Examples of the praise of Kugel in Hassidic Literature
The tzaddikim proclaim that there are profound matters embedded in the kugel. For this reason they insited that every Jew must eat the Shabbat kugel. Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Rimanov realled that once, when he went out for a walk with the holy rabbi of Ropshitz, all that they talked about for three hours were the secrets that lie hidden inside the Shabbat kugel.
The Seer of Lublin taught that just as one's respective mitzvot and transgressions are weidghed in the balance in the process of our final judgment in the heavenly courts, so too they weigh all of the kugel that one ate in honor of Shabbat.
Reb Itzikel of Pshevorsk taught that there is a special chamber in the heaves in which the particular reward for eating kugel on Shabbat is distributed; even one who ate kugel only out of base material motives would receive his reward.
Reb Arele Roth: Kugel is the one special food that all Jews eat, one food in the service of the one God [ma'achal eched, v'ovdin bo l'El Echad], so that anyone who does not eat kugel on Shabbat in Israel should be investigated for heresy!
When Rabbi Isser Zalman Meltzer visited the Belzer rebbe after the Second World War, among the things he asked him was how he passed the years of horror. The Holy Belzer Rebbe - who lost his wife and all of his children and grandchildren and all who were dear to him and remained alone, naked and stripped of everything that had been his and had endured years of wandering and terribly difficult homelessness - the Belzer rebbe answered R. Isser Zalman serenely with the following words: "Thank God, I had kugel to eat every Shabbas."
Above, a picture of the Kaliver Rebbe's tisch in Jerusalem, 2009.
The hassidic tisch is a significant public ritual in Hasidic life, often wherein the Rebbe would give his most public Torah discourses. One important element is the distribution of the shirayim [the remains of the Rebbe's meal] to the congregated masses.
Early hassidic thinkers developed the notion of avodah sh'b'gashmiyut, "spiritual service through the material world." Rabbi Menachem Nahum of Tchernobyl (1730-1787):
When a person fully believes with a true and complete faith that this is holy food in which the Lord our God is to be found, truly robed therein, and when the person focuses their heart and mind on the internal holiness of the food, then they are able to raise the holy spark that was until then in a state of brokenness and exile back up to God...For this is the very essence of our divine service. Therefore, every servant of the Lord must delve into the interior of each physical matter so that all of their actions will be for the sake of heaven, especially when it comes to eating and drinking, in order to rescue and elevate the holy sparks from their broken state.
Allan Nadler, "Holy Kugel"
The trend towards restricting the practice of sacred eating to the religious elite naturally led to the practice of the rebbe's sanctification of the food on behalf of the masses of their followers...
The focus on the rebbe's eating, the idea that the divine sparks of the entire community are concentrated in his food...led to a very narrow focus on, and obsessive interest in, the specific items on the rebbe's plate.
R. Shalom of Koidonov (1830s)
I will now reveal to you the secret of the Shabbat foods, for in my humble opinion they hint at the ten holy sefirot....The fish we eat symbolize the first three sefirot, as is well known; onions in oil and other things that sweeten the onions symbolize hesed and gevurah; for onions which have a sharp taste refer to gevurah while the oil and other things that sweeten them refer to chesed. The chicken leg we eat symbolize nezach and hod, as is known. The chullent hints at malchut... eating kugel symbolizes the sefirah of Yesod.
(כה) כַּעֲב֣וֹר ס֭וּפָה וְאֵ֣ין רָשָׁ֑ע וְ֝צַדִּ֗יק יְס֣וֹד עוֹלָֽם׃
(25) When the storm passes the wicked man is gone, But the righteous one is an everlasting foundation.
How to Eat the Kugel?
It is told that the Holy rebbe of Apta, R. Avraham Joshua Heschel, once asked the holy Ruzhiner Rebbe Israel, if it is true that he ate the kugel with his bare hands. The Ruzhiner retorted by asking him, well, how do you eat the kugel? The Apter rebbe responded: it is my custom to eat all the Shabbat dishes with my hands, except for the kugel, which I eat with a fork. He then went on to explain the reason for this: You see, the kugel is the most important Shabbas dish, and it is symbolic of the spiritual influence of the Sabbath, something that comes directly from the hand of the Holy One. So it says in the Zohar, namely, that from the Sabbath all the other days of the week are blessed. If so, how can anyone dare to take kugel directly from the hands of God?
To this the Rizhiner responded: If indeed we have this opportunity only once in the course of the week, when the holy one extends to us his spiritual influence directly with His hand, why should we not take it directly with our hands rather than use a medium?
What is the real kugel?
While the majority seemed to hold that potato kugel ws the real deal, some sages insisted that the only true kugel was lokshen, or noodle, kugel. Reb Itzik of Pshework resolved the dispute with the following fair-minded formulation: "Lokshn kugel is the principle kugel, while potato kugel is just another Shabbas food." Rabbi Meir of Premyshlan declared: lokshn kugel was ordained at Mt. Sinai.
Why Kugel?
Kugel was the most popular and common of the Sabbath dishes. Hasidism's task, since its very inception was precisely to imbue the most common experiences of the simple masses of Polish Jewry with spiritual significance....and kugel wsa the most common and popular of the Shabbat victuals..... In fact, a book published under Polish Jesuit auspices in Warsaw and Vilna - just prior to the emergence of the Hasidic movement - banned Christians from "eating kugel and other such Jewish dishes."
Yiddish scholar Yehuda Elzet, Yiddishe Maykholim:
A Shabbes on Kigel iz vee a faigel on a fligel - The Sabbath without kugel is like a bird with no wings.
Az a yidene ken kayn kugel nisht makhn kunt ihr a get - A Jewish wife who cannot make kugel deserves to be divorced.
Der kugel ligt im af'n ponim - You can see the kugel on his countenance.