When the Baal Shem Tov, the Master of the Good Name, the founder of Chassidism, had a difficult task to perform, he used to go to a place in the forest, make a fire and meditate and pray, and what he had set out to accomplish was done.

A generation later, when the Maggid of Mezeritsch was faced with the same task, he would go to the same place in the woods and say: "We can no longer light the fire, but we can still speak the prayers" – and what he wanted done became reality. Another generation passed and Rabbi Moishe Leib of Sassov had to perform this task, and he, too, went into the woods and said: "We can no longer light the fire, nor do we know the secret meditations that go with the prayer, but we do know the place in the woods to which it all belongs, and that must be sufficient", and sufficient it was. Another generation later Rabbi Israel of Rizhin was called upon to perform the task. He sat down in his golden chair in his castle and said: "We cannot light the fire, we cannot speak the prayers, we do not know the place, but we can tell the story of how it was done". And the story he told had the same effect as the actions of the other three.

From "9½ Mystics: The Kabbala Today", by Herbert Weiner (Paperback, Simon & Schuster, ISBN: 0684843250)