They say the end is in the beginning and the beginning is in the end. Well, then, let’s continue the story of my education at the Talmudical Academy during its golden age. I ended the last article saying, “Yes, we were fathered.” Now I will go back even further in time to how it all started.
My parents were born in the early 1900s. Little, if any, organized chinuch was available. TA was just a thought in 1911, the year of my father’s birth. Bais Yaakov was 50 years in the future. My father learned with my Zaidy until Zaidy finished two cups of tea, after which Zaidy promptly fell asleep. My mother learned everything about Yiddishkeit from her mother. I remember my mother lighting candles, kashering meat, and preparing for the Seder. She did chesed: visiting the sick, delivering Meals on Wheels, and serving in the TA cafeteria on her day off from my parents’ grocery store on Fayette Street, downtown in West Baltimore. She called her parents every day, even emptying their basement when it flooded; that was after spending a long day in the store.
In addition to operating the grocery store, my father collected the rent from my grandfather’s properties and visited my grandparents every Sunday after working on the TA tuition committee, which he did for decades. He physically collected tuition from a parent hours before my sister’s wedding. With no formal chinuch, he read the prayers in Hebrew very well with no mistakes. He always picked up the main speakers for the TA banquets, including Rabbi Jacobovitz and others. With parents like this, I was well on my way in chinuch even before I started at Tamudical Academy.
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All of my teachers were very dear to me and valuable in my education. Each of them prepared me for the next step.
Rabbi Foreman, an elderly talmid chacham, taught me the aleph bais. Every word I utter or hear or read is a blessing on his soul.
Rabbi Flamm, my third-grade teacher, came from Germany. He was very active in the Glen Avenue shul, which he served as president many times. To the students, he was frum and firm. He guided me forward.
Mr. Meir Steinharter, also from Germany, and a student of the German academies, was a precious soul who caught the imagination of his students. They, in turn, held him close to their hearts. I was in his son Bernie’s class and was a ben bayis at the Steinharter home, along with others, for many years. When I married, Mr. Steinharter and his wife Peri made us sheva brachos. They even invited my family to their Pesach Seder and so much more.
Mr. Steinharter was everything to everyone: everything good and noble. He taught at two schools, tutored students and prepared them for their Haftorah, my cousin included. Mr. Steinharter personally knocked on a family’s door to tell them that their son belonged at TA and not just afternoon Hebrew school. Oh, and from his garage, he sold wine. He also sold the World Book Encyclopedia and mutual funds at night. He housed boarders in his home, cared for his wife in her illness, and raised wonderful yirei Shamayim and pillars of the community. He saw children, grandchildren, and even great-grandchildren. He was blessed with a long life in this world and certainly in the next.
Mr. Paul Spector, the sixth-grade rebbe, made sure we learned our Chumash and introduced us to Mishna.
Rabbi Katz, the father of Rabbi Dovid Katz, moved us along as we entered adolescence. It wasn’t easy because we were restless children, who were now staying in school until six o’clock.
Mr. Benjamin Pernikoff, who taught Chumash and Gemara, also taught us Latin in the afternoon. (Do they still teach that in school?) In Latin, we were studying Julius Caesar when someone remarked that Caesar was assassinated. Mr. Pernikoff deadpanned, “Yes, that was at the end of his career.”
Rabbi Binyamin Steinberg started his career at TA as the eighth-grade rebbe. I believe he came to America via Shanghai along with Rabbi Milikowsky. He transitioned us from young boys to bar mitzvas and beyond. He would pick us up on Thursday night for seder in his ’48 Chevy with hidden running boards on the sides, an innovation in car styling. He also led Pirchei groups for a time at the Adas. With a beautiful voice, he was chazan at Rabbi Taub’s. I can still hear his Hineni on the Yomim Tovim. I had the privilege to learn with him on Shabbos along with my friend Bernie Steinharter. Rabbi Steinberg will always have my deep regard.
Eventually, he left adolescent boys to teach at Bais Yaakov, where he taught adolescent girls. He was principal for many years and had the merit to raise generations of neshei chayil.
Rabbi Tappick had the honor of teaching adolescent boys on the verge of bar mitzva. In those days, there were a number of boys in TA from nonobservant homes. Upon bar mitzva, many of them chose to leave TA for Polytechnic High School or City College (a high school). Public schools at that time were safe and well run, not like today. Both these schools had an “A course” that prepared students for secular college education.
