It is not surprising, therefore, that the Talmud contains a great number of trivial subjects, which it treats with great seriousness. It contains, for example, dissertations upon sorcery and witchcraft as well as powerful religious precepts, and presents along-side of its wise and charitable maxims many utterances of an opposite nature. "For these faults the whole Talmud had often been held responsible, as a work of trifles, as a source of trickery, without taking into consideration that it is not the work of a single author. Over six centuries are crystallized in the Talmud with animated distinctness. It is, therefore, no wonder if in this work, sublime and mean, serious and ridiculous, Jewish and heathen elements, the altar and the ashes are found in motley mixture."[9]
To the jeschiva, or Talmud school, Mendel was immediately sent after his phenomenal recovery. The great Rabbi Jeiteles himself became the lad's instructor. Let us accompany Mendel on this beautiful autumn day to his school.
The house of Rabbi Jeiteles was hemmed in on three sides by decaying and overcrowded dwellings, facing on the fourth a narrow, neglected lane. There was nothing in its appearance to attract a passer-by. The interior, however, was neatly and tastefully, if not luxuriously, furnished. On entering, one found himself in a comfortably arranged reception-room. On the eastern wall there hung a misrach, a scriptural picture bearing the inscription, "From the rising of the sun to its setting shall the name of the Lord be praised." Prints of biblical subjects adorned the remaining walls, the Sabbath lamp hung from the ceiling and thrift and comfort seemed to be thoroughly at home. Rebecca, the Rabbi's wife, a pleasant-faced, mild-tempered little woman, was busy arranging the table for the evening meal. There is not much to be said about her and absolutely nothing against her. To a profound admiration for her husband's ability, she added charity and benevolence and shared with him the respect of the congregation. It had pleased the Lord to deprive her of her three sons and the mother's love and devotion was now lavished upon her sole remaining child, her daughter Recha.
"My sons would be a great comfort to me," she often sighed, and then added, with resignation: "the Lord's will be done."
To the right of the entrance lay the staircase leading to the bed-rooms on the second floor, and to the left a door opened into the school-rooms, a recent addition to the dwelling, and in which the Rabbi's fifty-odd pupils were daily instructed in their important studies.
In the first of these rooms, the elementary department, sat the younger boys, whose spiritual and mental welfare were entrusted to an assistant, a young pedagogue, who did not believe in sparing the rod at the expense of the child, but, mindful of the unmerciful whippings he had received in his youth, endeavored on his part to inculcate the precepts of the Pentateuch by means of sound thrashings. The progress of his pupils was not phenomenal, but their training was eminently useful in aiding them to bear the blows and trials which the gentile world had in store for them. The Rabbi occasionally looked in upon the class and added his instructions to those of the assistant, who in the presence of his superior concealed his rod and assumed an air of unspeakable tenderness and loving solicitude towards his charges.
The second school-room was for the more advanced pupils, who had for the most part passed their bar-mitzvah and now revelled in the mystic lore of the Talmud. On rough wooden desks, whose surfaces had been engraved by unskilled hands, huge folios lay open. At the upper end of the room sat the Rabbi, on whose head the frosts of sixty winters had left their traces. His snow-white beard covered his breast and his hair hung in silver locks over his temples. His pale and finely-cut features stamped him as a man of education and refinement. The venerable patriarch had for more than thirty years filled the position of Chief Rabbi of Kief, and his reputation as a Talmudist and a man of great mental acumen was not confined to his native town.
The rattan which the Rabbi held in his hand, the better to guide his pupils, was never used for corporal punishment, for a glance or a whispered admonition from the beloved teacher was more potent than were blows from another. At his side sat his little daughter Recha, scarcely nine years of age, whose features gave promise of great oriental beauty. Her dark eyes and darker hair, her rosy lips and merry smile, formed a veritable symphony of childish loveliness. Recha deemed it a great favor to be allowed in the room with her father during school-hours, and as her presence exercised a refining influence over the boys, each one of whom loved the girl in his own juvenile way, the Rabbi offered no objections.
The boys were being instructed in a difficult passage of the Talmud. Following the movements of the Rabbi's head and body they recited their appropriate lines. Like a mighty crescendo swelled the chorus, for the greater the pupil's zeal the louder rose his voice, and ever and anon they were inspired to quicker time, to greater enthusiasm, until the lesson came to an end.
Alas, poor boys! Taken from the cheerful sunlight to pass the days of happy boyhood in wading through heaps of useless learning, tutored in a philosophy which demands age and experience for its perfect comprehension; of what use can all this Talmud delving be to you, when once life summons you to more practical duties? And yet how much better this training, confusing and bewildering though it be, than the absolute ignorance, the unchecked illiteracy of the Russian Christians.