Niggunim in the life of a Chosid
Niggunim have always accompanied us throughout our history. A Chassidishe Niggun gets to the bottom of what very few have been able to fully describe and recognize about the true depth and power of niggunim. A niggun has the ability to awaken and illuminate the neshama bringing out its hidden depths. This occurs through singing niggunim with attention.
What makes Jewish niggunim different that all other forms of music? Niggunim contain a fire of kedusha. A higher beauty of kedusha rests upon a niggun. This is what is flowing within them, something that has been passed through our tradition for thousands of years.
Nigunim take up an important place in the Torah. Both ‘shir’ sung using the voice and ‘zimra’ played using instruments are mentioned throughout Tanach, Gemara, the Geonim, Rishonim and Achronim up to and including Kabbalah and Chassidus. Niggunim span from the early beginnings of the 8th generation of Yuval the “Father of all who hold harps and wind instruments” to the Shirah by the Yam Suf. They accompanied us through the desert, the generations of Devorah and David HaMelech who composed Tehillim beginning with; “To the choirmaster”. From the Levi’im who would sing niggunim in the Beis Hamikdash with their voices and their instruments until this very day niggunim have a central role in our connection to Hashem, His Torah as well as to each other.
The Previous Rebbe, in many places throughout his Sichos explains the different aspects of niggunim. In one place he says that a niggun expresses a person’s very life. An example of this is the niggun of Shamil (see below*). In another place he speaks about how a niggun awakens the neshama and penetrates one’s avodas Hashem.
On 3rd day of Sukkos 1966 the Rebbe quoted the Previous Rebbe’s saying that the tongue is the pen of the heart while a niggun is the pen of the soul. It expresses the soul of the one who composed it and reaches the soul of the one who is singing it.
On parshas Baaloscha 1967 the Rebbe said to begin the niggun of gimel tenuos from the Baal Shem Tov. During the singing there were people speaking in the background. The Rebbe said it is known that by singing a niggun, one connects with a deeper hiskashrus to the Rabbeim than through their Torah. It is like the he is standing in front of you.
The Previous Rebbe explains that at times when a chosid sings a niggun he is transported back to the moment that the niggun was sung together with the Rebbe. In 1906, on Acharon Shel Pesach, the Rebbe Rashab asked the Razah to sing the niggun of the Tzemach Tzedek that the Tzemach Tzedek sang in 1865, at the Moshiach seudah of Acharon Shel Pesach. At the seudah the Tzemach Tzedek said to his older son R Baruch Shalom that if you will sing the Moshiach Seudah niggunim the way the Zeideh (the Alter Rebbe) would, you should visualize the holy image of the Zeideh and the Shver (the Mittler Rebbe). Later the Razah said that that understanding in both nigleh and Chassidus arouses a character trait that is appropriate to that understanding. It is only afterwards that one can refine that trait. With regard to a niggun however, the arousal itself refines.
On Shvei shel Pesach 5707, the Previous Rebbe explained that a niggun has the power to pull a person out of where he is and bring him to Teshuva.
* From 1955-1963 the Rebbe would teach niggunim in the wee hours of the morning on Simchas Torah after Hakafos. Over these years he taught niggunim (A CD of these niggunim along with explanations is available at Chabad-Atara’s as well as other Jewish bookstores). In 1958 he told over a story in the name of Chassidim. Chassidim tell a story of a man named Shamil, a leader of assorted tribes that lived in Russia’s Caucasian Mountains over a century ago. The Russian army attacked these tribes, intending to deprive them of their freedom. Unable to vanquish the valiant warriors in battle, the Russian army leaders proposed a false peace treaty, and thus succeeded in getting them to lay down their arms. Immediately afterwards, the Russians lured the Caucasian leader, Shamil, away from his stronghold and imprisoned him.
Staring out of the window of his small narrow cell, Shamil reflected on his days of liberty in the past. In his current exile and helplessness, he bewailed his plight and yearned for his previous position of freedom and fortune. He consoled himself, however, with the hope that he would eventually be released from his imprisonment and return to his previous position with even more power and glory. It is the above thought that he expressed in this melancholy, yearning melody.
The Moral: The soul descends to this world from the heavens above, clothed in the earthly body of a human being. The soul's physical vestments here are really its prison cell, for it constantly longs for spiritual, heavenly fulfillments. The soul strives to free itself from the "exile" of the human body and its earthly pleasures by directing its physical being into the illuminated and living paths of Torah and Mitzvos.