I still remember Rabbi Tappick telling me, “The iron isn’t hot enough,” meaning I was not strong enough to survive as a Jew out there. I agreed to stay at TA and graduate even though I was accepted in City’s A course. Rabbi Tappick was a chasid from Texas, a redhead who could hit a ball a mile. That was my 13-year-old impression of my eighth_grade rebbe, someone I could really relate to. I also credit him with introducing us to the mikvah. It was Shavuos night at 4 a.m., and there we were: 30 boys, one mikvah, and no one had a towel.
Then there was Rabbi Milikowsky. A whole book was written about him: Rabbi Boruch Milikowsky: They Called Him Rebbe, by Raphael Blumberg. He was bigger than life. He came from Europe. His parents had two homes: one in the city and a ranch in the country – a buggy ride apart. One day, the family traveled out to the ranch and saw the townspeople on their lawn. The army of Hitler, his name should be wiped out, was around the corner, and the people told Rabbi Milikowksy and his family, “Leave and we will not hurt you.” They were taking over the ranch. By and by, he came to America, to Baltimore, and to the Tamudical Academy.
Speaking little or no English, he was given the tenth-grade class to teach and a dormitory to run. Somehow, he related to us all, speaking in the most beautiful language. Clear and direct, he spoke to our hearts. Because of his duties in the dormitory, he never again ate in his own home on Shabbos in order to be with his boys, each and every one. His joy and our joy mingled. His sorrow was taken up by his purpose in life: to replant Yiddishkeit in new soil.
Rabbi Meyer Katznelson, also a European rebbe, had patience and a sense of humor to further us in the world of Torah.
Rabbi Jacob Bobrowsky taught the 12th grade, the highest shiur, in Yiddish. Stern in his approach and very thorough, the graduates of TA were able to thrive and, upon graduation, go directly into any second-year beis medrash, including Lakewood.
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Any team of teachers needs a coach, a principal. TA in the 50s had wonderful leadership. The principals were Rabbi Jacob Max, Mrs. Bamberger, and Mr. Isaacson.
Rabbi Hyman Samson, the rosh yeshiva for many years, is the only rosh yeshiva I ever knew at TA. He was dignified, elegant, and respected by rebbeim and students alike. The rebbeim would seek his counsel on the many special talmidim to ensure that each one reached his potential The talmidim would seek him out, especially if they came late or misbehaved. The “brass ring” in those days was a slip of paper from Rabbi Samson saying: “Please forgive him…” That was Rabbi Samson’s way of telling the rebbi, “I handled it. He is in my doghouse now.”
Rabbi Samson also taught us our Haftorahs for bar mitzva and authored our bar mitzva speeches. Mine was a half page: short and to the point yet so meaningful that I used all or part of it at my son’s bar mitzva and also in my hesped for my wife Sheila, a”h.
In the late 50s, Rabbi Dr. Gershon Kranzler came from New York to become principal. If asked about his educational philosophy, he would probably say, “When you take a boy out of beis medrash, don’t waste his time. Give him your best secular education.” Simply, that’s what he did. The junior and senior high schools metamorphosed. We had advanced physics and chemistry. French and advanced calculus were also added to the curriculum.
As mentioned in my first article, Dr. Kranzler grounded us in Yiddishkeit with trips to New York, where we visited the Lubavitcher Rebbe, the Klausenberger Rebbe, the Satmar Rebbe, and the Skverer Rebbe. To make sure our education had application, we also visited Yeshiva University, the Mir yeshiva, and Torah Vodaath. We were also encouraged to learn in Israel, even before 1967.
So, you can see that we had the merit of being taught by this team of rebbeim and principals – so special, so caring, so loving, so devoted.
As I said, “We were fathered.” Measurably imperfect, we were half here and half there. We were considered gold – impure, coarse, and unformed – to be forged by the love of our parents and rebbeim. Like the aron kodesh, the holy ark, we were protected and cherished, inside our homes and out. Treasured and placed in a special place with cherubim atop, we were being prepared to meet the world – always with the gentle reminder: Take care of our Torah. Take care of each other.
So it was, is, and always will be.
