His advice was taken, and the desperadoes destroyed the fort. Then the King saw that the Rabbi was a godly man, and on the death of his Viceroy he appointed him in his stead, and married him to the late Viceroy's daughter.
But the Rabbi, remembering his marriage vows and his duty to the house of Israel, made her his wife only in name. One day when they were sitting at table together, she asked him, "Why art thou so distant towards me?"
"Swear," he answered, "that thou wilt never tell a soul, and thou shalt hear the truth."
On her promising, he told her that he was a Jew. Thereupon she sent him away secretly, and gave him gold and jewels, of which, however, he was robbed on his journey home.
After he had returned to his joyful wife, who, though she had given him up for dead, had never ceased to mourn for him, an angel appeared unto him and said, "By reason of thy good deeds, and thy unshaken fidelity to the God of Israel throughout all thy sufferings and temptations, thou shalt have a son who will be a light to enlighten the eyes of all Israel. Therefore shall his name be Israel, for in him shall the words of scripture be fulfilled! 'Thou art my servant Israel, in whom I will be glorified.'"
But the Rabbi and his wife grew older and older, and there was no son born unto them. But when they were a hundred years old, the woman conceived and bore a son, who was called Israel, and afterwards known of men as the Master of the Name—the Baal Shem. And this was in the mystic year 5459, whereof the properties of the figures are most wonderful, inasmuch as the five which is the symbol of the Pentagon is the Key of the whole, and comes also from subtracting the first two from the last two, and whereas the first multiplied by the third is the square of five, so is the second multiplied by the fourth the square of six, and likewise the first added to the third is ten, which is the number of the Commandments, and the second added to the fourth is thirteen, which is the number of the Creeds. And even according to the Christians who count this year as 1700, it is the beginning of a new era.
The child's mother died soon after he was weaned, and Rabbi Eliezer was not long in following her to the grave. On his death-bed he took the child in his arms, and blessed him, saying, "Though I am denied the blessing of bringing thee up, always think of God and fear not, for he will ever be with thee." So saying, he gave up the ghost.
Now the people of Ukop in Bukowina, where the Master was born, though they knew nothing of his glorious destiny, yet carefully tended him for the sake of his honored father. They engaged for him a teacher of the Holy Law, but though in the beginnings he seemed to learn with rare ease, he often slipped away into the forest that bordered the village, and there his teacher would find him after a long search, sitting fearlessly in some leafy glade. His dislike for the customary indoor studies became so marked that at last he was set down as stupid, and allowed to follow his own vagrant courses. No one understood that the spirits of Heaven were his teachers.
As he grew older, he was given a post as assistant to the school-master, but his office was not to teach—how could such an ignorant lad teach?—but to escort the children from their homes to the synagogue and thence to the school. On the way he taught them solemn hymns, which he had composed and which he sang with them, and the sweet voices of the children reached Heaven. And God was as pleased with them as with the singing of the Levites in the Temple, and it was a pleasing time in Heaven. But Satan, fearing lest his power on earth would thereby be lessened, disguised himself as a werwolf, which used to appear before the childish procession and put it to flight. The parents thereupon kept their children at home, and the services of song were silenced. But Israel, recalling his father's dying counsel, persuaded the parents to entrust the children to him once more. Again the werwolf bounded upon the singing children, but Israel routed him with his club.
In his fourteenth year the supposed unlettered Israel was appointed caretaker in the Beth-Hamidrash, where the scholars considered him the proverbial ignoramus who "spells Noah with seven mistakes." He dozed about the building all day and got a new reputation for laziness, but at night when the school-room was empty and the students asleep, Israel took down the Holy Books; and all the long night he pored over the sacred words. Now it came to pass that, in a far-off city, a certain holy man, Rabbi Adam, who had in his possession celestial manuscripts (which had only before him been revealed to Abraham our Father, and to Joshua, the son of Nun) told his son on his death-bed that he was unworthy to inherit them. But he was to go to the town of Ukop and deliver them to a certain man named Israel whom he would find there, and who would instruct him, if he proved himself fit. After his father's death the son duly journeyed to Ukop and lodged with the treasurer of the synagogue, who one day asked him the purpose of his visit.