need to stop, and all the other wagons followed the Baal Shem Tov. They traveled and traveled. On the sixth day of their traveling, it was a Monday . They came to a certain city near the city of Brody, and the Baal Shem Tov's wagon stopped. It stopped near one of the houses. So when the Baal Shem Tov's wagon stopped, all the other wagons behind the Baal Shem Tov also stopped. The Baal Shem Tov went down from his wagon, and the b- the house next to it, next to the wagon, he went into that house. So all the talmidim and Rabbi Moshe Shlome and his wife followed the Baal Shem Tov into that house. The owner of the house was very nice. He invited the guests in the house. He gave them, um, big, big rooms they could-- where they could all stay. And Baal Shem Tov, he gave his own room. He gave the Baal Shem Tov his own room. So when everybody rested from the trip, and everybody, uh, ate something, the Baal Shem Tov said to the whole group, "Now let's go into the city. We're gonna walk down the street, and we're going to look what's going on in the, in the city. What kind of a city is this?" They went out-- the Baal Shem Tov went out, and all the t- and

08:28 the talmidim, Rabbi Moshe Shlome and his wife, followed him. They went into the streets, and he saw a group of children, young boys, who were playing, playing in the sand. Baal Shem Tov went over to the group of children, and he asked one of them, "Hey, little boy, what's your name?" And the boy answered, "My name is Baruch Moshe." Then he turned to another child and says, "What is your name?" "My name is Baruch Moshe." Then he asked a third child, "And what is your name?" "My name is Baruch Moshe." And same thing with a fourth child and a fifth child, and all of them seemed to have the same name, Baruch Moshe. Well, there was one child, he asked, "What is your name?" And he said, "My name is Baruch Eliyahu." So his name was Baruch like the others, but Eliyahu, the second name was not Moshe, it was Eliyahu. There was also a little girl there playing, and he asked her, "What is your name?" "My name is Bracha Leah." So the talmidim were very surprised, and Moshe Shlome as well in, "What is this? That all the children have the same name?" But nobody dared to ask. The Baal Shem Tov had a smile on his face, and his face, his holy face, was very happy. The Baal Shem Tov kept walking. The talmidim and Rabbi Moshe Shlome and his wife were walking after him. On the way, the Baal Shem Tov met a little girl, and he asked her for her

09:59 name, and she said, "My name is Bracha Leah." They went to another street, and they saw a little group of little girls playing. Baal Shem Tov went over to the group of girls, and he asked a girl, "What is your name?" "Bracha Leah." "What is your name?" Also, "Bracha Leah." And so on and on, they're all Bracha Leah. One girl, her name was Bracha Miriam. She had Bracha, but the, the second name was Miriam. Then they passed by in the street, and they heard a cheder in a building, in a house. It was like a cheder. Children were, were reading the Chumash. They were learning. So Baal Shem Tov went into the cheder, and he saw the children, the students, the ying- the children, children learning Torah. And, and the melamed, the teacher, greeted the Baal Shem Tov in a friendly way, "Shalom aleichem." Baal Shem Tov said, "Aleichem ha-shalom." And the Baal Shem Tov called Rabbi Moshe Shlome and his wife to come into the-- He wants them to see what goes on in that cheder. And Baal Shem Tov turned to all the children, "What is their names?" And one after another, they say, "My name is Baruch Moshe, Baruch Moshe, Baruch Moshe." Some of them were Baruch Avraham. Some of them are Moshe Yosef. Some of them Baruch Shmuel, Baruch David, Baruch Chaim, Baruch, Baruch Yitzhak, Baruch Shalom. But they all had either Baruch or the name Moshe in their names. Everybody was very surprised that, that all the names, they all

11:32 have similar names. So the people were very surprised. The Baal Shem Tov asked the teacher, "How many chadorim, schools, chadorim are in the city?" So he said, "About fifteen." So he asked him, "Where are they?" So he showed them all the different chadorim. Baal Shem Tov went from cheder to cheder, and every time they ask kids what their name is, it's Baruch Moshe, Baruch Moshe. Then they also went to yeshiva where, where, you know, bar mitzvah boys over bar mitzvah are learning in yeshiva. And also, their names is Baruch Moshe, Baruch Moshe. Um, so then it was Mincha time. The Ba'al Shem Tov said to his talmidim, uh, Rabbi Moshe and Rabbi Shloime, he said, "Listen, let's go to daven Mincha. We'll go to a local shul." After Mincha, he asked one of the elderly people in the shul and said to him, "Tell me, why is it that all the children in your city here, the boys are always called Baruch Moshe and the girls Bracha Leah?" So the man answered, "I'll tell you the, the story behind it. About 100 years ago, lived in this town a man by the name of Rabbi Isaac Shloime. Rabbi Isaac Shloime was a Talmid Chacham and he was a Yirashamayim and he would, uh... He was a butcher and from his butcher he made a lot of money. He gave a lot of tzedakah. He gave tzedakah to, to the, to, to a lot of people, to all the poor people and, um, especially the, the,

