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He was assigned a certain day, and on that day my grandmother took care to have something especially good for dinner. It was a very shabby guest who sat down with us at table, but we children watched him with respectful eyes. Not every man could hope to be a rav, but no Jewish boy was allowed to grow up without at least a rudimentary knowledge of Hebrew.
Besides the rav and the dayyan there were other men whose callings were holy, the shohat, who knew how cattle and fowls should be killed; the hazzan and the other officers of the synagogue; the teachers of Hebrew, and their pupils. It did not matter how poor a man was, he was to be respected and set above other men, if he were learned in the Law.
"Alaicham sholom!" the Rabbi answered, and then he resorted to the Yiddish jargon: "Do you look for me?" "I look for the Rav Elkan Levin," Morris said in a tongue to which he had long been unaccustomed. "I am the servant of the philanthropist Steuermann." "Steuermann?" the Rav Levin repeated. "I do not know him." "In America," Morris said, "his name is honored over the governor's.
By a strange trick of memory I recall nothing of this important interview, nor indeed of the whole matter, although a thousand trifles of that period recur to me on the instant; so I report this anecdote on the authority of my parents. They tell me how the rav lifted me up on a table in front of him, and asked me many questions, and encouraged me to ask questions in my turn.
It was not his fault that his people confused scholarship with religious ardor. Having a good mind, he was glad to exercise it; and being given only one subject to study he was bound to make rapid progress in that. If he had ever been offered a choice between a religious and a secular education, his friends would have found out early that he was not born to be a rav.
Lozhe the Rav, hearing from various sources that Pinchus, son-in-law of Raphael the Russian, had two bright little girls, whose talents were going to waste for want of training, became much interested, and sent for the children, to see for himself what the gossip was worth.
Of course I was too fascinated watching them at the time to think this was the reason for this unusual sight. "After a while, they went to pay visits to the Rav and to others who were scholars or pious men in the community. Often when walking to the various houses they would catch hold of others and dance with them in the open streets as you see children doing when an organ-grinder plays.
Tell him I'm not coming home, that I'm going to win a scholarship and to go to the University." Moses's eyes dilated with pride. "Ah, you will become a Rav," he said, and lifted up his boy's chin and looked lovingly into the handsome face. "What's that about a Rav, Esther?" said Benjamin. "Does he want me to become a Rabbi Ugh! Tell him I'm going to write books." "My blessed boy!
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.
It was intended for the chief of police." The Rav shook his head. "It stands in the Gemera" he said, in the singsong tone of the Talmudical reader: "If one flings a stone for pleasure and it strikes another so that he dies, the one also shall die." He rose to his feet and waved one hand with a flapping motion. "An eye for an eye!" he cried in shrill tones. "A tooth for a tooth!"
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