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When we left off reading by rote and Reb' Lebe began to reveal the mysteries to us, I was so eager to know all that was in my book that the lesson was always too short. I continued reading by the hour, after the rebbe was gone, though I understood about one word in ten. My favorite Hebrew reading was the Psalms.
Hitherto we had been to heder, to a rebbe; now we were to study with a lehrer, a secular teacher. There was all the difference in the world between the two.
The cost of my father's schooling, as he advanced, had mounted to seventeen rubles a term, and the poor rebbe was seldom paid in full. Of course my father's scholarship was his fortune in time it would be his support; but in the meanwhile the burden of feeding and clothing him lay heavy on his parents' shoulders.
Mother ought to make a pilgrimage to a "Good Jew" say, the Rebbe of Lubavitch to get his blessing on our journey. She must be sure and pack her prayer books and Bible, and twenty pounds of zwieback at the least. If they did serve trefah on the ship, she and the four children would have to starve, unless she carried provisions from home. Oh, she must take all the featherbeds!
The good boys never took their eyes off their page, except to ask the rebbe a question; but the naughty boys stared around the room, and kicked each other under the table, till the rebbe caught them at it. He had a ruler for striking the bad boys on the knuckles, and in a corner of the room leaned a long birch wand for pupils who would not learn their lessons.
It was inevitable, as we came to Genesis, that I should ask questions. Rebbe, translating: "In the beginning God created the earth." Pupil, repeating: "In the beginning Rebbe, when was the beginning?" Rebbe, losing the place in amazement: "'S gehert a kasse? Nu! nu! Go on." Pupil, resuming: "In the beginning God made the earth. Rebbe, what did He make it out of?"
No sacrifice was too great for her in the pious cause of her boy's education. And when there was no rebbe in Yuchovitch learned enough to guide him in the advanced studies, my father was sent to Polotzk, where he lived with his poor relations, who were not too poor to help support a future rebbe or rav.
My father distinguished himself for scholarship from the first. Five years old when he entered heder, at eleven he was already a yeshibah bahur a student in the seminary. The rebbe never had occasion to use the birch on him. On the contrary, he held him up as an example to the dull or lazy pupils, praised him in the village, and carried his fame to Polotzk.
If bad luck continued, she pleaded with the rebbe for time. She pawned not only the candlesticks, but her shawl and Sabbath cap as well, to secure the scant rations that gave the young scholar strength to study. More than once in the bitter winter, as my father remembers, she carried him to heder on her back, because he had no shoes; she herself walking almost barefoot in the cruel snow.
Of her six children, three died young, leaving two daughters and an only son, my father. My grandmother fed and dressed her children the best she could, and taught them to thank God for what they had not as well as for what they had. Piety was about the only positive doctrine she attempted to drill them in, leaving the rest of their education to life and the rebbe.
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