Halevi, transmitted his
knowledge to his sons, and so it passed from generation to
generation.

Isaak Todros searched for diligently, and gathered carefully, these
precious plants of the ancient knowledge and traditions of his
family. He carried them with him, and laid them on the dirty floor of
his cabin in order to dry them.

On this account the air of his cabin was saturated during the summer
and fall with the pungent, choking scent of drying herbs and wild
flowers.

His cell was a vivid reminder of the bare cells of anchorites and
hermits. Its only furniture consisted of a hard bed, a white table,
standing near one of the windows, a couple of chairs, and a few
planks fastened to the wall piled up with books. Among these books
were twelve enormous volumes bound in parchment. They constituted the
Talmud. There were also the "Ozarha-Kabod," a work written by one of
Isaak's ancestors--that Todros Halevi who was the first Talmudist to
believe in the Kabala; "Toldot-Adam," an epic poem, telling the
history of the first man and his exile; "Sefer-Jezira," (Book of
Creation), telling by pictures of the origin of the world; "Ka-arat
Kezef," in which Ezobi warns the Israelites against the pernicious
influence of secular science; "Schiur-Koma," a plastic description of
God, instructing the reader regarding his physical appearance--the
gigantic size of the head, feet, hands, and especially God's beard,
which, according to the book, is ten thousand five hundred parasangs
long. But the place of honour was occupied by a book showing much
thumbing. It was the Book of Light--Zohar--the greatest, and, at the
same time, the deepest dissertation on Hohma-Nistar (Kabala), which
was published in the thirteenth century by Moses Leon, in the name of
Symeon-ben-Jochai, who lived several centuries before.

Such was the library of Isaak Todros, in the reading of which he
spent his nights, drawing from it all his learning and wisdom,
consuming in its perusal all the forces of his body. From that
library emanated an odour which intoxicated his mind with mystical
emotions and the bitter, sharp venom of aversion to everything which
was a stranger to, or bore ill-will to the world, shut up in those
books, filled with supernatural lights and shadows. In reading them,
he exhausted many hours a week--even holy days and nights. But
through the holy nights there sat at his feet his pupil and
favourite, Reb Moshe, the melamed, who snuffed the yell