"I cannot tell thee now," replied the spirit. "It will disgrace my
children who are in the room. If they depart, I will tell thee."
Thereupon all the people departed in haste and spread the news that
Israel could cast out devils. The respect for him grew, but Rabbi
Gershon was incredulous, saying such things could only be done by a
scholar; and, becoming again out of patience with this ignorant
incubus upon his honorable house, he bought his sister a small inn in
a village far away on the border of a forest. While his wife managed
the inn, the Baal Shem built himself a hut in the forest and retired
there to study the Law day and night; only on the Sabbath did he go
out, dressed in white, and many ablutions did he make, as becomes the
pure and the holy.
It was here that he reached his thirty-sixth year, but still he did
not reveal himself, for he had not meditated sufficiently nor found
out his first apostles. But in his forty-second year he began freely
to speak and to gather disciples, wandering about Podolia and
Wallachia, and teaching by discourse and parable, crossing streams by
spreading his mantle upon the waters, and saving his disciples from
freezing in the wintry frosts by touching the trees with his
finger-tips, so that they burnt without being consumed.
And now he was become the chief of a mighty sect, that ramified
everywhere, and the head of a school of prophets and wonder-workers to
whom he had unveiled the secret of the Name.