R' Shmuel Munkes (and Niggun 270)

00:07 If you enjoy this podcast, please consider clicking on support the show in the show notes and support us in a monthly way will give us, uh, chizuk and the ability to continue. Our rabbi once related in a farbrengen, and the Fideich Rebbe once related about one of the yung chassidim of the Alter Rebbe, the Chassid Reb Shmuel Munkes. That when Reb Shmuel came for the first time to the Alter Rebbe to the Lizhensk, was the middle of the night. The city was completely dark, and everybody were sleeping. Reb Shmuel didn't know where the house of the Alter Rebbe was, but he assumed that probably in the Rebbe's house, the light is still on 'cause probably the Rebbe's, uh, sitting and learning the whole night. So therefore, he looked for the house that has light. So he looked around the streets until he saw a house that has light coming out of it. He assumed it's Alter Rebbe's house, and he went over to the door, and he knocked on the door. Since everybody were sleeping, so the Alter Rebbe himself actually went over to the door and opened the door. Alter Rebbe asked him, "What do you want?" So Reb Shmuel said, "I wanna sleep over here." The Alter Rebbe asked him, "Didn't you find anywhere else you can sleep?" So Reb Shmuel said, "Isn't this also a Jewish home?" So the Alter Rebbe told him, "I could call my goy and he will kick you out." And when Reb Shmuel heard that, he burst

01:25 out crying and he answered, "Rebbe, mein goy is starker fun eyr goy. My goy is stronger than your goy." And then the Alter Rebbe let him in, and that's how he was nesakar for the first time, and he was nesakar to the Alter Rebbe. The Fideich Rebbe once related, one of the big chassidishe farbrengens in the first days of the Nesius, in the first years of the Nesius of the Alter Rebbe, when the Alter Rebbe still had ziknei chassidim who were zoche to still be by the Ba'al Shem Tov, and some of them were by the Mezritcher Maggid. They were from the first talmidim of the Alter Rebbe. They were abirei hachochma and adirei ha-hayedya. So it was a really chashuve crowd by the farbrengen. So the chassid, Reb Noson the Shaychet, brought to the farbrengen a fried lung of a behema to eat for the farbrengen. Reb Shmuel Munkes was also present at the farbrengen. Shmuel was considered to be a, a ch-- a chassidishe shtiefel, a chassidishe troublemaker. They never heard him speaking and learning, not in England and in chassidus. They never saw him davening be'arikhos, but he was always happy. Every chassidishe farbrengen, he was the shamesh. He would bring the mashke. He would give out the farbrengen. So when they brought the fried lung from Reb Noson the Shaychet, they gave the ball to Reb Shmuel Munkes, say he should distribute it to everyone. He was very excited. He danced a lot. He showed a lot of, uh, tricks with

02:57 the ball. And people started to beg him that he should, uh, serve them the fried lung already. But he kept dancing and jumping, but he didn't give anybody anything. A few hours passed, and the young elite decided that they're going to grab it away from Reb Shmuel. So when Reb Shmuel saw the young elite wanna take away the ball by force, he jumped up from his place, and he threw out the ball with the fried lung that was in it into the dirty water, and then he burst out in a dance like a Cossack. Everybody were really, um, tumult from this. They were really shocked. But tashchis, how do you, uh, throw food like that? And therefore, they decided that he needs to get a punishment. He needs to get some clap, some, uh, some malkes. So when he heard that, he jumped quickly to the table, and he was ready to, to get, uh, a few good hits. And the young elite gave him a few clap, and when they finished, uh, hitting him, he came off from the table completely calm, and he went to look for a replacement farbrengen for the farbrengen. It was already a late night hour, after midnight. And nonetheless, he found somebody from Lizhensk, and he got from him a big bowl of a sauerkraut, of a pickled cabbage. And he returned to the bes medrash with a simcha dikhe dance, and he put the bowl with the cabbage on the table. The young elite who wanted to

04:30 really eat that fried lung were looking at Reb Shmuel Munkes, uh, not so happily, that instead of that, they just got some, uh, pickled cabbage. As they are continuing to farbreng, the butcher ran into the bes medrash and started to scream, "Yidden, don't eat the lung. It's treif." Everybody were shocked, and they found out that a bitter mistake happened. The butcher was in the village, meaning he was not in Lizhensk. So his wife gave to the wife of the shaychet a treifa dike lung instead of the kashere lung. So when the butcher came back from the village to Lizhensk, and he heard that the shaychet, Reb Noson, bought from him a lung, and he knew that he had one kosher one and one treif one. And when he realized that he gave him the treif one by mistake, he ran to Reb Noson the shaychet's house and, uh, to, to, to, to take back the, the lung. But then he heard that he took it to the farbrengen in the Rebbe's shul. So when the elderly chassidim heard that, they called over Reb Shmuel Munkes and they said, "Ah, you're performing miracles over here. You have Ruach Hakodesh." So first they said, "Now you need to get again clap. We need to hit you again." So Reb Shmuel lie down on the table, but now instead of the young chassidim standing around the table about to give him clap, the elderly chassidim stood around the table and they told him, "No, no, no. You're not

