More than this, stringent measures
were taken that no child be without instruction. Talmud Torahs were
founded even in the smallest kehillot (communities), and the students
were supplied, not only with books, but also with the necessaries of
life. Communal and individual benefactors furnished clothes, and every
member (ba'al ha-bayit) had to provide food and lodging for an indigent
pupil at least one day of each week. The "Freitisch" (free board) was an
inseparable adjunct to every school. Poor young men were not regarded as
"beggar students." They were looked upon as earning their living by
study, even as teachers by instructing. To pray for the dead or the
living in return for their support is a recent innovation, and mostly
among other than Slavonic Jews. It is a custom adopted from medieval
Christianity, and practiced in England by the poor student, who, in the
words of Chaucer,
Busily 'gan for the souls to pray
On them that gave him wherewith to scolay.
For a faithful and vivid description of the yeshibot we cannot do better
than transcribe the account given in the pages of the little pamphlet
_Yeven Mezulah_ in which Nathan Hannover, mentioned above, has left us a
reliable history of the Cossack uprisings and the Kulturgeschichte of
his own time.
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