"I do not know. These things are too high for me. Unless it be that this Rabbi Baer has cut out of the liturgy the Piutim (Penitential Poems), and likewise prays after the fashion of the Portuguese Jews."
"Nay," I said, laughing. "If you were not such a man-of-the-earth, you would know that to cut out one line of one prayer is enough to set all the Rabbis excommunicating."
"Ay," said he; "but I know also that in some towns where the Chassidim are in the ascendant, they depose their Rabbis and appoint a minion of Baer instead."
"Ha! so that is what the young man is after," said I.
"I didn't say so," said the Pedlar nervously. "I merely tell you—though I should not have said anything—what the young man told me to beguile the way."
"And to gain you over," I put in.
"Nay," laughed Eliphaz; "I feel no desire for Perfection, which is the catchword of these gentry."
Thus put upon the alert, I was easily able to detect a secret meeting of Chassidim (consisting of that minimum of ten which the sect, in this following the orthodox practice, considers sufficient nucleus for a new community), and to note the members of the conventicle as they went in and out again.
With some of these I spake privily, but though I allayed their qualms and assured them I was no spy but an anxious inquirer after Truth, desiring nothing more vehemently than Perfection, yet either they would not impart to me the true secrets of the Order, or they lacked intelligence to make clear to me its special doctrine. Nevertheless, of the personality of the Founder they were willing to speak, and I shall here set down the story of his life as I learnt it at the first from these simple enthusiasts. It may be that, as I write, my pen unwittingly adds episodes or colors that sank into my mind afterwards, but to the best of my power I will set down here the story as it was told me, and as it passed current then—nay, what say I?—as it passes current now in the Chassidic communities.