Let us wait for Shabbat, thought the Baal Shem Tov. Perhaps his saintliness coincides with that of the seventh day. Wrong again: his host slept even more than during the week. Unable to contain himself any longer, the Baal Shem spoke to him, “When I came here I had a question to ask you. I shall not ask it. But now I have another: why do you eat so much?” “I’ll tell you,” answered the man. “It has to do with my father. Who was as a good Jew, gentle and frail, aspiring to please the Lord. Nothing else interested him. Neither money nor honors, not even health. He lived only for and by the Torah. One day he was on his way to services when he was grabbed by bandits who tied him to a tree and ordered him to kiss across. He refused, of course. They beat him mercilessly; still he refused. Then they put kerosene over him and set him on fire. And because my father was so weak and thin, he burned only a moment; almost as soon as he was lit, he was burned out....