In the first years of the underground yeshiva, there were only three families in on the secret: the Mishulovin family, my parents' family, and the family of my brother Berel. After a number of years had passed and we saw that the police were not persecuting the Jews as heavily as they had done under Stalin’s reign, we relaxed somewhat and expanded to other homes. This enabled us to accept yet more students from other cities, and we opened additional classes with three to five boys learning in each one. Thus we merited to have dozens of fine young men studying in the yeshiva, from from all over the USSR: they came from Tashkent, Moscow, Riga, Tchernovitz, Gorky, Odessa, Uzghorod, Chust, Apsha, Katta-Kurgan, and other cities.

Still, our ever-present, near-paranoid fear led to some uncomfortable situations. The case of the three students who came from out of town and would learn and sleep in the home of a certain family was one of many. One night, after they finished learning, they went out for some fresh air in the yard and began to play a game of soccer. Apparently, they forgot to be careful; it was late at night, and the sounds of their game could be heard on the street. Their host was returning home just then and when he heard the noise on the street he was terrified. He entered the yard and yelled at the boys, “The neighbors know that I don’t have children your age and your shouting will cause me problems!” Overcome with anger, he ordered them to take their things and leave.

The boys were out on the street and they didn’t know what to do. They decided to go to R. Moshe Nissilevitch. Although he lived about three kilometers away and it was in the middle of the night, they went to his house with the hope that he would let them sleep there. R. Moshe had pity on them and took them in, but they had learned their lesson.