Hacham Baruch - Rabbi Raymond Beyda, Hacham Yaacov Ben-Haim, and Hacham David Ben-Haim

[Music] Welcome to Inside Arts Scroll, where the books that we read and the people that write them come to life. In a little bit of a twist, we're no longer inside our scroll. We're actually outside our scroll in an incredibly holy and lofty place. We're in Shahition at the heart of Brooklyn's Syrian Jewish community to discuss a phenomenal book called Kamaruk about the life of Benim which was literally an amazing amazing read multifaceted over many years of of the history of the Jewish Syrian Jewish community and it's not just to discuss Baruk himself but it's actually to take a moment and realize the incredible growth of the Syrian Jewish community that Khak Baruk has really had a very large part of. So we welcome two incredibly prestigious guests. We welcome the son of Kakam Yakov Benim. It's a to have you here. Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here Rabbi Lo and Rabbi Raymond Beta Shalita. Thank you so much for joining us as well. Thank you so much for having us. So Kakam the life of Kakamuk really did not start in Brooklyn. It probably started the polar opposite of Brooklyn. Bring us into the the not such humble beginnings of your father's life. uh his contemporaries where he grew up because that itself is almost a book. He grew up in what he called many times. He called it that because he grew up in a place of kadusha. We had tremendous that were very close with him and his whole family and he was so proud of the background and the wonderful people that he grew up with. He grew up of course having the great Roshiva Rabbi Ezra who was the Roshiva put out Ysef. Many of the sphadic leaders not only in edit is but throughout the world were his students and there are many stories where our father Allaw Shalom was so close with the Rabbanim. He had a certain talent that he was not only a brilliant person with a brilliant mind but practically speaking it was very observant. He besides learning in the yeshiva how to be a mo and a shet. You know sometimes somebody is brilliant but he's not so good with his hands. But he really had both. He was an expert mo. He actually did uh B taught in Yerushim and over here as well until he had no more time because he was serving as a rabbi of the community. But there were stories where Rabbi is here would ask him. He was a young man and he ask him to come to the bed with him. And my father would ask him, "Rabbi, why are you asking me to come to the bed? You have the biggest rabban with you." And the rabbi would tell him, "No, they all know the halaka, but you know how to bring the case out to light. You know how to ask the right questions." And he was very keen and observant and perceptive in understanding people. And he grew up with a situation with the Yeshiva and Rabanim. He was in Parat, right? Yes. In Parse. His best friend was Rabbi Oaday. his rabbi who was after Kamei. It was Rabbi Yehuda Tadka. He was the Roshiva. He told us that they were really very good friends him and Kamovaj. But he told us the class was a superb class. He would tell me your father got the best marks in Eun even better than his friend Kamovaj. And later on of course they studied together. They they were always together. Even when he came here, they always kept the communication open between them writing letters. And when Kamovaja came to this synagogue, it was the most beautiful welcome because of my father. It was literally a holiday. My father insisted on saying and you didn't say noon. No tanoon in the morning. And uh so he grows up. So he grows up in yushalime poratf your shami boy learning kabala correct at some point in his early earlier years and then somehow he ends up in Brooklyn. How do you take a a holy from and and get him all the way here? Rabbi bet why don't you uh why don't you chime in here a little bit and share with us about that part of the journey. Well, the the rabbi came to Brooklyn because there was another Yushami Gadul uh his grandfather Yav Katin Sadik who came to be the chief rabbi of a relatively very small community called the Syrian community of Brooklyn. And a point came in the late 40s around 1950 where he needed assistance and he needed help in doing the job as the community grew and Kakaru came actually to work with him and so he started at the top. He was already running the community before he worked one day and it gave him an opportunity to share uh not only the rabbis's responsibilities but he married his daughter Raviako's mother. He became very close to the rabbi had ultimate respect for the rabbi but again I don't know what they call it in English but I think it's he was no slouch. There's nothing you could bring up that the rabbi didn't have his handle on. He told me a story once. He said, "Did you ever read my Rab Mosha Feinstein?" I said, "I met his children. I didn't meet him." He says, "I did." He says, "I went to a wedding and Ra Mosha was Mad Kushim and one of the two parties was and one was." So they had the Roshi Shiva and he was writing the and made a comment some difference between us and them as far as how you write the what's the exact wording and he made a comment under his breath. Ramos Mosha turned around and said what's your name? And that's how he met Ram Mosha Feinstein. What's your name? the there would probably nobody else in the room would even notice that and subsequently if I'm not mistaken Ramosha Finstein offered the to learn with him and did he do it at the end he didn't have the time he apologized but he was so busy over here with the community and he felt bad about it this transition this transition was from being a star in Torah where everybody else was a Ben Torah uh to a