05:55 gonna really get clap for this. Come down from the table and say how did you know that the lung was treif?" So Shmuel answered, "I didn't know anything about it. But the first time that I was by the Alter Rebbe in Yechidus, I made a strong achara in my heart not to have a desire for anything gashmiusdik that's tasty. And when they brought the long, I had a tremendous desire for it. And when I saw that everybody else really, really want it, I decided that must be that something is wrong with it because something that's kosher wouldn't have such a draw. And as the Rebbe said, "" Meaning that the draw, the desire of the Nefesh Apahamis is stronger than the draw of the Nefesh Elokis. And, uh, therefore, I threw it out into the dirty water." That's how the Friediker Rebbe relates this story in one place. In, in the Rebbe's Vayshimis, he quotes the end of the story a little bit differently, and he says that Shmuel replied, "Chasidim were naihag that before going into the Alter Rebbe for Yechidus, they accomplished that anything that they have a desire to do, they will not do it. And therefore, if the desire is very strong in something that's gashmiusdik, that's a siman that something's wrong with it." And when the Chasidim went to the Alter Rebbe and they told the Alter Rebbe about Shmuel Munkes, and they told him that he's, he's on a high level and he has a ruach hakodesh, et cetera.

07:26 So the Alter Rebbe answered, "" Meaning the smallest amongst you could be mechaya meisim. The Friediker Rebbe once related, by the Alter Rebbe was a famous Chassid named Shmuel Munkes, who once came to Liozno. Many Chasidim then gathered in Liozno. They heard chasidus, they chasid the chasidus, and they farbrenged. When they went to the Rebbe's, uh, courtyard, Reb Shmuel climbed up on the gate, and he hung himself on the gate. So the Chasidim screamed at him and they asked, "What are you doing?" So when he came down, he told them, "See, when you go down the street and you see, uh, scissors hanging, so you know that here lives a tailor. And when you see boots hanging, you know that here lives a shoemaker. So therefore, at the gate of the Rebbe, a Chassid needs to hang." The Friediker Rebbe once related, the Chassid Reb Shmuel Munkes, one of the times that he walked to Liozno to the Alter Rebbe, he happened to stay in a inn that, uh, was on the way. It was during the days of Selichos. And at night, the owner of the inn and his wife woke up and prepared to go to Selichos with a minyan. So they went over to the guest, Reb Shmuel Munkes, and they woke him up. "It's time for Selichos." So Reb Shmuel asked, "What's Selichos?" So the wife turned to the husband and she said, "Look at this. An older person has a face of a Talmid Chacham. He has a nice beard.

08:54 Must be a Melamed or a dayan, and he doesn't know what Selichos? Selichos, it's when you go to shul and you ask that the Aibishter should give a bracha, that the fields should grow, uh, nicely this year, and that there should be enough graze for the animals, so the animals should give enough milk and butter, and that the ground should be fruitful, so we should have everything we need." So when Reb Shmuel heard that, he said, "You should be ashamed of yourselves. Old people are getting up in the middle of the night to go and ask for some food?" And the Friediker Rebbe ended off with this story, you could see humanity in g- in general and Yiddishkeit in specific. "Lo al halechem levado yichye ha'adam" It's not bread that sustains the person. Rather, every Yid has a tachlis, has a goal that for that goal, the Aibishter brought his neshama to this world. And for this goal, the Aibishter brings the person from country to country, from city to city, from place to place, to that place for which the person have that mission to accomplish, to light the world around him with the light of Torah and Mitzvahs. Once a woman came to the Alter Rebbe asking the Alter Rebbe for a bracha that he should daven about her daughter because her daughter was having a hard time giving birth. She has a hard labor. The Alter Rebbe wasn't home then, so she couldn't, uh, see the Alter Rebbe. Shmuel Munkes was sitting

