A Converted Jew (4)

Rabbinical Teaching

I was educated as a child in the Mishna and Talmud. I also read the Old Testament, but this was only of secondary consideration; the former was the principal. At seven years of age I could repeat from memory the whole book of Psalms and the Song of Solomon.* At nine years of age I daily had to learn three or four pages of the Talmud, which consists of questions and answers of the various rabbis.

During my grandfather’s annual visit, he always examined us boys to ascertain what progress we had made throughout the year. I recollect that once in my presence he told my father that I should become a rabbi. My father expressed his pleasure at the thought. It was rather an unfortunate remark for me, however, for it served as the reason for keeping me more closely to my lessons. Yet God had something better in store for me. He has raised me to a higher dignity than that. He has made me a king and priest unto the living God and put me among His family, although unworthy of the least of His mercies. Oh, the depth of the riches of His divine grace!

Leaving Home

I continued at school until I was about sixteen, when a providential circumstance caused me to leave home.

When Czar Alexander, the Emperor of Russia, was on the throne, he took no Jews in the military service; he was more a friend to the Jews than otherwise. After his death, Nicholas, his brother, succeeded him. After his coronation he issued a law compelling Jews to serve in the army and navy. This law was a terror to all the Jews in his dominion. As soldiers they would have to eat and drink those things which were prohibited by the law of God to them as a nation, break the Sabbath day, violate other festivals and, indeed, deny their whole religion. Parents would rather die, or even follow their children to the grave, than see them turn from their religion. This I painfully experienced when called by divine grace.

The law obliged men to serve beginning at fourteen years of age. They were sent to academies where they were trained for the army or navy according to their abilities. The method they used for selecting the Jews amounted to taking a percentage per every thousand; the heads of the synagogues were obliged to send the required numbers. At first they took the lower class but, as already said, the town we lived in was small; therefore this group was soon exhausted. I witnessed different times that when these young men were sent away, the cries and lamentations of their parents and relations were most distressing, almost heart-rending. I remember on one occasion being so affected that I myself fainted. Relatives would rend their garments on these occasions as if mourning for the dead.

After the lower class was picked over, the draft came to the higher class families. Here choice was made by casting lots. Knowing that sooner or later it must come to our turn, my grandfather advised that I, and a brother who was a little younger, should leave the country. My eldest brother, being married, was exempt, and my other brother was too young. When this law was issued, there was also another law passed, making it illegal to give passports to males between fourteen and twenty years of age, to prevent them from leaving the country. I have known of fine young men who chopped one or two fingers off from their right hand to disable them from entering the service.

At length it was resolved that we should leave both home and country and go to Konigsburg in Prussia. As there were no passports allowed, we had to leave in the middle of the night — a banker’s only son named Israel, my brother, and myself. It is a night long to be remembered by me. My grandfather and grandmother, father and mother, brothers and sisters, were all weeping. My grandfather, who was seventy years of age and had a long white beard, placed his hands on our heads and, with tears trickling from his eyes, pronounced a blessing. Some of the words I have not forgotten, although this was many years ago: “May the God of our fathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob bless and preserve you, protect and defend you from all harm, keep you in His fear, help you to study His laws, strengthen you to obey Him, and not suffer you to forsake Him. If you forsake the Lord, He will forsake you. But if you cleave to Him, He will cleave to you.” They then kissed us all affectionately, wished us the presence of the Lord, and bade us farewell.

Now the prophecy of my grandmother began to be fulfilled. My spiritual birth was appointed by God to be in London. The place, means, and time are always by His divine appointment. His will cannot be counteracted, nor His counsels disannulled. “My counsel shall stand, and I will do all My pleasure.” As London was to be the place, death and hell could not obstruct the way. “O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past finding out!”

— ES

*In the former edition of this memoir I have made this assertion, and I now deliberately repeat it in view of the fact that I have reason to believe there are individuals who have ignorantly expressed their doubts of its truthfulness. No well-informed Jew would stumble for a moment at such a statement Every Jew knows, or ought to know, that Jewish youth (at least on the continent) are not prohibited from reading the Song of Solomon. But my ignorant critic is correct in stating that the teachers of youth in the schools are prohibited from taking that book in its due course for exposition until the age of thirty is reached. A similar incredulity has been manifested as to what I have said respecting the book of Psalms. I would desire those who doubt the possibility of such a thing to ask any intelligent Jew about the ordinary recitation of the long 119th Psalm by the women of a Jewish community at certain periods in every married woman’s history.

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