He received a teaching certificate from the local rabbinical college, and became a school teacher in some of the smaller towns that housed major yeshivas, including Ponivezh and Telz.

[3] In May 1879 he was arrested for purported anti-czarist activities, and exiled for some months to Pudozh, in the Olonets district, before finally being cleared of the charges in 1880; it was a blow to him that the Saint Petersburg community chose not to reinstate him in his post upon his return.

In works such as "Little Fables for Big Children", he continues to advocate for the adoption of Enlightenment values, as he does in his memoirs, published in the last year of his life.

Among his other writing on social issues is "The Point on Top of the Yodh" (Kotzo shel yud), dealing with the rights of women.

The poem, which he dedicated to his friend the Hebraist Miriam Markel-Mosessohn,[6][7] describes a narrow-minded rabbi who destroys a woman's chance for happiness by invalidating her get (divorce document) – due to a trifling spelling mistake.