13:07 the Talmid Chachamim who learned day and night in the Beis Midrash, he would support them. And, um, he would give to the Talmid Chachamim in the town, he would give them meat for Shabbos for free. Many years, Rabbi Isaac Shloime and his wife didn't have children. Only 15 years after their wedding, they had a baby boy. And his father, Rabbi Isaac Shloime, called his boy Baruch Moshe. Baruch Moshe grew up and, um, his father put him in the cheder to learn, but for some reason he didn't understand what he was learning and he didn't do well in class. When Rabbi Isaac Shloime saw that his son Baruch Moshe, uh, even after bar mitzvah, it was already after bar mitzvah, he said that he's not, he's not doing well. He doesn't understand anything. He learns and learns but he doesn't understand. He said, "You know what? You don't have to go to cheder. You come and work with me in the butcher store where we cut meat and we sell meat to the people and you work with me." After a year, Baruch Moshe learned how to be a good butcher and, um, he became very good at this. He knew how to cut meat, he knew how to sell the meat. And also... But his father, Rabbi Isaac Shloime, taught him how to be a good Yid, a good Jew, how to follow Torah and mitzvahs. Even though he didn't have a good head, he couldn't understand learning Torah, but he taught him how to

14:42 be a good Yid, how to daven and learn-- how to daven and do mitzvahs and give a lot of tzedakah. Slowly, slowly, Rabbi Isaac Shloime decided to de-- to, to do less work in the butcher store and to learn more Torah because his son, Baruch Moshe, was running the store much better and he was able to do this for him. So here, Rabbi Isaac Shloime decided to-- he's gonna sit in Beis Midrash and learn Torah most of the day. So 10 years passed and Rabbi Baruch Moshe got married with the daughter of Ya-Rabbi Yankov the Parush. Her name was Bracha Leah, and they lived in Rabbi Isaac Shloime's house. So Baruch Moshe and Bracha Leah got married and they lived in the house of Rabbi Isaac Shloime. So Rabbi Isaac Shloime continued to learn Torah and his son Baruch Moshe, he ran the store, the butcher store, and became very successful, gave a lot of tzedakah even more than his father, Rabbi Isaac Shloime. A few years passed after the wedding of Rabbi Baruch Moshe. His father, Rabbi Isaac Shloime, died and everybody was very sad because he was very well known in the city and he gave a lot of tzedakah, but they buried him. Then his mother, Rab-Rab-Rabbi, um, Rabbi Baruch Moshe's mother also passed away. So Rabbi Baruch Moshe and his wife remained alone and, uh, because his wife's parents also passed away and they lived in the house of their parents, Rabbi Isaac Shloime. Rabbi Baruch Moshe, when his father passed

16:21 away and his mother passed away, he wanted to learn Mishnayot. You know, it's, uh, if a parent passes away, there's a very special thing for the children to learn Mishnayot in memory of the parents who passed away. But he didn't know how to learn, so he took a Rav and he asked him, "I'll pay you money. Just teach me Mishnayot so I can be able to learn Mishnayot for the neshamah of my father, Rabbi Yitzchak Shloime, and my mother." The Melamed agreed. He started teaching him, but Rabbi Baruch Moshe didn't understand a word. He-- the Melamed tried to teach him and teach him and explaining and explaining, but he couldn't understand anything. One day, Rabbi Baruch Moshe was sitting in a shul and he was sitting on a bench and he overheard that the Rav, uh, that the, the Melamed, the Melamed, Rabbi Yitzchak, um, was teaching Gemara with the people in the shul and was telling them what says in the Gemara that anybody who teaches Torah to another person's son is as if he gave birth to him. In other words, if you teach Torah as another person's son is as if that son is also your child because you taught him Torah. When Rabbi Baruch Moshe heard this, he became very upset and very pained and, um, he, and he started crying, crying a lot. After Maariv, when Rabbi Baruch Moshe went home, the Melamed, Rabbi Yitzchak, walked with him. And Rabbi Shloime Yitzchak said to him, "Why are you crying? Why

18:05 are you so upset?" So, so Rabbi Baruch Moshe said, "You know, w- my wife and I are very, very sad because we don't have any children." So the, the Melamed said, "But you're still young. Hashem can still bless you with children." So Reb Boruch Moshe says, "Amen. I hope Hashem will bless us with children." But then Reb Boruch Moshe said, "You know, tonight I heard the, the Rebbe Yitzchak, the Melamed, teaching the people what it says in the Gemara. If you teach somebody else's child Torah, it's as if you gave birth to the child, as if it's your child." Says Reb Boruch Moshe, "And I-- first of all, Hashem never gave us children of our own. And more than that, uh, if, if at least I knew how to learn Torah, I would be able to teach somebody else's child, and Hashem would consider it as if I, uh, if I had children, and if it was my child. But I can't even teach Torah there, so now I'm stuck. I don't have children of my own, and I can't teach another person's child Torah because I don't know how to learn Torah. I don't understand anything." So Reb Shloime Yitzchak said to Reb Boruch, Reb Boruch Moshe, "Listen, you're mistaken. It doesn't mean that you have to teach another person's child. It means even if you hire a teacher that will teach another person's child because you hired the teacher, you paid the teacher, it's as if you gave birth to the child." When,

