Preface

The preface

Preface

A preface is an introduction to a book or other literary work written by the work's author. An introductory essay written by a different person is a foreword and precedes an author's preface...

 of the book includes a story often referred to as "God made man because He loves stories". The story imagines that a series of historical Hasidic

Hasidic Judaism

Hasidic Judaism or Hasidism, from the Hebrew —Ḥasidut in Sephardi, Chasidus in Ashkenazi, meaning "piety" , is a branch of Orthodox Judaism that promotes spirituality and joy through the popularisation and internalisation of Jewish mysticism as the fundamental aspects of the Jewish faith...

 leaders each followed a tradition, incompletely transmitted from generation to generation, for accomplishing the rescue of his respective community through with a miracle. Rabbi

Rabbi

In Judaism, a rabbi is a teacher of Torah. This title derives from the Hebrew word רבי , meaning "My Master" , which is the way a student would address a master of Torah...

 Israel Baal Shem-Tov

Yisroel ben Eliezer (The Baal Shem Tov)

Rabbi Yisroel ben Eliezer , often called Baal Shem Tov or Besht, was a Jewish mystical rabbi...

 is described as doing this by use of three elements, meditation

Meditation

Meditation is any form of a family of practices in which practitioners train their minds or self-induce a mode of consciousness to realize some benefit....

 in a specific area of a forest, a specific prayer, and lighting a fire. Later leaders, namely the Maggid

Maggid

Maggid , sometimes spelled as magid, is a traditional Eastern European Jewish religious itinerant preacher, skilled as a narrator of Torah and religious stories. A preacher of the more scholarly sort was called a "darshan", and usually occupied the official position of rabbi...

 of Mezeritch, Rabbi Moshe-leib of Sasov

Sassov (Hasidic dynasty)

The Sassov Hasidic dynasty began with Rabbi Moshe Leib Erblich of Sassov , a disciple of Rabbi Dovber of Mezeritch, the disciple of the Baal Shem Tov, the founder of Hasidism....

, and Rabbi

Rebbe

Rebbe , which means master, teacher, or mentor, is a Yiddish word derived from the Hebrew word Rabbi. It often refers to the leader of a Hasidic Jewish movement...

 Israel of Rizhin supposedly each knew how to fulfill one fewer of these elements, so that the last of them had to say to God "...All I can do is to tell the story...." of the tradition, and found that that was, as he hoped, sufficient for obtaining the needed miracle. Wiesel explains this sufficiency by closing his story by the statement "God made man because He loves stories.