community where everybody else was either in wholesale or retail. They worked. The people didn't go to high school. They barely finished elementary school. They were workers. They had families to support. They had things to do. They were born either in the late 30s or early during the World War II period. And it just wasn't it wasn't the time to go sit in yeshiva. It wasn't until many years later that the first boys started going to yeshiva from the Syrian community. But they all learned and Mag and David. The community at large was a public school community. They went to the corner over here. They went to Avenue West. They went to Lincoln High School. They graduated somewhere in the Madison area. And then there were very few who picked on the present that Mr. Isaac Sha Malabash gave to this community. He opened mantavid. He said our children without Jewish education will go the way of every other community. And the rabbi definitely believed in that. And with all that he did, he became seventh and eighth grade teacher. Both seventh and eighth grade teacher lie kesh for every child who went to that school. So I was fortunate. I was there in the seventh grade. I was there in the eighth grade. I had them two years in a row. And for a school that was new, a school that didn't have a real curriculum, a school that was uh not made by educators, he built a community of people who are the leaders of Torah, Torah, Share, Torah, Yadv, you name an institution, our community that's Torah based, they learn the Roshiva the mash, the allar students, they learned, they learned, they learned, they learned Mishnah, they learn what they learned about the holidays, they learned how to pray with proper pronunciation, and it made a whole world of difference in the community. Even though there wasn't that many kids in the whole school, but the ones who went there became the leaders of the next generation. Everybody else made money. It was a different and that was his transition to bring you Shalim to Brooklyn. What was it like being in the house is a man who had a an encyclopedia encyclopedia knowledge of of Tyra? Um a man who had a soul in a shama for claris that was bigger than ever. Did you realize like as a child the greatness of your father? Like what did you see on the dayto-day? Well, let's put it this way. He was a great father. He did spend time with us despite the fact that he was so busy with the community. He even played sports with us when he felt it was needed. We didn't of course realize how great he was until we grew up and we went to yeshiva ourselves when we went to Israel and the rabbis started talking to us saying, "Wow, you're the son of wow unbelievable." And they would start telling us stories about him. And then we started realizing and we were very proud and not only ourselves but our our children who were his grandchildren. They were so proud to whether it was to walk with him in the street or to be with him in the shul. They were really proud of who their grandfather was because they knew where he came from and who he was. It was a tremendous feeling. Rabbi beta, when did you meet first? Seventh grade. I mean he was in the shul but most people lived in Benenhurst and he was in Benenhurst and the first people to move to this area started Shah Zion on King's Highway. This was not the build. This didn't open till 6061. So the people who moved before that in the mid50s to late 50s lived over there and prayed over there and there was no Kambaru sitting in front. But I'm proud to say that my bar mitzvah uh was parashat coming up at a theater near you and he taught me the entire parasa and he walked from Benenhurst on that Shabbat to stand next to me in shion. I said, "Rabbi, you taught me well. I know." He says, "I'm not here to correct you. I'm here to enjoy it." Wow. That's beautiful. It's magnificent. That's how he felt. If I if you're going to read the parasa, I should be there. So there's a book this thick just about that touches scrapes the iceberg, the tip of the iceberg about your father's life. But if I ask you to share like one story, one episode in his life that kind of is something that you connect with that comes to mind at first. What would that be? Well, there were a couple of stories before he came to America that really stick out in my mind just to show the respect that the people in edit had for him even though he was a young man. There was one story where a great rabbi in the sphartic community in Jerusalem made a big gathering of many raanim and lay leaders. And he told them ra I feel we have to make a takana. What was the takana? He said, "Listen, it says in the a man has to have his head covered when he prays in the shul when he says shamayim when he says." He said, "We know that the married women cover their hair, but the single girls are in whether in the synagogue or in their homes, they're praying, they're saying, they should also have their head covered." And in front of everybody, he pointed to my father. He said, "I want you to make sure that the takan is carried out." And my father got up and he said, "Kodav, I have the most tremendous respect for you, but I apologize. I will not be able to carry out the takana in this case." The rabbi was a little taken back. He said, "Why not?" He said, "Listen, all the Raanim and previous generations never said that the single girls had to cover their hair. They all saw it. And if we make this new tak that they did not make, it's as if it's as if we're saying what? They didn't know what they were doing and and we know better than them. I'm sorry. I can't do it." He said that and the whole thing fell through. Later on when he and Kamovaja were supposed to leave Erit Israel to serve in different communities, they were originally supposed to go together to Mitim, but my father's father did not let him go to Egypt. So what happened was he was invited to be the rabbi of an Ashkanaz community in South Africa in Cape Town. And he went there. He was a rabbi there for two years. He made an agreement with them only two years because he wasn't married. He didn't want to settle over there. And during that period, the Ashkinazu loved him. There was a drought for quite a few months and he was summoned by the governor after the governor went to all kinds of religions and priests and asking them to pray for rain till his maidervant told him, "Why are you running all over the place? Why don't you go to the father of the Jews? She called him the father. A young man who was the father. