This Rosh Hashanah as we spend much of the day in prayer, there’s some question or debate about what ought to be the focus of our prayers: Should our focus be physical or spiritual? Perhaps these two stories about a celebrated Chassid Reb Shmuel Munkes can show us different sides of this question. 

First, about Reb Shmuel Munkes:

Reb Shmuel was known as a Chassid with a lively sense of humor, a jester and prankster, yet at the same time he was learned and scholarly, greatly respected by his peers, even the Alter Rebbe sought advice from him. He was devoted Chassid of the Alter Rebbe, first Chabad Rebbe, author of the Tanya and Shulchan Aruch HaRav, Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi.  It’s important to point out that Reb Shmuel had unusual ways, which were all his own, and not typical of most Chabad Chassidim or Chassidus. 

Story #1: The Kabbalah Question

Once Reb Shmuel Munkes came across a man who thought himself to be sophisticated and learned in Kabbalah texts and mentioned that he wanted to travel to Liozna to test the Alter Rebbe. Reb Shmuel confided in him, that he came across a mysterious Kabbalistical text that he could not figure out either, and perhaps when this Kabbalah expert meets the Alter Rebbe he could ask him this question as well.

This was the text according to Reb Shmuel: “At first it started off as scattered, but then it became connected as one. Then it came to the level of the circle. The levels of the three lines was applied to it, and it became centered on the inner point at its essence. Through the combination of the foundation of water with the foundation of fire it was completed, and it was good.”

This whole concept baffled the Kabbalah expert as well, although he was familiar with the concepts of circular and linear lines in Kabbalah, and the foundations of water and fire, and decided he would pose this question to the Alter Rebbe as well. When the man posed R’ Shmuel’s question to the Alter Rebbe, the Rebbe looked up at him, smiled, and said, “It’s a Krepch (singular for Kreplach, triangular dumplings eaten in soup).”

The man was confused, so the Rebbe explained: “The flour is at first scattered, but it is kneaded with water and becomes connected as one, the dough is then rolled into a circles, folded into triangles, with chicken or meat in the middle. It’s boiled in soup, on the foundations of water and fire, and it’s good to eat.”

The man left humbled by the exchange. Sometime later, the Alter Rebbe hinted to Reb Shmuel that this was a clever way to help this person grow spiritually, without direct rebuke or humiliation.

This story teaches us not to get carried away with spiritual platitudes and unrealistic levels of holiness. We have to be grounded in the here and now, and focus on something as a real and tangible and tasty as a Krepch. The most meaningful prayer may just be the prayer about our physical needs, in our everyday down-to-earth lives. 

Story #2: Midnight Selichot 

Reb Shmuel Munkes was traveling to spend the High Holidays with the Alter Rebbe, Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi, when he was stranded for the Shabbos before Rosh Hashanah at a farm/inn that belonged to an older Jewish couple. Just before midnight on Saturday Night, the farmer knocked at Reb Shmuel’s room to wake him for the midnight Selichot prayer service.  “Reb Shmuel, Reb Shmuel,” he urged, shaking his guest awake. “Come quickly. Selichot.”

Rabbi Shmuel’s only response was to burrow even more deeply under the covers. “Hurry, Reb Shmuel,” his host persisted. “They’re about to begin in the synagogue any moment now.”

“Begin what?” asked Rabbi Shmuel, quite obviously annoyed. “It’s the middle of the night. Why are you waking me in the middle of the night?”

“What’s the matter with you?” cried the villager. “Tonight is Selichot! A fine Jew you are! Why, if I hadn’t woken you, you would have slept through the entire Selichot!”

“Selichot?” asked Rabbi Shmuel. “What is Selichot?”

Rabbi Shmuel’s host was beside himself with incredulity. “Are you making a mockery of me? Don’t you know that today was the Shabbat before Rosh Hashanah? Every man, woman and child of the village is now in the synagogue, trembling with trepidation. Soon the Chazzan will begin chanting the Selichot prayers and the entire community will burst into tears, praying and begging G-d to bless them with a good year…”

“So that’s what this commotion is all about?” asked Rabbi Shmuel. “You’re going to the synagogue to pray? What’s so urgent that can’t keep until morning? What are you praying for?”

“There’s so much to pray for, Reb Shmuel,” sighed the villager. “I pray that the cow should give enough milk to keep my children healthy. I pray that the oats should fetch a good price on the market this year, for soon I shall have a daughter to marry off. I pray that my horse should not break a leg, G-d forbid, as happened the year before last…”

“I don’t understand,” interrupted Rabbi Shmuel. “Since when do grown men and women wake up in the middle of the night to ask for a bit of milk?”

This Selichot has an opposite message. Prayer ought to be more than just asking that the cow give milk. For grown men and women, prayer should be a spiritual opportunity, a time for meaningful connection that goes beyond our material and physical needs and wants. This story teaches us that prayer should focus on spiritual growth not just material needs. 

and Story #3 may bring it all together: Two Sides to Tisha B’Av

Reb Shlomo Karliner, a famous Chassidic Rebbe (Karlin and Karlin-Stolin are Chassidic sects today in Brooklyn and Israel) visited the Alter Rebbe one summer around the time of Tisha B’Av when we mourn the destruction of the Temple. He was mortified that in the Alter Rebbe’s synagogue during the lamentations, one Chassid was tossing around Behrelach burrs, collected from certain bushes, that got stuck in people’s coats and beards. It caused a chuckle here and there during the prayers, one what should have been a very solemn day. Then, one of those annoying burrs got tossed onto him, too! He had enough. He told the Alter Rebbe that he was terribly disappointed in that Chassid’s frivolous and disrespectful behavior. “It’s people like him that caused the destruction of the Temple!” he said.

Later that day, the Alter Rebbe took Reb Shlomo Karliner on a walk through the woods. They discussed the issues of the day, and then they heard mournful cries.  They heard the voice of man alone in the woods crying out about the Temple’s destruction. Reb Shlomo turned to the Alter Rebbe, “For the sake of people like these, the Temple will surely be rebuilt!”

The Alter Rebbe told Reb Shlomo that it was the same person both times. It was Reb Shmuel Munkes, who wanted to keep Jews from becoming too despondent and depressed on Tisha B’Av, yet personally yearned and cried and prayed for the rebuilding of the Temple.

So the answer is that both approaches are possible, compatible and desirable. Prayer ought to be about both the physical and the spiritual, the self and the selfless, both the external and innermost parts of our human experience and G-dly soul. Like that good ol’ Chassidic adage: “Within the world, yet beyond it”. It may seem contradictory but it was all the same Reb Shmuel Munkes.