HEDER (HEBREW SCHOOL) FOR BOYS IN POLOTZK[ToList]
If the girl is well-to-do, it is a happy interval, spent in visits to the drapers and tailors, in collecting linens and featherbeds and vessels of copper and brass. The former playmates come to inspect the trousseau, enviously fingering the silks and velvets of the bride-elect. The happy heroine tries on frocks and mantles before her glass, blushing at references to the wedding day; and to the question, "How do you like the bridegroom?" she replies, "How should I know? There was such a crowd at the betrothal that I didn't see him."
Marriage was a sacrament with us Jews in the Pale. To rear a family of children was to serve God. Every Jewish man and woman had a part in the fulfilment of the ancient promise given to Jacob that his seed should be abundantly scattered over the earth. Parenthood, therefore, was the great career. But while men, in addition to begetting, might busy themselves with the study of the Law, woman's only work was motherhood. To be left an old maid became, accordingly, the greatest misfortune that could threaten a girl; and to ward off that calamity the girl and her family, to the most distant relatives, would strain every nerve, whether by contributing to her dowry, or hiding her defects from the marriage broker, or praying and fasting that God might send her a husband.
Not only must all the children of a family be mated, but they must marry in the order of their ages. A younger daughter must on no account marry before an elder. A houseful of daughters might be held up because the eldest failed to find favor in the eyes of prospective mothers-in-law; not one of the others could marry till the eldest was disposed of.
A cousin of mine was guilty of the disloyalty of wishing to marry before her elder sister, who was unfortunate enough to be rejected by one mother-in-law after another. My uncle feared that the younger daughter, who was of a firm and masterful nature, might carry out her plans, thereby disgracing her unhappy sister. Accordingly he hastened to conclude an alliance with a family far beneath him, and the girl was hastily married to a boy of whom little was known beyond the fact that he was inclined to consumption.
The consumptive tendency was no such horror, in an age when superstition was more in vogue than science. For one patient that went to a physician in Polotzk, there were ten who called in unlicensed practitioners and miracle workers. If my mother had an obstinate toothache that honored household remedies failed to relieve, she went to Dvoshe, the pious woman, who cured by means of a flint and steel, and a secret prayer pronounced as the sparks flew up. During an epidemic of scarlet fever, we protected ourselves by wearing a piece of red woolen tape around the neck. Pepper and salt tied in a corner of the pocket was effective in warding off the evil eye. There were lucky signs, lucky dreams, spirits, and hobgoblins, a grisly collection, gathered by our wandering ancestors from the demonologies of Asia and Europe.
Antiquated as our popular follies was the organization of our small society. It was a caste system with social levels sharply marked off, and families united by clannish ties. The rich looked down on the poor, the merchants looked down on the artisans, and within the ranks of the artisans higher and lower grades were distinguished. A shoemaker's daughter could not hope to marry the son of a shopkeeper, unless she brought an extra large dowry; and she had to make up her mind to be snubbed by the sisters-in-law and cousins-in-law all her life.
One qualification only could raise a man above his social level, and that was scholarship. A boy born in the gutter need not despair of entering the houses of the rich, if he had a good mind and a great appetite for sacred learning. A poor scholar would be preferred in the marriage market to a rich ignoramus. In the phrase of our grandmothers, a boy stuffed with learning was worth more than a girl stuffed with bank notes.
Simple piety unsupported by learning had a parallel value in the eyes of good families. This was especially true among the Hasidim, the sect of enthusiasts who set religious exaltation above rabbinical lore. Ecstasy in prayer and fantastic merriment on days of religious rejoicing, raised a Hasid to a hero among his kind. My father's grandfather, who knew of Hebrew only enough to teach beginners, was famous through a good part of the Pale for his holy life. Israel Kimanyer he was called, from the village of Kimanye where he lived; and people were proud to establish even the most distant relationship with him. Israel was poor to the verge of beggary, but he prayed more than other people, never failed in the slightest observance enjoined on Jews, shared his last crust with every chance beggar, and sat up nights to commune with God. His family connections included country peddlers, starving artisans, and ne'er-do-wells; but Israel was a zaddik—a man of piety—and the fame of his good life redeemed the whole wretched clan. When his grandson, my father, came to marry, he boasted his direct descent from Israel Kimanyer, and picked his bride from the best families.
The little house may still be standing which the pious Jews of Kimanye and the neighboring villages built for my great-grandfather, close on a century ago. He was too poor to build his own house, so the good people who loved him, and who were almost as poor as he, collected a few rubles among themselves, and bought a site, and built the house. Built, let it be known, with their own hands; for they were too poor to hire workmen. They carried the beams and boards on their shoulders, singing and dancing on the way, as they sang and danced at the presentation of a scroll to the synagogue. They hauled and sawed and hammered, till the last nail was driven home; and when they conducted the holy man to his new abode, the rejoicing was greater than at the crowning of a czar.