Page 64 - The Legacy of Abraham Rothstein - text

Education and the bet hamidrash

the meat industry. A slaughterhouse and stockyard employed a
considerable number of Jewish men, because they mainly dealt in
kosher meat for the city. Most of the young men worked there before
they had any Jewish education. Only a dozen in the whole
community took up the study of Jewish learning; this group of older
youths and young married men—who were fed and clothed by their
fathers-in-law under the terms of a marriage contract until they
became rabbis or joined their in-laws’ business—studied in the bet
hamidrash by themselves or with a leader, who was not compensated.
I was reaching the age of thirteen when Hirshely quit teaching me,
and a boy near bar mitzvah age is considered an adult in regards to
religious matters. Not being successful in the bread business, and
having daughters reaching the marriageable age, my father could no
longer afford to pay the small fee of a teacher and feed him. But he
wished me to continue Talmudical studies. Therefore he let me join
the group at the bet hamidrash. One had to study by oneself most of
the time, obtaining help from others in difficult matters only. It was a
great event in my life to become independent at thirteen and be my
own master.
It made me feel like a grown-up, and I took time for myself to loaf
around and listen to the idle talk of the young men. They conversed
about the politics of two hundred years ago, of Napoleon and
Catherine the Great and Alexander the Macedonian, and of
mythological stories as true stories, for they never read a book or a
newspaper. All was known by hearsay: these exciting stories were
transmitted from father to son, from generation to generation. Many
bizarre tales were told and believed by the listeners and by the
storyteller himself. Even allegories from the Talmud, some of which
correspond to the Baron Munchausen tales, were told by the ignorant
as true happenings. We were living not five miles from a metropolis,
with newspapers, magazines, and theatres, but those young people in
the bet hamidrash believed in the truth of all those ancient fairy tales
and Greek mythology. To us younger ones, the tales were true living
stories, and instead of studying we listened to gossip and foolish talk
and wasted time.
I remember well, when in the long winter evenings, elderly people
would gather with us in the bet hamidrash, sitting around the coal stove
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