Jewish Schools. The Joy of Being Delivered from Them Results in a Stiff Foot
MY BROTHER JOSEPH AND I were sent to school in Mirz. Joseph, who was about twelve at the time, lodged with a famous schoolmaster named Jossel. This man was every student’s nightmare, the scourge of God. He handled the boys placed in his care with a monstrous brutality whipping them for the slightest offense until the blood flowed, and not infrequently tearing off ears and gouging out eyes. When the parents of his unfortunate victims came to complain, he would hurl rocks at them or whatever was handy, regardless of who the parents were. He would then chase them out of the room with his walking stick, all the way back to where they lived. His charges [44] became either idiots or great scholars. Only seven at the time, and was sent to a different schoolmaster.
There is one story that I must tell here. It is partly an illustration of deep brotherly love, but it should also be seen as evoking the mentality of a child hoping for relief from misfortune, while simultaneously fearing that the misfortune will grow worse. One day, I came home from school with eyes red from crying (no doubt I had had good reason to cry). My brother noticed and asked what had happened. At first, I didn’t want to answer, but finally I confided: “I was crying because we aren’t allowed to tell tales out of school.” My brother understood me quite well and was outraged, so much so that he wanted to confront my teacher. I asked him not to, since the teacher would probably punish me for telling tales out of school. [45]
Now I must say something about the general condition of Jewish schools.1 Most often the school is a smoky shack with students scattered around, some perching on benches, others sitting on the dirt floor. The teacher, with a filthy shirt on his back, sits on his desk commanding his regiment, all the while holding between his legs a bowl of tobacco, which he works over into snuff with a pestle as massive as the club of Hercules. His assistants conduct drill sessions in their own corners of the room, each one ruling over his subjects just as the teacher himself does: as an absolute despot. The children bring breakfast and snacks to school, and the teachers keep the lion’s share of the food for themselves. Sometimes, in fact, the poor boys get nothing at all. And if the boys want to avoid facing the wrath of these tyrants, they won’t complain. Children are locked up here from morning until evening. They have free time only on Fridays and on the afternoon of the first of the month.
As to the actual curriculum, at least the Hebrew scripture is still [46] studied quite properly. The method for acquiring the Hebrew language, in contrast, is quite odd. Teachers don’t go over the principles of grammar. Instead, the rules must be learned ex usu: that is, by translating the Holy scripture. As a result, students are much like the ordinary person who develops an incomplete understanding of grammar through the normal use of his mother tongue. Nor is there a Hebrew dictionary. Students begin interpreting the Holy Scripture right away; and since the Holy Scripture is divided into as many sections as there are weeks in the year, students can read through the books of Moses—read every Saturday in synagogue—in a year. Thus, each week, students interpret several verses from the beginning of the section for that week, making every possible grammatical mistake as they do so. But there are no better alternatives. For the students’ native Yiddish-Polish is full of grammatical deficiencies, and so when Hebrew readings are interpreted in the students’ native language, the Hebrew they learn is naturally of the same [47] poor quality. In this way, then, students gain just as little knowledge of the Hebrew language as they do of the Holy Scripture’s content.
In addition, Talmudists have buried the Holy Scripture under all manner of strange ideas, and our ignorant teachers confidently believe that the Holy Scripture can have no meaning other than the ones these explicators assign it. Students are compelled to share this belief, with the result that the correct interpretation of words necessarily gets lost. For example, where the first book of Moses reads “Jacob sent messengers to his brother Esau,” Talmudists like to claim that the messengers were angels. Now while the Hebrew word malachim can, to be sure, mean both “messengers” and “angels,” these miracle-chasers have opted for second meaning simply because the first doesn’t suggest anything miraculous. The students, in turn, come to think that malachim means nothing other than “angels,” and thus the primary meaning of “messenger” gets lost. It is only by studying on one’s own, and by reading Hebrew primers and philological commentaries on the Holy Scripture (such as [48] David Kimhi’s and Ibn Ezra’s), which just a few rabbis use, that one can, bit by bit, achieve a correct understanding of the Hebrew language and work toward sound exegetical practices.
Children are condemned to such a hell precisely when their youth is in full bloom. So one can easily imagine the excitement with which they look forward to being out of school. On high holidays, my brother and I would be picked up and brought home. During one of those trips, the following event took place; it would prove to be of crucial significance for me.
My mother had come before the holiday of Shavuot to the town where we were going to school, because she needed to buy various things for her household. Afterward, she took us home. Being freed from school, coupled with the sight of that beautiful person all done up in her best clothes, delighted us so much that we became downright reckless. As we were approaching our hometown, my brother boldly leapt out of the wagon and ran the rest of the way on foot. I wanted to do [49] the same but wasn’t strong enough. I fell hard and landed next to the wagon with my legs caught between the wheels. One of the wheels ran over my left leg, crushing it horribly. They brought me home half-dead. My foot seized up and was completely immobile.
A Jewish doctor was consulted. He hadn’t, to be sure, studied medicine at a university or earned a regular degree; rather, he had acquired his medical knowledge by working under a doctor and by reading some Polish medical books. But he was still a very good practical physician who had healed many patients. He had no supply of medicine, he said, and the nearest pharmacy was twenty miles away. Thus he couldn’t prescribe a cure using his normal method. In the meantime, though, we should make use of an easy household remedy. Someone should kill a dog, and I should put my injured foot into the body. Repeating this several times [50] would definitely bring about some relief. His order was followed, with the success that we had hoped for. After several weeks, I could move my foot and put weight on it. My recovery continued until my foot was completely healed.
I think that it wouldn’t be a bad thing if doctors paid more attention to household remedies, for they are often used with great success in parts of the world without regular doctors and pharmacies. Doctors might even make special trips to these areas to learn about such methods. I know of many instances of effective treatment that cannot be explained away. All this, however, in passing. I now return to my story. [51]
1 Maimon’s description of Jewish schools here is an early classic of the enlightened critique of traditional Jewish education, which was a central plank of the Haskala.