"It isn't Russia," he said, with a sigh. "Judaism has not much of a chance here."
When he heard that I intended to stay at the synagogue overnight he smiled ruefully
"One does not sleep in an American synagogue," he said. "It is not Russia." Then, scanning me once more, he added, with an air of compassionate perplexity: "Where will you sleep, poor child? I wish I could take you to my house, but—well, America is not Russia. There is no pity here, no hospitality. My wife would raise a rumpus if I brought you along. I should never hear the last of it."
With a deep sigh and nodding his head plaintively he returned to his book, swaying back and forth. But he was apparently more interested in the subject he had broached. "When we were at home," he resumed, "she, too, was a different woman. She did not make life a burden to me as she does here. Have you no money at all?"
I showed him the quarter I had received from the cloak contractor
"Poor fellow! Is that all you have? There are places where you can get a night's lodging for fifteen cents, but what are you going to do afterward? I am simply ashamed of myself."
"'Hospitality,'" he quoted from the Talmud, "'is one of the things which the giver enjoys in this world and the fruit of which he relishes in the world to come.' To think that I cannot offer a Talmudic scholar a night's rest! Alas! America has turned me into a mound of ashes."
"You were well off in Russia, weren't you?" I inquired, in astonishment.
For, indeed, I had never heard of any but poor people emigrating to
America
"I used to spend my time reading Talmud at the synagogue," was his reply