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And uh the governor summoned my father and he told him, "Listen, we need you Jews to pray for us. We're in a dangerous situation. We're in a drought. We need you to pray for rain." He said, "Your honor, it will be my pleasure." My father went and he summoned the entire congregation, the whole community that the next day they're all going to leave early from work and come in the afternoon. They're going to pray their hearts out and they all did and the next day it poured where they didn't have rain for months and the newspapers said the Jews saved the day. It was a big kushim. Unbelievable. It's really one of my favorite stories. It's kind of story you hear from the time of the I think you know it was a beautiful story and it just shows what is when is that he could have such an effect not only on his own surroundings but on the entire community and all around him. That's magnificent. Thank you so much for sharing. You know he left and it was you're talking about let's call it 1950. He left around 1950, 60, 70, 80, 90. I'm going to edit Israel 30 years, 35 years later for my mer first trip. And everybody here is I'm going. There wasn't a bombsh every week there. Then people went and certain people didn't go. So everybody's giving me go see this rabbi, go see this rabbi, go get a blessing, go get a blessing. That's not my style. I go to East Fifth Street. I walk in the door. I'm going to Is they give me all kinds of names. This guy who false papers and things happen all kinds of says the in the Torah. You go to the Torah. You go. you go, you go and he started naming the porat people he grew up with. So I went and the person made an appointment for me was Rabbi Udaska. He finishes the sh at 11:115. They take me into this room with a long conference table. It's me and my wife and Kamu Dasatka. to me he's a legend because I heard so many stories about him and he says hello who are you says I'm a student of he told me to come see you and get a I don't give I don't give I said but my rabbi told me to come here and get a he says I don't give he starts talking to me who are you what's your relation how long you know I said, "So now the five minutes that I think I have is almost up." I said, "Kam, I have a problem." He says, "What?" I says, "My rabbi told me to come to you to get a bara. If I go without a bara, I didn't do the civu of my rabbi." He goes like this with his beard. He goes told you said he says put down your head. He gave me a bit. Now that's the beginning. Four years later, four years there's a fivem minute meeting. Four years later, I go back there. It's the man who wants to take me around says I want to go seek. So I go to the yeshiva and he's sitting at a table with the gim open. He's looking in the gim. I'm standing literally 30 inches from his nose, the table, the gim and me. He did not look up. So I'm standing there. You know, you know the old American trick. He doesn't look up. Finally, he starts to think and as he's thinking, he sees me standing there. It's like he was taken back. He looks up and he goes, Wow. Fantastic. He said, "I know you're a student. I don't remember your name." It's incredible. That's that that's that's his loot. Wherever I went when I said I'm student, he gave me a letter that first trip. He says, "You have to deliver this letter to Kamovaja." I'm going to go to Kamovaj. I'm shaking. No, you go to the shoo. He's in a small shoo. He's in the bed. the Bisha Gad. He's downstairs. He has a small room. I go, I give him the letter. He reads the letter. He puts it down. Everything goes back to normal. I come on Shabbat Sudashit. His gabay comes over and says the right hand of Kamovaj is an empty seat. He tells me sit there. I said, he says, "The rabbi told me to go get the wow. Are you the I said, if I'm anything, I'm the all were asking, who's that man?" But all I was was a very special thing called Talid of That's fantastic. Beautiful. So it's a pleasure and an honor to welcome another son of David is joining us as well. Um if the tamid of got such honor imagine the son of not just in business. Um your brother shared with us so many wonderful things about your father but if you read the book you'll see that one thing that's ble something that always jumps out at you is the incredible love the respect and affection that he had for every Jew particularly for the people in his bet Knesset is tamidim talk a little bit about that if you don't mind gladly thank you very much for having me on first of all it's a pleasure to be here for uh the book is being released tomorrow two weeks before his site it's actually a week before as you would say also. So the the love that my father and the people had for each other says in that the way a person looks in the water and he sees that's a true reflection of what he is because it's exactly what he is. But if a person tries to change the reflection, then the reflection changes exactly