Stories of the Baal Shem Tov

When the man saw me he asked: "What is a small child doing all alone in the forest? Are you not afraid to be in the forest all by yourself?"

Dressed in the clothes of a simple wayfarer, the Baal Shem Tov would travel from town to town and from hamlet to hamlet, asking questions

"No, no," came the impatient reply from within. "Everything is in perfect condition. There's no need for any repairs"

Finally, the great moment arrived. It was the morning of Rosh Hashanah, and Rabbi Ze’ev stood on the reading platform in the center of the Baal Shem Tov’s synagogue amidst the Torah scrolls, surrounded by a sea of tallit-draped bodies.

One day, Rabbi Israel Baal Shem Tov arrived in Tarnow. This was before the chassidic master had revealed himself to the world, and he appeared as a simple itinerant, but with a gift for telling stories . . .

As they walked, they came across a group of children playing in the sand. The Baal Shem Tov went over to them and said to the nearest one, “What is your name?”

Their leader spotted a beautiful bird perched atop a tall tree. "Come," he said to his disciples, "I wish to capture this bird, so that we may delight in her song and gaze upon her wondrous hues"

"Perhaps I can help you," said the Baal Shem Tov. On small slips of paper he wrote, in simple Yiddish, "morning prayers," "addition for Mondays and Thursdays," "for Shabbat," and inserted them in the innkeeper's siddur

The young prodigy overheard the exchange between the rabbi and the wagon driver. He could scarcely believe his ears. A pound of candles to atone for violating the holy Shabbat?

Late one night, there was a knock on his door. On his threshold stood an old man with a long white beard and a countenance as radiant as the heavens

The Baal Shem Tov told them to shut their eyes and not open them until he tells them to. Then he placed his right hand on the shoulder of the disciple to his right, and his left on the disciple sitting there. The circle was closed . . .

“When I was a young man of twenty,” the Baal Shem Tov began his story, “shortly after being accepted in the society of hidden tzaddikim, several of us came to the city of Brody . . .”

The Baal Shem Tov was once asked: "Why do Chassidim burst into song and dance at the slightest provocation? Is this the behavior of a sane person?"

The Baal Shem Tov did not tell them where to go, nor did they ask; they allowed divine providence to direct their wagon where it may, confident that the purpose of their trip would be revealed in due time.

The Baal Shem Tov loved light. So his disciples always made sure to have many candles burning whenever they expected their master...

The Baal Shem Tov was once shown from heaven that a certain simple man called Moshe the Shepherd served G‑d, blessed be He, better than he did . . .

As the procession approached the location for the chupah they were encountered by a solitary Jew in a wagon, a stranger that no one recognized....

A tall thin man, wrapped in a black cloak, suddenly appeared at the open door. He looked silently around the room, walked to a corner and just stood there, staring at the Baal Shem Tov

The holy beggar's face was transformed. His eyes began to glow with a divine light, and his coarse features assumed a sublime grace...