A Hasidic legend tells us that the great Rabbi Baal-Shem-Tov, Master of the Good Name, also known as the Besht, undertook an urgent and perilous mission: to hasten the coming of the Messiah. (1, 1)

This sentence is almost a crash course in great first lines: the "legend" of the Besht, all of his important titles, and his "urgent and perilous mission" all contribute to the intrigue here. We want to know who this Besht dude is, in much the same way we want to know what a hobbit is when we read the first line of The Hobbit, want to know who this Ishmael dude is when we read Moby Dick, or want to know why Gregor Samsa turned into a bug when we read The Metamorphosis.

But Wiesel doesn't just bring up Besht because it makes for good storytelling. He also uses Besht as a potent symbol…but we'll let you mosey on over to "Symbols, Motifs, and Rhetorical Devices" for more on that.