First came the socialist influence: Baruch Stolpner, an educated young man from Gomel, sharpened his literary taste and drew him "into the doctrine of socialism," and under his influence AZR wrote "In the Shadow of Money" ("BeTzel HaKesef"), which he calls "the first social sketch in our literature." Then Feinerman arrived in Poltava — a disciple of Tolstoy who had spent two years at Yasnaya Polyana:
"The influence Feinerman had on me at that time was immense. Simple, honest labor became in my eyes a sacred thing. There was a time when I wanted to leave everything and devote myself, likewise, to simple labor." AZR, "Social Influences," Ben-Yehuda read/19885. (This is the Tolstoyan root of his doctrine of labor; see "In Russia, Brainin, Tolstoy" and "Gordon.")
Out of that very ideal he sent his young son to learn a trade — and discovered that one cannot force upon a child an occupation contrary to his nature ("your son will never be a carpenter"; the boy was ultimately drawn to the violin).
AZR opened a crafts department (carpentry) with a boarding facility for poor pupils, and in parallel taught Judaism, Bible, and "Ein Yaakov" there. His support for the Talmud Torah reform and for the crafts department "turned the hearts of Orthodoxy away from him," and this pained him, for:
"I felt the poetic value of religion. In my story 'Meir the Shamash' I deliberately portrayed an Orthodox man as an ideal human being… But I could not shut my eyes to its faults… why the squalor and the ignorance?" AZR, "Torah and Labor," Ben-Yehuda read/19886.
And when he discovered that Feinerman was inclining toward Christianity (reading from the Gospels), he drew a balanced lesson that would accompany him all his days: Judaism must be entrusted neither to old, tasteless melamdim, nor to educators wholly estranged from it. Feinerman himself, seeing "that it is not good to halt between two opinions," and — once his sons grew up and a birth certificate was required for school — in the end converted:
"And Feinerman left Poltava and settled in Yelisavetgrad… Then he and his wife and his sons went and entered the covenant of the Pravoslav Christian faith." AZR, "Torah and Labor," read/19886. (The phenomenon of apostasy embodied in the very figure who had inspired him; it would later echo in the "Brenner Affair.")
Over all these prevailed the influence of Ahad Ha'am: "a writer… revolutionary, who brought a revolution into Hibbat Zion." His essay "This Is Not the Way" ("Lo Zeh HaDerekh") demanded a Hibbat Zion "that fills the whole heart… select individuals, a fellowship of priests," and not mere charity. AZR was admitted to the Bnei Moshe society (Ahad Ha'am's secret order), in a moment of "elevation of spirit such as I had never felt in my life":
"I then thought myself truly a son of Moses walking in his ways, and at the same time I felt that I was not alone, but that together with me there was a whole company of men of high degree, scattered like points of light across the breadth of the Exile." AZR, "This Is Not the Way," Ben-Yehuda read/19887. (The text gives the year as 5621, apparently a corruption of 5651/1891.)
He asked Ahad Ha'am to found a model colony of Bnei Moshe members and to appoint him among the settlers; Ahad Ha'am replied that it was not practically possible. And AZR admits with characteristic honesty: "A writer I was, somehow or other; but to be a tiller of the soil… for that I was surely never fit." The decision to make aliyah came from the fate of Hebrew in the Diaspora:
"Let me go to the Land of Israel, I resolved in my heart; there I shall see my nation crowned with the glory of old age and the strength of youth. I shall see how it returns to life, and with it — its language." Ibid. (On his advocacy for Hebrew see "For Hebrew"; on Bnei Moshe→Herzl see "Delegate to the Congress.")
The three chapters explain his distinctiveness: AZR mended what others tore apart — Torah and labor, religion and secularity, Hibbat Zion and work, literature and Hebrew. He rejected both Orthodox stagnation and assimilation and apostasy, and sought a synthesis, which he would later find in the Second Aliyah and in Degania (see "A Sabbath in Degania").