Rav

In the world of Mary Antin's childhood in Polotzk, the Rav was not merely a religious functionary but the living conscience and legal mind of the entire Jewish community. He was the final authority on the Torah, the man appointed by God, after Moses and the great rabbis, to tell the people how to live. His authority was so complete that it governed the most intimate and mundane details of daily existence, from the preparation of food to the conduct of business and the sanctity of marriage. To the young Mary, the Rav was a figure of immense power and wisdom, the human conduit through which divine law was made known and applied to the lives of ordinary people.

The Arbiter of Daily Life

The Rav's most immediate and tangible authority lay in his role as the arbiter of kashrut, the dietary laws. When Mary's mother cut up a chicken and found something wrong with it—a hurt or a mark that should not be there—she would send the housemaid with it to the Rav, and Mary would run along. She would watch as the Rav consulted his big books, and whatever he decided was right. If he declared the chicken "trefah," Mary was forbidden to eat it, no matter if she had to starve. This scene, repeated throughout her childhood, illustrates the Rav's power as a direct, personal, and unappealable force in the home. His knowledge was not limited to dietary law; he knew about everything: about going on a journey, about business, about marrying, about purifying vessels for Passover. He was the community's ultimate guide through the complexities of the Law, a figure whose pronouncements shaped the rhythm of life itself.

The Pillar of a Just Community

The Rav was the head of a hierarchy of holy men who together formed the moral and intellectual backbone of Polotzk. Alongside him stood the dayyan, who heard people's quarrels and settled them according to the Law, so that they would not have to go to the Gentile courts, which were considered false and biased. The dayyan always gave true judgments, so much so that even Nohem Rabinovitch, the richest man in Polotzk, could not win a case against a servant maid unless he were in the right. Below them were the shohat, who knew how cattle and fowls should be killed; the hazzan and other officers of the synagogue; and the teachers of Hebrew and their pupils. In this world, it did not matter how poor a man was; he was to be respected and set above other men if he were learned in the Law. The synagogue itself was filled with scores of men who sat all day over the Hebrew books, studying and disputing from early dawn until the candles were brought in at night. These poor students, often strangers in Polotzk who slept on benches and tables, were supported by the townspeople, who were proud to sustain them. The Rav stood at the apex of this entire system, the ultimate embodiment of the ideal that sacred learning was the most honored of all occupations.

A Brief Champion of Mary's Education

The Rav's path crossed Mary's in a significant, though ultimately unsuccessful, way. Hearing from various sources that Pinchus, son-in-law of Raphael the Russian, had two bright little girls whose talents were going to waste for want of training, the Rav became much interested and sent for the children to see for himself what the gossip was worth. During the interview, the Rav lifted Mary up on a table in front of him, asked her many questions, and encouraged her to ask questions in her turn. He came to the conclusion that she ought by all means to be put to school. There was no public school for girls, but a few pupils were maintained in a certain private school by irregular contributions from city funds. The Rav enlisted in her cause the influence of his son, who, by virtue of some municipal office, had a vote in fixing this appropriation. But although he pleaded eloquently for her admission as a city pupil, the Rav's son failed to win the consent of his colleagues, and Mary's one little crack of opportunity was tightly stopped. Her father did not remember on what technicality her application was dismissed, and her mother was under the impression that it was plainly refused on account of her religion, the authorities being unwilling to appropriate money for the tuition of a Jewish child. The result was that Mary was left without teacher or book just when her mind was most active, left to think and think without direction. This moment, in which the Rav's authority proved insufficient against the secular power of the city, foreshadows the limits of the old world's ability to nurture her ambitions.

The Rav and the Tyranny of the Czar

The Rav's authority stood in stark contrast to the arbitrary and oppressive power of the Czar's government, which ruled the Pale of Settlement through fear and force. The world was divided into Jews and Gentiles, and the Czar commanded the Jews to stay within the Pale, a fence around Polotzk that made Mary feel like a prisoner. The government's power was felt through a bewildering array of duties and taxes on houses, rents, business, and profits, collected by the town, the county, and the central government. The chief of police was always present, and the constant risk, worry, and dread of a police raid in the night left very little margin of profit or comfort to the dealer in contraband goods. The Czar's dues could ruin a family, as in the case of a poor locksmith who owed three hundred rubles because his brother had escaped from Russia before serving his term in the army. The police attached his household goods, including his young bride's trousseau, and later put their seal on everything they found, leaving the bride, who was in bed with her first baby, without a sheet to wrap the child in for his circumcision. Military service was another serious burden, as men of twenty-one, the age of conscription, were often already married and had children, and their families suffered during their absence. They were sent home as beggars, stripped of their good uniforms, and hurried back into the Pale like escaped prisoners. In this world of fear and arbitrary power, the Rav's authority was a source of order and justice, a divine law that stood against the false and cruel laws of the Gentiles. The Rav's judgments were true, while the Gentile courts favored the rich man against the poor, the Christian against the Jew. The Rav represented a moral universe where learning and piety were the highest values, in stark opposition to a political universe where power and cruelty reigned.

The Rav's Legacy in a New World

The Rav's world, and the authority he represented, was left behind when the Antin family emigrated to America. The father's first act on landing on American soil had been his application for naturalization, and he became a citizen of the United States at the earliest moment allowed by the law. The boasted freedom of the New World meant to him far more than the right to reside, travel, and work wherever he pleased; it meant the freedom to speak his thoughts, to throw off the shackles of superstition, to test his own fate, unhindered by political or religious tyranny. In America, the authority of the Rav was replaced by a new set of authorities: the Constitution of the United States, the public school, and the principle of the separation of church and state. When Mary declared her freethought in the schoolyard and was mocked by her classmates, she defended herself by appealing to the Constitution, reminding them that "This is a free country!" The teacher, Miss Bland, made her understand that it was proper American conduct to avoid religious arguments on school territory, initiating her into the doctrine of the separation of Church and State. The Rav's authority, once absolute, was now just one voice among many, and the ultimate arbiter of truth was no longer a man with big books but a set of laws that guaranteed freedom and equality. The Rav's failed intervention on Mary's behalf was thus a turning point, a sign that the old world's structures, however wise and just, could not contain her ambitions, and that her future lay in a new land where the pursuit of knowledge was open to all, regardless of religion.