Finally, the Master of the Universe took notice of my mother’s suffering, and sent me a friend, so I should also have, like all the other children, a study partner. His name was Shmuel Koppels. His father was a something of a social misfit, and a bit unbalanced as well. In addition he was a always "down on his luck", with an army of hungry children, each one smaller than the next, who went about unclothed and un-shod, virtually with their belly buttons sticking out. If it were not for the kind-hearted women of the town, who would, every Friday before blessing the candles, take up a collection for them of Sabbath fixings - khalleh, bread, fish...they would have starved to death! All week long, there came from within the house of this unfortunate family such a commotion, which could could be heard from one corner of the village to the other.

Shmul, however, was a quiet boy, the kind who wouldn’t hurt even a fly on the wall. It was said that he took after his mother - "a quiet, gentle dove", a "righteous woman" - who must have been taken from this earth on account of someone else’s sins. Since childhood Shmuel had thirsted for learning, but to send him to a proper teacher, his father simply didn’t have the what-for. And as for the town Hebrew School, where all the other poor children used to go...he didn’t even have a pair of shoes to get there with. He used spend his whole day in the House of Study, with a Pentateuch in his hand, going from this one to that one, asking the Students of Wisdom to teach him "a bit of the Law and some commentary". You never saw him playing with the other children: they avoided him, and he them.

I don’t know exactly how it happened, but we took to each other very strongly. A feeling of sympathy perhaps drew me towards him. More than once, when the bullies tried to make fun of him, I would stand up for him. Sometimes I even studied with him...although he was a bit slow, he would repeat and re-read the section over and over, until he knew it virtually to the last detail. In summer, Saturday afternoons, I used to sometimes ask him to come with me for a walk out to the fields, or to one of the rich estates....but he would never come. To him it was a waste of time. For anything other than learning, he had absolutely no interest. All other things were, for him, nothing but "childish foolishness", as he used to say. He had one great, burning desire: to learn and to learn.

One time I had an idea: I went to my mother with a plan, that she should ask my father to take on Shmuel Koppels to teach him for free, so that I would have a partner to study with. Mother thought it was a fine idea, and she agreed to intercede on my behalf with my father. After a long discussion, he finally agreed: he would even add on an extension on to the table, as a place for the two of us. I ran off to at once to give Shmuel the good news. And the very next morning there was Shmuel, sitting at the big table, together wityh all his regular students. At first, many of my father’s "employers" grumbled among themselves...why should they have to put up with such a pauper’s son to be placed among their own?...but my father let them have it good! So they had to bite their lips and keep quiet.

Shmuel hung on every word that came from my father’s mouth. And it wasm’t long before he had overtaken all the rich kids. He was my mate, my steadfast partner in studies. He would drag me to my studies by force. He pulled me out from my dream-world, and made me learn. And indeed, thanks to those two years that Shmuel spent with my us, I actually accomplished something in my own studies. My father was very satisfied, that the pairing of his son with this lost boy had worked out so well. First of all, he had redeemed a Jewish soul...and secondly, Shmuel had served as an examplefor all his other students, of what one could accomplish in his studies with desire and determination. And my mother was even more satisfied, that thanks to Shmuel I had also become a good student. She felt for him as for her own children...often she would quietly take something from her own child’s portion and give it to Shmuel, he should have with what to keep the soul alive, and not be weakened from sitting the whole day in front of the Talmud.

But without warning, I suddenly lost my beloved comrade, Shmuel Koppels. A rich aunt took him away to live with her in Pruzhenia, and sent him to study in the local yeshiva. I missed him for a long, long time. Wherever I went I would see him before my eyes...but when I looked for him, he was nowhere to be found. I felt as though I had been left all alone in the world.