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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 October 2009
The use of tales and fragments of tales concerning the Baal Shem Tov is not infrequent in the works of Shmuel Yosef Agnon; in fact, an entire collection of such stories is included in his volume, Ha-’esh ve-ha-‘eṣim. The story which will concern us in this study, however, is “‘Al’even ’aḥat” (“On One Rock”) which first appeared in 1934. The story is of interest because it relates to a legend from Shivfiei ha-Besht (The Praises of the Besht), the very first collection of tales about the Baal Shem Tov to be published, even though the figure of the Besht himself does not appear in the story by Agnon.
1. “Sippurim na′im shel Rabbi Yisra′el Besht,” Kol sippurav shel Shemu′el Yosef ′Agnon, vol. 8, Ha-′esh ve-ha-′esim (Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, 1962), pp. 91 –107. The collection appeared previously in Molad 18 (1960): 357–64.
2. Kol sippurav, vol. 2, ′Elu ve-′elu, pp. 302–4. First appeared in Ha-hed9 (1933–34), no. 10, p. 23.
3. Sefer Shivfiei ha-Besht, ed. Horodetsky, Sh. A. (Tel Aviv, 1947). The work which first appeared in 1815 has been translated and edited by Dan Ben-Amos and Jerome R. Mintz, In Praise of the Baal Shem Tov: The Earliest Collections of Legends about the Founder ofHasidism (Bloomington, 1970).Google Scholar
4. Horodetsky, pp. 42, 51.
5. Kol sippurav, vol. 6, Samukh ve-nir–eh.
6. Hullin 91b; Pirqei de-Rabbi ′Eli′ezer 35; Yalqut Shime′oni 1:119.
7. Aristotle Poetics 9.