arriage, and among her
suitors was a young Talmudist, the son of one of the most celebrated
rabbis. (My father did not mention the name, either because he did not
know, or because he did not wish to say it, or mayhap he had forgotten
it.) The great rabbi himself came to Brzesc with his learned son to urge
the suit. They both lodged with the chief elder of the congregation.
But the pride of our ancestor was overweening. In his heart he
considered himself the greatest, and his daughter the best, in the land,
and he said that his daughter must marry one more exalted than this
suitor. Thus he showed his scorn for a sage revered in Israel and for
his son, and these two were sore offended at the discourtesy. The Jewish
community had long been murmuring against our ancestor Saul Wahl, and it
was resolved to make amends for his unkindness. One of the most
respected men in the town gave his daughter to the young Talmudist for
wife, and from that day our ancestor had enemies among his people, who
constantly sought to do him harm. It happened at that time that the wife
of the king whom the nobles had chosen died, and several Jews of Brzesc,
in favor with the powerful of the land, in order to administer
punishment to Saul Wahl, went about among the nobles praising his
daughter for her exceeding beauty and cleverness, and calling her the
worthiest to wear the queenly crown. One of the princes being kindly
disposed to Saul Wahl betrayed their evil plot, and it was
frustrated.'"[72]

Rabbi Pinchas' ingenuous narrative, charming in its simple directness,
closes wistfully: "He who has not seen that whole generation, Saul Wahl
amid his sons, sons-in-law, and grandsons, has failed to see the union
of the Law with mundane glory, of wealth with honor and princely
rectitude. May the Lord God bless us by permitting us to rejoice thus in
our children and children's children!"

Other rabbis of that time have left us versions of the Saul Wahl legend.
They report that he founded a _Beth ha-Midrash_ (college for Jewish
studies) and a little synagogue, leaving them, together with numerous
bequests, to the community in which he had lived, with the condition
that the presidency of the college be made hereditary in his family.
Some add that they had seen in Brzesc a gold chain belonging to him, his
coat of arms emblazoned with the lion of Judah, and a stone tablet on
which an account of his meritorious deeds was graven. Chain, escutcheon,
and stone