In that book his grandfather and father are represented as foreshadowing the greatness of their descendant. His grandfather is a minister to a king, and Elijah announces to him that at the age of one hundred years his wife will bear him a son who will be a shining light. His father is a wizard and a scholar, and enjoins his son before his death to study with a hidden saint in the town of Ukop. After his studies were completed he became a teacher in Brody, and a judge. He marries the sister of Rabbi Gerschon, who takes him for a simpleton, and in vain tries to instruct him. No one knows of the sanctity of Bescht. He goes into the mountains accompanied by his wife, and there meditates a long while. At one time he was about to step from a mountain into empty space, when the neighboring mountain inclined its summit and received the erring foot of Bescht. After seven years of solitary life he returns to Brody to become a servant in Gerschon's household. Later his career of miracle-working begins: he heals the sick, exorcises evil spirits, brings down rain by prayers, breaks spells, conquers wizards, predicts the future, punishes the unbelievers, rewards the faithful by endowing them with various powers, and does sundry other not less wonderful things. When he prays, the earth trembles, and no one can hear his voice for loudness. He sleeps but two hours at night and prays the rest of the time, while a nimbus of fire surrounds him. Not less marvellous are the deeds of his disciples as related in the 'Sseefer Maisse Zadikim' and other similar productions that are issued in penny sheets in Lemberg to impress the believers with the greatness of their faith. Many of these have sprung up from the desire to instill the necessity of observing certain religious rites, and this the authors think they can accomplish best by connecting a moral with some miraculous tale. For every imaginable vow there is a special story telling of the blissfulness that the devotee has reached or the misery that the lax follower of Khassidism has had occasion to rue. Every good deed according to them creates its own protecting spirits, while every crime produces a corresponding monstrous beast that pursues the sinner and leads him to destruction. Interesting also are those cases when a man has been as prone to sin as he has been to perform virtuous acts, for then the struggle between the beings of his creation leads to amusing results in which all depends on the preponderance of one kind of deeds over the other. The worst of men is not excluded from the benefits of mercy if he makes amends for his crimes by an earnest repentance which is followed by a long penance.