Youth
Even as a boy Samuel displayed rare ability (Yer. Ketuvim v. 30a; Yer. Peah viii. 21b). His first teacher was an otherwise unknown man, and Samuel, who knew more about a certain legal question than did his teacher, would not submit to ill treatment by him (Ḥul. 107b). Then Samuel's father, who was himself a prominent teacher of the Law, recognized as such even by Rab (Abba Arika; Ket. 51b), undertook to instruct the boy. As he seems to have been unequal to this task he sent him to Nisibis to attend the school of the rabbi who had predicted the boy's birth, that he might there acquire a knowledge of the Law ("Tanya," Hilkot "Abel," ed. Horowitz, p. 137, quoted from Yer.; comp. also Mordecai on M. Ḳ. 889). Samuel seems to have remained only a short time at Nisibis. On his return to Nehardea he studied under Levi b. Sisi, who was in Babylon before the death of Judah ha-Nasi (see A. Krochmal in "He-Ḥaluẓ," i. 69), and who exerted a great influence on Samuel's development. Samuel made such rapid progress and became so proficient in his studies that he soon associated as an equal with his teacher (Hoffmann, "Mar Samuel," p. 70).
Read more about this topic: Samuel Of Nehardea
Famous quotes containing the word youth:
“If youth is the period of hero-worship, so also is it true that hero-worship, more than anything else, perhaps, gives one the sense of youth. To admire, to expand one’s self, to forget the rut, to have a sense of newness and life and hope, is to feel young at any time of life.”
—Charles Horton Cooley (1864–1929)
“Columbus stood in his age as the pioneer of progress and enlightenment. The system of universal education is in our age the most prominent and salutary feature of the spirit of enlightenment, and it is peculiarly appropriate that the schools be made by the people the center of the day’s demonstration. Let the national flag float over every schoolhouse in the country and the exercises be such as shall impress upon our youth the patriotic duties of American citizenship.”
—Benjamin Harrison (1833–1901)
“What Youth deemed crystal, Age finds out was dew.”
—Robert Browning (1812–1889)