It happened once that the great mystic the Baal Shem Tov, the Master of the Good Name, was travelling with a small group of students, and they arrived in a village when it was time for morning prayers. They went into a large synagogue that was full of people praying, but at the door the Baal Shem Tov stopped and then gestured to his students to leave. “Too full of prayers,” he said.

Nearby, they found another synagogue, also full of people saying their morning prayers, and again the Master stopped upon entering, and then took his students out again. “Too full of prayers,” he repeated.

Then they found a third synagogue, a smaller one, where there were only a few people praying. Here they entered, and as the Baal Shem Tov seemed satisfied, they earnestly made their devotions.

Later, when they sat together, one of the students ventured to ask the Master about his reason for rejecting the first two synagogues. “Rabbi, you said, ‘too full of prayers.’ Did you mean there were too many people praying there, and that is why we went to the third place, where there were only a few worshipers?”

“Not at all,” said the Baal Shem Tov. “It was not the number of people, but the number of prayers. The first two synagogues were stuffed with prayers that had not risen up to heaven. But the third synagogue was almost empty; the prayers had risen upward easily. So that was a good place for us to also pray.”