It was not his fault that his people confused scholarship with religious ardor.
Having a good mind, he was glad to exercise it; and being given only one subject to study he was bound to make rapid progress in that.

If he had ever been offered a choice between a religious and a secular education, his friends would have found out early that he was not born to be a rav.

But as he had no mental opening except through the hedder, he went on from year to year winning new distinction in Hebrew scholarship; with the result that witnesses with preconceived ideas began to see the halo of piety playing around his head, and a well-to-do family was misled into making a match with him for the sake of the glory that he was to attain.
When it became evident that the son-in-law was not going to develop into a rav, my grandfather notified him that he would have to assume the support of his own family without delay.

My father therefore entered on a series of experiments with paying occupations, for none of which he was qualified, and in none of which he succeeded permanently.
My mother was with my father, as equal partner and laborer, in everything he attempted in Polotzk.

They tried keeping a wayside inn, but had to give it up because the life was too rough for my mother, who was expecting her first baby.