Zayde’s Lullabye
Navajo Niggun
MELODIES
There are gates in heaven that cannot be opened except by melody and song.
Shneur Zalman
of Liady
Niggun (or nigun) is a Hebrew word meaning "humming tune." Usually, the term refers to religious songs and tunes that are sung without any lyrics or words. It is a form of voice instrumental music. Niggunim (pl) are especially central to Jewish worship in hassidic Judaism, which evolved its own structured, soulful forms to reflect mystical joy and attachment to God.
Light of Your Torah
Shepherd’s Song
R. Kalonymous Shapira (Warsaw Ghetto rabbi):
Melodies are a tool for conveying our feelings and our spiritual condition. Singing has the power to arouse very strong feelings, and these feelings, these sparks are the stirrings of our soul! Music is the key -- music opens the spirit…
You are here to pour out your soul to God using music and voice. Sing from the depths of your being and, inevitably, you will begin to feel the emergence of the Shekhinah, her great joy and delight. At first it is you singing to your soul -- to wake her up; soon you will feel the soul singing her own song…
When you, the musician, become the music, the spirit of God is upon you. You do not necessarily need to compose your own songs. If someone wants to drink wine, they need not plant a vineyard.
Anyone, at any level, can reach into the living waters of the soul and pour forth the living voice within. Unblock your soul -- Express your soul!
Introduction to the Amidah – God’s Presence Vibrates on Our Lips
When we recite the Amidah prayer, the Shechinah enters into us and prays through us. That is why we begin the prayer by saying, Oh, Lord, open my lips and I shall sing Your praise. It is God who moves our lips as we pray.
Rabbi Pinchas Shapiro, the Koretzer Rebbe, once sat and struggled with a passage from the prophet Isaiah: Lift up thy voice as a shofar.
“What could it mean?” he wondered. “How can a voice become like a shofar?”
After pondering the verse further, Rabbi Pinchas suddenly realized that God was revealing to us something about the nature of prayer
“The shofar remains silent,” he said, “and cannot emit a sound unless the breath of a person passes through it. When we become like a shofar, the breath of the Holy One, the divine Shechinah, passes through us. That is how we pray –– the breath of God’s Indwelling Presence vibrates on our lips. We may think we pray to God, but that is not exactly so: the prayer itself is divine.”
Rome Nigun