10:24 then in the Beis Medrash of the Alter Rebbe. When this lady saw Reb Shmuel Munkes, she mistakenly thought that he was the Alter Rebbe. So she went over to Reb Shmuel Munkes and she asked for a bracha that her daughter should have an easy time giving birth. So Reb Shmuel turned to her and he said, "Tell your daughter to say Yizkor seven times." After a while, this, uh, mother came back to the Alter Rebbe, and this time she actually went into the Alter Rebbe's room to the real Alter Rebbe, and he brought-- she brought him a present, and she thanked him about the advice to say Yizkor seven times, and she said it was very successful. "My daughter gave birth to a son." So when Alter Rebbe heard that, he understood it must be that, uh, Shmuel Munkes is the one who said that. So he called over Reb Shmuel and he told him, "What's this all about saying Yizkor seven times?" So Reb Shmuel said, "Simple. I made a kava chomer. If when they say once Yizkor in shul, then even adults go out of the shul and the kids, so then if they're gonna say seven times Yizkor, then for sure a little baby like that will come out." The Radatz Chein related that his father, Reb Peretz Chein, told him that once Reb Shmuel Munkes came to his house to stay by him. And when he went to sleep, Reb Peretz asked Reb Shmuel Munkes, "When are you planning on getting up?"

11:43 So Reb Shmuel said, "Three in the morning." When Reb Shmuel woke up, he prepared two cups of coffee, one for himself, one for Reb Peretz. When Reb Peretz woke up and he drank from the coffee that Reb Shmuel prepared for him, it was extremely bitter and it was undrinkable. So he looked to see why, and he found that Reb Shmuel, instead of putting the coffee powder in, he put tobacco inside So he turned to Reb Shmuel and said, "How could you drink this?" So Reb Shmuel said, "Believe me, it's been already 13 years that I don't feel any taste in eating." The Frierdiker Rebbe once related that Reb Shmuel Munkes lived in the city next to Polotsk. In the city where he lived, there were two goyishe kishufmachers who bothered the Yidden a lot, and they were trying to, uh, harass the Yidden in different ways. They were trying to get the Yidden to sit without a yamulke or to do other stuff. So once they showed those two kishufmachers, they showed th- they showed them Reb Shmuel, and they told them that he's a very So the kishufmachers went over to Reb Shmuel, and they started to talk to him, asking him maybe he wants to make a religion debate. And eventually the conversation went on to talk about kishuf. This was in a krachme, and it was quite a few people there, Yidden and lahavdil non-Yidden. So Reb Shmuel told to the kishufmachers, "I am a bigger kishufmacher than you." So this kishufmacher

13:14 started to make different magic, and Reb Shmuel didn't do anything. And then the kishufmachers offered the following deal: "Let's take a cup of mashke. We're gonna give it to someone else to drink to make sure that everything is okay with this mashke, and then we're gonna say our different abracadabra kadoo in this, uh, in this cup, and we will give it to you. We will curse it. Are you willing to drink it?" So Reb Shmuel said, "Yes, I'm-- I agree, on one condition, that afterwards you will drink a cup of mashke that I will give you." So they agreed. They took a cup of mashke. They stood on the side, and they made their magic. They cursed it, and then they gave it to Reb Shmuel to drink. He took the cup. He made a shehakol, and he drank it, and nothing happened to him. When the kishufmachers saw that they were not successful with their magic, they got scared, and they didn't wanna drink from the cups that Reb Shmuel gave them. But the people in the place forced them to drink it because that was the deal. They drank it. One of them died that day, and the second one died the next day. This was in the summer. On Rosh Hashanah, Reb Shmuel was in Liozna by Alter Rebbe, and then he went home. For Yom Kippur, he was walking again to Liozna. But while he was on the way, he couldn't manage to get into the city. Tremendous amounts of black

14:33 ravens surrounded him and didn't let him walk. Reb Shmuel davened Mincha quickly. It was Erev Yom Kippur, and he kept trying to walk slowly, but he didn't manage to get to the city. In the Alter Rebbe's Beis Midrash, it was already time for Kol Nidre. The Alter Rebbe turned to the Mitteler Rebbe and told him, "Shmuel is walking, and he can't come here. Go out and greet him." So the Mitteler Rebbe, together with Reb Yisroel Homiller and Reb Pinchas Rases, went out of the city to greet Reb Shmuel Munkes. After a short while, the Alter Rebbe himself even left the shul to the street and then returned back into the shul. When Reb Shmuel, which was still out of the city, saw the three who were coming to greet him, he started to scream, "Who asked you to come to me? The Rebbe sent me fools." At the end, Reb Shmuel came during the day of Yom Kippur to the city, but he didn't enter the Beis Midrash of the Alter Rebbe. And the Alter Rebbe later rebuked him very much about the story of, of what happened with the kishufmachers. And in that year, finishes off the Frierdiker Rebbe, the Alter Rebbe was arrested. So our Rebbe, who heard the story from the Frierdiker Rebbe, asked the Frierdiker Rebbe, "Is there any connection between the, between the story with Reb Shmuel Munkes to the fact that the Alter Rebbe was arrested that year?" So the Frierdiker Rebbe answered that they will always finish off