the way he changed it. Sometimes when a person has something in his heart where he loves the people so much, the people could sense it and they could love him right back. Um, if you walked into the dome on any Shabbat, you saw an amazing thing that you don't usually see. My father's sitting on the stage and as the people walk in, they go over to him, they kiss his hand and many of them start kissing him on his cheeks. One cheek, two cheeks. They get an aliyah, they go to him, they kiss his hand and then they kiss him in the face again. There was a rabbi from Isa that was here and he walked in from the side from the side entrance of the dome and he said, "What's going on over here? Where did the rabbi come from? Did he go to Israel? Did he go to Florida? The rabbi doesn't take vacations from 1950 till he passed away in 2005. He went away to Israel maybe four or five times. He went to Mexico once, Florida once. That was it. He didn't go anywhere. California once, that was it. He didn't go anywhere else. He tells the rabbi, "No, it can't be. Everyone's kissing him." He says, "What do you mean? That's what they do. He's our rabbi. We kiss him. We love him." And it was such a love that it was both both ways. The little children would come in, not his grandchildren. Just the little children would run into the sh and sit on his lap. Who sits on the rabbi's lap in the sh and he would start talking to them and he would talk to them on their level. The elderly men would come in. They would start singing. You should have a long life. They would start singing to him in Arabic right before they started in Fresn upstairs. and they the love that they had and it didn't matter if it was usually a rabbi is a rabbi of one type of one age group of the community but every single age group was able to connect with them he was able to do that because he saw them as students in me and David and me and David when they were his students he would drill into them the lessons with as bitzu boys he would take his hand on their back and go up and down showing them which way the tam was supposed to go up or down he would make tapes he would tape every single speech tape every single para thought and he would make the child go over and over on the tape and he would tell them remember you have to remember the the uh you have to go over and over and over when you're not with me and this way he would drill he would tell them better to do less pesukim and to do it well then to do more pesukim and not do it as well so I I just wanted really to emphasize that one point about the love back and forth between the people in him because it was something as we say in Hebrew it was something very much out of the ordinary Um, if I can discuss one other issue, I would I would tick on the fact that his ability as a teacher both in Megan David and otherwise here in the shul and he taught he taught children, he taught elderly, he taught middle-aged, he has multiple classes, Shabbat during the week. He had an ability to teach a lesson that stuck. Some some of his students told me, "I used to cut class every single year. The only year I came to class was with your father. So how is it that he was able to connect both with the children that were not so smart, the children that were smart, he would push them ahead to reach their full potential. He would he would come into the class and Rabbi Manso I believe mentions it in the book and he would start singing the he would do it day after day. He would say and we're in the omen now. He would say the day of the and what day it was etc. And he would drill these things into their heads. Some of them have no idea what the concept was. They didn't even know what he was talking about. But it was things that they would later come back to them that they would be for those that were learning that they would be able to to study it. So now he would he would uh go down the steps with them to lunch and he would say and he would sing it. Hami and he would drill these things into his head and then it wasn't that only that he was always teaching them. He he taught the children with love which is coming up. He would take them out for recess 10:30 in the morning. They would have a 15-minute recess. But his class would stay till 12:00 12:30. He would let them play baseball for an hour and a half. What was the point? To teach them that it's a different day. It's a holiday. Even though he didn't want to be Torah, my father was always if you learned a half an hour yesterday, today you have to learn an hour, you have to learn an hour and a half. You always have to learn more and more. But he he would teach them that today is a holiday. And he he the children would come to love him because all the kids were looking from the windows and they're watching this one class. They're playing baseball. How come we're in class? And he would he would he didn't even know anything about baseball. But he would tell them what what are you doing wrong? Why don't you catch the ball? Why don't you why don't you watch it when you're hitting? This way you don't strike out. He learned he learned the American lingo that he was able to connect with them on their level. And there was there was a I'll give you one story. There was a mother in the community that once called him and she says, "Rabbi, I don't know what to do. My husband doesn't want to go to Shu Shabbat. He's not going." So he says, "Um, okay. And why why do you" She tell he tells him, "Why do you want him to go so badly?" He says, "No, I'm very worried about my children. my boys are not going to sh also because he's not going. He likes to go outside to pray in the backyard. It's the summer months. So he said, "Okay, I'll talk to him." He says, "But Rabbi, don't