| Len's uncle
Teaching Hebrew in a village
I will have to go back to my mother, and to my brother and myself. I started teaching and became a teacher, and I got what they used to call a condintzia in Russia, a “condition” they called it, which means a position to teach in a village.
Why a village? I must say that it was almost incumbent upon every Jew. Not only that it was a tradition, but it was a must to give the children a Jewish education. Well, that was possible and feasible if the Jews lived together in compact masses. Some were in a big town or in a small town, but they lived together.
But suppose a Jew made his livelihood in a village, living among a thousand or 500 peasants, and he was the only one, the only Jewish family in that village, or two Jews, or three Jews in that village, how were they to give their children a Jewish education? So they would hire a teacher, anyone. If they learned or found out that a young man knew the bible well, and some other things, especially if they knew a little Talmud, or if he knew a little Hebrew above all, they would try to get him.
And we had what they call, like they have in Wall Street, where people come to play. I call it “to play” with money. We had a so-called place, a station, that after Sukkot and after Pesach, right the day after Sukkot or Pesach in the Lubavitch Synagogue in Gomel, it was a big synagogue. Boys who wanted to hire themselves out, or young men that wished to hire themselves out as teachers into these provinces, as I mentioned before, they would come to that place. They call it the Birje, which was some kind of bureau where you went to get a teacher. And people from all around this cityóthe vicinity, some in the state, would come to that place to hire teachers. They would interview one and another and a third, and they would hire one of them. Well, anyway, I was hired out as a teacher. I didn’t go there. But it was private [?].
Then the first time I taught, and I thought that I was very, very young. I took sick. I had pneumonia, and they sent me home in that condition, that sick condition. I came home and I got well. When I got well, a villager came to my mother, and he said, “I heard that your son is home, that he’s not going back to the Yeshiva until the beginning of the next semester.” That was about seven weeks before Passover. He said, “Could I hire him? Would you let him come to us and teach my children? I have two girls and a boy.” My mother said, “Yes.” He said, “I’m going to pay 20 rubles for it.” Now that was a lot of money. 20 rubles was a tremendous sum. My mother could maybe live a half a year on 20 rubles.
So I went there. I liked it very much. They were very kind to me. They were not wealthy people. He was an ordinary person in that he probably knew stories of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and he could daven even at the omed, lead the congregation in service, but he was far from being an intelligent person. He was very polite and nice, and I liked one thing about him. He was very kind to his wife. The way he talked to her sometimes could almost make me cry, even today. And I loved that. When he came, he shared everything with her and he talked gently. He very seldom raised his voice in the house, and I liked him very much. Ura was his name. Alav haShalom, may he rest in peace.
So I taught there, and I enjoyed the teaching. The children were about my age. I think one of the girls was about a half year older, or a year older than myself. And the other girl was about my age. The boy was about two years younger than myself. They called me the rebbele [”little Rabbi”]. Rabbióthey used to call the teachers “Rabbi” always, the Hebrew teachers in Russia. Since I was little, they used the diminutive and called me “rebbele.” Everyone. The children called me “rebbele,” and my host and hostess always called me “rebbele.”
Well, they brought me home. For Pesach I came home a day before Passover, and he was so kind. He was satisfied with my work that he bought my motheróhe paid her 20 rubles, and he bought a half a dozen chickens and two geese, and a sack full of potatoes, and beans and beets and cabbage. It was almost a wagon full of produce that he brought for my mother.
That was my first time, he called it condintzia, my first job, position as a teacher.
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