Krochmal, as has been already related, was not prosperous in his business. Things went from bad to worse, and he was compelled in 1836 to seek a situation. “There ought to be literary men poor,” some writer has maintained, “to show whether they are genuine or not.” This test Krochmal successfully passed through. Even as a young man Nachman’s strength of character was admired by his contemporaries not less than his rare learning. In his subsequent distress, he gave evidence of the truth of this judgment. Despite his poverty, his friends could not prevail upon him to accept the post of Rabbi in any Jewish community. “I am unwilling,” he wrote to a friend, “to be the cause of dissensions in any Jewish congregation. I should prefer to die of hunger rather than become a Rabbi under present circumstances.” He expressed his views on this subject even more decidedly on a later occasion when the Berlin congregation offered him the post of Chief Rabbi in that town. In a letter, conveying his refusal of this honourable office, he says: “I never thought of becoming the Conscience‐counsellor (_Gewissensrath_) of men. My line of studies was not directed to that end, nor would it accord with my disposition and sentiments. The only post that I should care to accept would be that of teacher in the Jewish Theological Seminary, which, as I was informed, you were thinking of establishing in Berlin.” The plan to found such an institution was not realised till forty years later, and in the interval Nachman had to look for his living in other regions than Jewish theology. Being in poor circumstances, and as his children and friends had left him, he felt very lonely at Zolkiew. “Nobody cares for me here,” he writes, “and I am equally indifferent.” His one desire was to obtain a situation at Brody, possibly as book‐keeper with a salary of some thirty pounds a year, on condition that he would be expected to devote only half the day to his business duties, thus securing for himself leisure for philosophical studies.