Matzo-Barrel Philosopher

EVERYTHING BUT MONEY by Sam Levenson. 285 pages. Simon & Schuster. $4.95.

Papa Levenson's career was the very opposite of the standard American success story at the beginning of the century. He used to start with money and end up broke. This made life pretty grim in the squalid East Harlem tenement in Manhattan where Papa, a Russian-Jewish immigrant tailor, had settled Mama and his eight kids. But somehow the Levensons never despaired about waging their own American Revolution in the fourth floor back. Particularly Mama. When things looked blackest, she would start a fire in the stove, put a pot of water on to boil, and say, "He who gave us teeth will give us bread."

The Levensons not only survived; they managed to do very well indeed. Despite the sordid tenements, putrid poolrooms, stenchy saloons, dirty streets and flying garbage, they provided their children with emotional security and imbued them with dignity. This sometimes rollicking, often tender account of how they did so much with so little is told by their youngest son, Sam, now 54. who became a Brooklyn high school teacher and then a folksy matzo-barrel humorist on TV and the lecture circuit.

Levenson makes it plain that, sociologist Big Think to the contrary, the best weapons to use against poverty are always homemade. "My environment was miserable," he says. "I was not. Poverty never succeeded in degrading our family. We were independently poor. Our watchword was a variant of the adage, 'Better to light a candle than curse the darkness.' We did curse the darkness quite a bit, but we also lit candles, fires, lamps--and we studied by all of them."

When it came to exalting personal honor, behavior and character in the face of depressing surroundings, Mama Levenson had one surefire blunderbuss in her arsenal. She fought dirt because of its corrupting influence not only on floors and walls ("Her fight against dirt was based on the premise that circumstances make poor, but people make dirt") but on human moral fiber as well. Mama and Papa both believed, furthermore, that children should be disciplined with whatever was handy--shaving strops, wooden ladles, rolled-up newspapers--instead of psychology. Writes Levenson: "I didn't know that fathers were not supposed to hit kids if they were bad. Most fathers hit kids--anybody's."

Levenson concedes that by today's lights his upbringing may have been all wrong. But that is an artificial concession to the power of modern psychology. Most readers, savoring this witty memoir of a family rich in everything but money, will find it as tasty as a bagel plastered with cream cheese. It is also one of the happiest books of the year.

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