it.
Rabbi Loew said, “But that’s not really what’s bothering you, is it?”
“I thought you said we didn’t have time for this.”
“Don’t dodge the question. It’s not the law, but the situation you got yourself into, correct?”
The rabbi stopped and stood there, clearly expecting an answer.
So I took a deep breath and told him that the Cossacks had raided my village when I was barely old enough to go off to kheyder to learn to read and write.
“The whole Yidngas was looted and burned. Most of my mishpokhe were killed and the survivors scattered along with the ashes.”
The rabbi nodded knowingly. “And yet you were not abandoned in the wilderness, or devoured by wild beasts.”
We turned northward and walked past the busy storefronts. But I barely registered the sturdy women unfurling bolts of cloth and lifting crates for the customers while the men sat in the back rooms drinking tea with sugar and debating Midrash because women have no head for such things.
I told the rabbi that a Polish family had taken me in. It was heavy work, so they had to feed me. But they were cruel as only peasants can be cruel, and their children were sometimes worse.
“So I was just learning the alef-beys when most boys my age already knew whole tractates of the Talmud by heart.”
“You didn’t miss much. Germany is full of overpriced schools for rich kids who study Torah with Rashi’s commentary before they are ready for it, with no Prophets or Holy Writings, then skip the Mishnah and go straight to the Talmud, which they learn by mindless repetition. I ask you, what nine-year-old can understand the Talmud?”
“What about young Lipmann?”
“That boy is a true prodigy, and he’s following the regimen laid out in the Pirkey Avos. Torah at five, Mishnah at ten, Talmud at fifteen. But these days anyone looking for true insight has to leave the yeshivas and find his own pathway, as you are doing.”
He added that he’d like to see my book of essays on education reform. I was stunned that he had heard of it, but I suppose I shouldn’t have been.
“I don’t have a copy with me,” I said, very much aware of the sound of the words coming out of my mouth. “They might have one back at the old yeshiva in Kraków.”
“I’m sure they do—in spite of what ever else you might think.”
The Jewish Town Hall stood on the corner where Beleles Street widened into Rabbi Street , opposite the legendary Old-New Shul. I stopped to take in the sight of the miraculous stones that had come from the ruins of the Great Temple in Jerusalem , or so people said. The shul’s high-peaked roof soared over the sunken roofs of the ghetto. In the rarefied world of the Talmud, the shul is supposed to stand taller than all the other buildings in town. But in the nearby world of the Christians, its spire could not rise above any church within the fortified walls of the city. When they built it three hundred years ago, the Jews of Prague called it the New Shul. It followed the same twin nave layout as the shuls in Vienna and Regensburg, but those two bright pearls were destroyed during the expulsions of 1420 and 1519, leaving only this one and its older sister in Worms as the last Ashkenazic shuls standing in the two-pillar style of the ancient temples. Over the years, newer shuls had risen from the floodplain of the Vltava River , and the great synagogue was given its distinctive Old-New name, embodying within its very walls the mystical principle of the union of opposites.
Altneuschul in German, and Staranová skola in
Rabbi Loew said, “But that’s not really what’s bothering you, is it?”
“I thought you said we didn’t have time for this.”
“Don’t dodge the question. It’s not the law, but the situation you got yourself into, correct?”
The rabbi stopped and stood there, clearly expecting an answer.
So I took a deep breath and told him that the Cossacks had raided my village when I was barely old enough to go off to kheyder to learn to read and write.
“The whole Yidngas was looted and burned. Most of my mishpokhe were killed and the survivors scattered along with the ashes.”
The rabbi nodded knowingly. “And yet you were not abandoned in the wilderness, or devoured by wild beasts.”
We turned northward and walked past the busy storefronts. But I barely registered the sturdy women unfurling bolts of cloth and lifting crates for the customers while the men sat in the back rooms drinking tea with sugar and debating Midrash because women have no head for such things.
I told the rabbi that a Polish family had taken me in. It was heavy work, so they had to feed me. But they were cruel as only peasants can be cruel, and their children were sometimes worse.
“So I was just learning the alef-beys when most boys my age already knew whole tractates of the Talmud by heart.”
“You didn’t miss much. Germany is full of overpriced schools for rich kids who study Torah with Rashi’s commentary before they are ready for it, with no Prophets or Holy Writings, then skip the Mishnah and go straight to the Talmud, which they learn by mindless repetition. I ask you, what nine-year-old can understand the Talmud?”
“What about young Lipmann?”
“That boy is a true prodigy, and he’s following the regimen laid out in the Pirkey Avos. Torah at five, Mishnah at ten, Talmud at fifteen. But these days anyone looking for true insight has to leave the yeshivas and find his own pathway, as you are doing.”
He added that he’d like to see my book of essays on education reform. I was stunned that he had heard of it, but I suppose I shouldn’t have been.
“I don’t have a copy with me,” I said, very much aware of the sound of the words coming out of my mouth. “They might have one back at the old yeshiva in Kraków.”
“I’m sure they do—in spite of what ever else you might think.”
The Jewish Town Hall stood on the corner where Beleles Street widened into Rabbi Street , opposite the legendary Old-New Shul. I stopped to take in the sight of the miraculous stones that had come from the ruins of the Great Temple in Jerusalem , or so people said. The shul’s high-peaked roof soared over the sunken roofs of the ghetto. In the rarefied world of the Talmud, the shul is supposed to stand taller than all the other buildings in town. But in the nearby world of the Christians, its spire could not rise above any church within the fortified walls of the city. When they built it three hundred years ago, the Jews of Prague called it the New Shul. It followed the same twin nave layout as the shuls in Vienna and Regensburg, but those two bright pearls were destroyed during the expulsions of 1420 and 1519, leaving only this one and its older sister in Worms as the last Ashkenazic shuls standing in the two-pillar style of the ancient temples. Over the years, newer shuls had risen from the floodplain of the Vltava River , and the great synagogue was given its distinctive Old-New name, embodying within its very walls the mystical principle of the union of opposites.
Altneuschul in German, and Staranová skola in
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