[CHAPTER VII.]
Joy endureth but a little while.
After this digression on the study of the Talmud I return to my story. As already mentioned, I was sent to school at Iwenez. My father gave me a letter to the chief rabbi of this place, who was a relation of ours, requesting him to give me in charge to an able teacher, and to give some attention to the progress of my studies. He gave me however in charge to a common schoolmaster, and told me I was to visit him every Sabbath in order that he might examine me himself. This injunction I punctually followed; but the arrangement did not continue long; for at one of these examinations I began to dispute about my lessons and suggest difficulties, when, without replying to them, the chief rabbi asked me if I had stated these difficulties to my teacher also.
"Of course," I replied.
"And what did he say?" asked the chief rabbi.
"Nothing to the point," I replied, "except that he enjoined silence on me, and said, 'A youngster must not be too inquisitive; he must see to it merely that he understands his lesson, but must not overwhelm his teacher with questions.'"
"Ah!" said the chief rabbi, "your teacher is altogether too easy, we must make a change. I will give you instruction myself. I will do it merely out of friendship, and I hope that your father will have as little to say against it as your former teacher. The fee which your father pays for your education, will be given to your teacher without deduction."
In this way I got the chief rabbi for a teacher. He struck out a way of his own with me. No weekly lessons repeated till they are impressed on the memory, no tasks which the pupil is obliged to perform for himself, and in which the course of his thoughts is very often arrested for the sake of a single word or a figure of speech, which has little to do with the main subject. His method distinguished itself from all this. He made me explain something from the Talmud ex tempore in his presence, conversed with me on the subject, explained to me so much as was necessary to set my own mind in activity, and by means of questions and answers turned my attention away from all side-issues to the main subject, so that in a short time I passed through all the three above-mentioned stages in the study of the Talmud.
My father, to whom the chief rabbi gave an account of his plan with me and of my progress, went beside himself with joy. He returned his warmest thanks to this excellent man for putting himself to so much trouble with me out of mere friendship, and that notwithstanding his delicate state of health, for he was consumptive. But this joy did not last long; before a half year was ended, the chief rabbi had to betake himself to his fathers, and I was left like a sheep without a shepherd.