 He lost his parents early in life, and at the age of fourteen came to the city of Kovno, where he studied Talmud in the "bet ha-midrash" of the suburb Slobodka.At the age of eighteen, he married the daughter of a wealthy relative, and with the financial assistance of that relative continued his Talmudic studies for another six years, when his wife died and he removed to Wilna.There he entered the bet hamidrash of Rabbi Hayyim Nachman Parnes, at the same time studying modern languages and sciences; and he soon acquired a fair knowledge of Russian, German, French, algebra, and astronomy.