“My ten-year-old son can understand and ask better questions in Mishnayos than any one of you! Enough is enough!”

There was one man by the name of Leibel who found the new learning group extremely annoying. He did not like sharing the few resources they had, and the simple questions the older, mostly unlearned men asked Hirsch Leib, made him bristle with indignation.

“These men should be out working. Not everyone is cut out for this,” Leibel whispered to his chavrusa one day. “Enough is enough! Do you realize they’re still stuck on mastering Chumash? After all this time, you’d think they would be catching on a little bit quicker.”

Leibel stood up angrily and walked to the back of the shtibel to get a gemara. Like the day before, it was not there. He looked around the room and saw an older man in Hirsch Leib’s chaburah learning with the desired gemara.

Leibel strode over, bent low, and whispered in the older man’s ear.

“Excuse me, I don’t want to be rude, but I need that gemara.”

“But I’m using it.” The older man looked up, confused.

“Very nice, but I need it more than you.” Leibel placed his hand on the gemara’s spine. “Let me have it, and let’s not make a scene. I was learning here a long time before you.”

“Why can’t you leave him alone?!” Someone else in the chaburah pointed his finger at Leibel. “If someone is using the gemara, you have to wait!”

“I’ve been waiting since yesterday!” Leibel was no longer whispering. “Let’s be serious over here and address the facts. Does he really need this gemara, or can he just listen in to someone else learning for a little while?”

“You listen to someone else, and let him have the gemara!”

“I belong here!”

“So does he!”