19:36 uh, Reb Boruch Moshe heard this, he was so excited. He went home, told his wife what the Melamed told him, what it says in the holy Gemara. He, he didn't understand Gemara at all. He didn't know how to learn, but he knew that the Gemara is very heilige. And it says in that heilige Gemara, in that holy Gemara, that if you help, uh, teach Torah another child, somebody else's child, it's as if it's your child. So his wife, Reb Boruch Moshe, gets very, very excited, and she said, "Yes, let us hire some teachers. There are a lot of children who can't afford to go to cheder because their parents don't have money to pay the teachers. We will support the teachers. We'll hire teachers, and all the children in the town will be able to learn Torah." And that's what they did. Reb Boruch Moshe and his wife, Reb Boruch Moshe became even richer and wealthier and wealthier because he started doing business with ox, with, uh, with animals, with oxen. And he became very wealthy, extremely wealthy. But nevertheless, even though they were very rich, they lived in a very simple house, the same house as his father, Reb Shloime, lived in. He continued to live-- didn't build themselves a big palace or a big mansion because he had so much money. No, he lived a life like a regular, simple person. What did he do with all the money? That they give for tzedakah, and especially for Melamdim teachers that would teach children

21:07 Torah. At the time when Reb Boruch Moshe was already sixty years old, there were more than thirty towns and villages where they had Melamdim teaching children all around the whole area, in all the different towns. All the children were able to learn Torah. And who gave the money to support the teachers? It was Reb Boruch Moshe. Once Boruch Lea says to her husband, Reb Boruch Moshe, "Look, I understand it's true that if you te- help teach Torah to another person's child, it's as if you gave birth. But, you know, w- what's gonna happen after we die? Nobody's gonna remember us. We don't have any children." So Boruch Moshe said, "What do you mean? Of course. If the, if the Gemara, the heilige Gemara says that if you help teach other children Torah as if it's your child, then you have to believe with complete emunah that what the Gemara says is true, and Hashem considers as if this is your child." So this old man keep telling-- tells all of this to the Baal Shem Tov, and he says that you should know all-- most of the Jews in all the town, in the whole area, all the towns and all the cities and villages, they're all students of Reb Boruch Moshe and Boruch Lea. They are the ones who paid for the Melamdim to teach those Jews, and that's why those children became learned and knew Torah. It's already fifteen years since Reb Boruch Moshe and his wife, Boruch Lea, passed away. They were

22:48 quite old. They left all their money for the-- so the Rav would distribute it to tzedakah. And part of the money was going to continue to teach the teachers so they can teach all the children Torah. And therefore, all the people, all the children who came out of these chadarim, when they grew up and got married, they decided to name their children after Boruch Moshe and his wife, uh, Boruch Lea. And this is the reason why everyone in the town is called either Boruch Moshe or Boruch Lea, or at least one of the names. After marriage, the Baal Shem Tov and his students, Reb Moshe Shloime and his wife, came back to their host where they were staying. And the Baal Shem Tov said to Reb Moshe Shloime and his wife, "You should know when a Sh- when a, when a Jew builds Torah, he gives, uh, tzedakah so that children can learn Torah. Then even after the person dies, every-- y-your name is-- continues to, to live because you've taught so many children Torah. So you see what this Boruch Moshe did. You can do the same thing." So Moshe Shloime and his wife understood why the Baal Shem Tov called them to go on this trip. And so they decided to do the same thing what Boruch Moshe and his wife, Boruch Lea, did. They also started hiring teachers. And in the whole area, all the towns and villages where there were Jewish children and families, they made sure that there's a teacher

24:36 which they paid, that he would teach all the children in the town Torah. And then later on, um, when these children grew up and got married, and Moshe Shloime and his wife, Rivke, were no longer alive, they named their children Moshe Shloime to the boys and Rivke to all the girls. In the whole area, they were full of Moshe Shloimes and full of Rivkes. And that's the lesson the Baal Shem Tov taught this couple, Moshe Shloime and Rivke. Sometimes the Baal Shem Tov saw that min Hashamayim, uh, they weren'tto have children, and there was nothing he could do. It was a decree in Shamayim that no matter how much the Baal Shem Tov would daven, it wouldn't happen. For whatever reason, that was the decision in Shamayim. That's what Hashem decided. So the Baal Shem Tov decided, he taught them that even if you don't have children, but this is another way by which Hashem counts as if you had children. And not just one child, not just ten children. Now, Rabbi Moshe Shleme and his wife, Rivka, had hundreds and hundreds of children, because all the children that they helped learn Torah by teaching, by hiring the teachers, were as if they were their children.