Although David Levinsky rises from rags to riches, this does not necessarily mean that he becomes successful as a person. That just describes the monetary aspect of his life. His familial and social life begins to go downhill in Russia when his mother dies, which seems to motivate him to go to America and start making a new life for himself.
When he comes to America, he starts absorbing the culture almost immediately. He eventually becomes very Americanized, perhaps too much. He cuts off his sidelocks, buys new American clothing, and tries to speak a fluent English. I think cutting off his sidelocks was too extreme. Just because he is making a home for himself in a new country does not mean he should try to tone down his religion. Though he still visits the synagogue on occasion, he does not follow his religion as much as he did while in Russia. He should have drawn a line after he got new American clothing and started learning to speak fluent English, and just left it at that.
In the end, Levinsky seems to realize that money isn’t everything. Though he becomes a successful businessman, he wishes he had gone to college and gotten an education. He also has no family and no one to love, since his parents are both passed away and none of his love interests worked out well for him.
He could have had it all, including someone to love, had he gone about it differently. Constantly going after married women understandably got him nowhere. He is a changed person, caught somewhere between the person he was in Russia and the person he now is in America. He is not as religious as he once was, yet he is not fully incorporated into the American culture either.
