At school the girls studied Chumash, Nevi m, halacha, Jewish history, and a full range of secular subjects. Hebrew, Lithuanian, German and Russian were all required; when there was a choice for the fifth language between English and French, Miriam opted for English, which served her well years later in British Mandate Palestine. Students read literary classics, ot like today, she said, hen the young people know so little. Gymnastics, arts and crafts and choir were all part of the curriculum.
When she mentioned that Hebrew was spoken in all the Jewish and secular courses, I commented that it sounded like Yavneh in Telz. es, she said, he two were sister schools.
(Rebbetzin Chaya Ausband in Wickliffe, Ohio, confirmed that Hebrew was used throughout the day at Yavneh in Lithuania, and said that teachers wrote to students in Hebrew during vacation to keep up their skills.)
Kovna was a city surrounded by the Neman River on one side and the Vilia River on the other. Miriam lived in Slabodka, a suburb separated by the Vilia River from the larger city. Rav Sher, her uncle, headed the yeshiva that was called by the name of the neighborhood, much as we say akewood when we mean ais Medrash Govoha today.
A wooden bridge that spanned the water provided excitement at the end of the winter. When the river, which was frozen from after Sukkot until Pesach, began to thaw, chunks of ice built up; if they crashed into the bridge, it splintered. My father, who studied in Slabodka, had told us about once getting off the bridge just before it was swept away. I did not include this story when I wrote his biography because I thought readers might find it hard to believe. ot at all, Rebbetzin Goldschmidt told me. t happened more than once until an iron bridge replaced the wooden one. When I mentioned that Mark Twain said the difference between fiction and reality is that fiction has to be believable, she laughed. This sophisticated nonagenarian knew who Mark Twain was.
Many leaders of religious life in the twentieth century studied in Slabodka; some recorded their memories of how Rebbetzin Goldschmidt grandfather, the Alter, encouraged each person to develop his talents and to make his unique contribution for Torah. It was not an enclosed life; although Torah was the center, Rebbetzin Goldschmidt said people were expected to be aware of what goes on in the world and to appreciate the best efforts of the human mind.
From the biblical account of man creation the Alter emphasized gadlut ha dam, the responsibility and opportunities we each have for creativity. He touched the lives of rabbanim and roshei yeshiva, among them Rav Yitzchak Hutner, Rav Yaakov Kamenetsky, Rav Aharon Kotler, Rav David Liebowitz, Rav Yaakov Ruderman and Rav Yechiel Yaakov Weinberg.
The heads of the yeshiva were not removed from the ordinary concerns of life. People came to the Shers with all sorts of questions, even consulting with the rebbetzin on what clothing to buy. Rav Sher would meet with an engaged couple before the wedding to discuss how to create a good marriage. He recommended that a husband and wife eat breakfast together, to find time to talk and share their lives.
(At a recent conference sponsored by the Center for the Jewish Future for teachers of taharat hamishpacha, one recommendation was to institute premarital counseling for engaged couples the practice of Rav Sher seventy years ago.)
When Miriam graduated in 1933 it was already evident to her that Hitler was a danger to the civilized world. She wrote a paper in her final term on how ominous the situation was in Germany.