15:47 the story this way, that that year the Alter Rebbe was arrested. Another thing the Frierdiker Rebbe related to the, to the Rebbe: When they came to arrest the Alter Rebbe, Alter Rebbe hid in a cemetery. And they asked the rebbetzin where the Alter Rebbe was, and she said that she doesn't know. So they slapped her on her cheek, and one of her teeth fell out. When they left, the Alter Rebbe returned home. At night, Reb Shmuel Munkes came, and he knocked on the door. The Alter Rebbe opened the door, and he asked, "Who's there?" And he said, "Shmuel." According to another version, he said, "A Yid." So the Alter Rebbe recognized him, and he opened up. And Reb Shmuel said, "It's a Jewish home, so I could go in to warm myself up, right?" So the Alter Rebbe asked him, "Didn't you find a better time to come than in the middle of the night?" So Reb Shmuel answered, "I didn't know that by the Rebbe there is also such a thing as night." So the Al- so the Alter Rebbe told him, "Do you know, Shmuel? They came to arrest me." So Reb Shmuel answered, "I know." So the Alter Rebbe said, "It's dangerous." So Reb Shmuel said, "What should I say? In my opinion, you need to go with them." So the Alter Rebbe said, "Yeah, but it's dangerous. It's a sakana." So Reb Shmuel said, "If you are a Rebbe, if you are a real Rebbe, then the bullet will not hit

17:08 you. And if not, then you deserve it because in what right did you take away so much chayus and gashmiyus from thousands of Yidden?" And the Alter-- when the Alter Rebbe heard that, he leaned with his head on his hands. Then he told Reb Shmuel, "Whether you are right, I don't know, but go gezunterheit." In the morning, the Alter Rebbe went to the mikveh. Then he called his brother, the Maharil, and his sons, the Mitteler Rebbe and Reb Avraham, and he told them to fast that day, and he told them that today he will be arrested. And in the evening, they came to arrest him. The Alter Rebbe davened Mincha, and then he traveled with the soldiers. Reb Shmuel Munkes lived in Vishenkievich eventually, and many times they sent to him young alight, so he should, uh, raise them and educate them in Chassidus and the darkhei HaChassidus. Once there was a big fire in the city in the middle of the night, and Reb Shmuel's house was burnt. The family was Baruch Hashem saved, but the house was mamesh burnt to the ground. The next morning, when Reb Shmuel came to see the burnt-down house, he saw that everything was just ashes. So he stood and watched, and then he opened up his mouth and out loud he said, "Baruch atah Hashem Elokeinu melech ha'olam." So people were sure that, uh, maybe he's gonna say dayeinu emes, and everybody were watching, waiting to see what he's gonna say, and he ended off, "Shelo asani

18:30 goy." So they turned to him and says, "Reb Shmuel, shelo asani goy?" So Reb Shmuel said, "Imagine if I was a goy, chas veshalom, and then this fire would have happened to me. Then also my getshke would have been burnt with my house, and I'll be left without a getshke, without our Aibishter. But now I'm thanking the Aibishter that I'm not a goy, that my Aibishter doesn't get burnt in a fire and I have Him forever." Once, Reb Shlome Karliner was by the Alter Rebbe of the Tishov. And Reb Shmuel Munkes was throwing stuff in the Beis Midrash, thorns, et cetera. One of these things hits Reb Shlome. Reb Shlome was upset and he said, "Because of such yunger light, the Beis Midrash was destroyed." So Reb Shmuel answered, "And not because of such yunger light, the Beis Midrash will be rebuilt." The next day after Kinis, the Alter Rebbe walked out of the city with Reb Shlome. Suddenly, they heard a loud voice of somebody crying bitterly. So they followed the voice, and when they got close, they saw Reb Shmuel Munkes sitting in a pit covered with bugs, ants, and saying Kinus. So when Reb Shlome Karliner saw that, he said, "Because of such yunger light, the Beis Midrash will be rebuilt." We'll finish off with our Nigun Zevados. It's nigun number reish ayin in Sefer Hanigunim, a geshmake nigun.