take." He says, "Don't worry. I know I'm not supposed to mention that we spoke." So he he sees the man and he he starts talking to him and he tells him, "Um, how's business? How are things going?" He starts talking to him about other things. And then he tells him, "By the way, I I don't see you coming to Shul. We miss you. Why don't you come?" He says, "No, Rabbi, you know, I have a set thing that I do at home. my he says listen come every other week just for me I want to be able to smile and to see you and the man started coming to shul he started bringing his children his children give classes sometimes now it's he was able to turn families make them shabbat every family that had wondered he took them up another step he was able to take them up a step and another step amazing Rabbi Bada there were people especially in the history of the community going from regular balim working people to a place if you come here tonight you'll see about 7 to 800 people sitting and learning Torah from age 8 to 80 they're all downstairs and there's 10 places like that today it all came from but he had a way that people were not threatened by the rabbi what does that mean you're getting too religious you can't go there a lot of people kept their kids away from rabbi voice. A young man came to our class. We learned early in the morning before Shahid. He comes to our class and we see he doesn't read too well. He thinks pretty well, but he doesn't have the background. So, after one or two times coming, I told him, "How come you came to this class?" Now, I did it like the rabbi. I didn't attack him. I just was curious. He says, "My father is afraid for me to learn with anybody else because I might become a black hat or or too religious." But he knows it'll be okay today. That man's children. He is. And how did he start? With broken Hebrew that he learned in school and the love of and his father's respect for the fact if he's learning my child is safe. Tell the one about when you were giving a class and he kept man who's the rabbi. The rabbi you kept saying the rabbi. I gave a class in the Torah center on Shabbat downstairs and it was a pretty well attended class a table square four and two young men not from the community but Safarad came to the class and they always sat opposite me like over there and in every class there's no way that the words the rabbi said or the rabbi told me or the rabbi didn't come out. So I finish a class. It's right before M. I'm trying to get ready to go Sully, not Din. I went to go pray. Guy comes on. He says, "Excuse me, I come here every week. I just have to ask you one question. Who's the rabbi?" I said, "If you come to Raen Beta class, ask anybody who the rabbi is and you'll know. We we had the of being close to him and his their mother is an beyond belief who served him allowed him to do what he loved doing and I have a cute story. One time we were there and I spent a lot of time in the house because whenever I wasn't doing something I go see the rabbi. We sit down and talk. And we're sitting down and talking and a man comes in with a question. Knocks on the door. She brings him in. Sit down. Rabbi, I have a question. And he asks a complicated question. So in the background, she's cleaning the dining room table and she says, "Mutar." And the rabbi turns me says, "It's so easy to live with a pose." Unbelievable. Beautiful story, gentlemen. There's something I I feel like we we must mention even as we draw this interview to a close. There's there's there's so his impact was felt in so many different ways, but I think that Tahilim really impacted Cla the Jew the for sure the broader Syrian Jewish community. Let's talk a little bit about that chapter. What what do that what do we mean when we speak about it's a funny story. When I was in edit one time in a taxi cab, I walked into a taxi cab on a Friday afternoon. The men turned on the radio. All of a sudden, I hear my father's tahhilim in the middle of Shalim being sung in a taxi cab out of the blue. I was floored. I was like, how did it get all the way over here already? But uh tens of thousands were given out. Both hex tape cassettes, then regular cassettes, then CDs, then USBs. Now it's available online. for he's sing he's saying it's a zar piece that you read when you open up the lights went out in the shul everyone starts science it's light thousand people in the shul he just keeps reading straight as if he's looking at the book who knows I'm going to be Shimon. I don't even know three words from it by Shimon. That's three. And just to add to that, he was learning with I think and they were learning a shak and all a sudden he gets up to make himself a he just continues saying the by heart. I mean this this is why you need to buy this book because we didn't even touch on his incredible genius in Torah. One of the reasons people told me don't make the book because no matter what you write, it's not going to cover any amount of what he was. But you got to buy the book. I I feel the book first of all is a cifh mus you learn so many things from it. It's fascinating because it covers so many periods of history. I I encourage everyone Syrian community, Ashkanazi community, whoever you are, go out there, buy the book. I'm I'm just going to warn you though, if you pick it up, you're not going to be able to put it down. Buy it for your kids, buy it for your friends, buy it for anyone that you know. This is a book that's it's a once in a-lifetime read. And when we read it, it should be a zoot. to be a merit for his very lofty soul in Ghanaeden for his whole family for those people that sponsored the book and my friends it's been an honor we should get together for and to discuss beautiful things like [Music]