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Video: Litvish Sing ‘Tzomo Lecho Nafshi’ Chabad Style



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39 Comments

  • remembering the good old days

    little do we know the Rebbe;s :uf’tu in this world

    ah yid afelu a briske vos hut ein secunde fun a krech’tz tut teshuvah.

    moshiachs tz’aitin

    nothing the rebbe has ever done even a little move with his finger was for naught

    i feel like sating lechaim now and farbreingen for hrs
    thank you crownheights,info for starting my weekend off right

  • TeefWatcher

    didn’t you know it’s really their song? (how long before that comes out?) Just like “KIRUV” was their idea and started it first.

  • M Fendel

    Thank you Avrohom Fried. If not for your CD’s this would never happen.

    Thank you for not recording Yechi!!

  • Yankel der Zinger

    Rather odd that other Chassidim and Litvishe are singing more of our Niggunim and unzere Bochurim and Yungeleit are singing more of contemporary singer’s songs that have no Yiddishe or Chassidishe taste and Taam whatsoever.

  • Yodai umakirai

    Rav Koppelman from Lucerne who passed away recently at age 106 loved this niggun and used to sing it, and apparently it made it’s rounds in the Litvishe velt, so now Ezrachi is singing it. Let noone here think that this Rosh Yeshiva Ezrachi became a friend of Lubavitch just because he likes this song, he is a Shach’nik through and through, participated in the founding of Degel Hatorah and other Klipos of the Sitra Achra in Bnei Brak.

  • shlomo

    which litvishe? are you people blind? AHIM FRENKIM!!! that’s is good, but why in all place should find misnagdim?
    when litvishe conme to new silty he need to find where is kosher food, shul and bey’s midrash and after relax. habadnik need only to find misnagdim :) lol

  • Nigunim awaken the soul

    I was once at a non chabad wedding & their were bochurim from litvish * other chassidic groups. During the kabbolos panim they were singing a lot of chaba nigunnim. I asked them why & they said that the niggunim have a lot of feeling & awaken one’s soul. They also have a seder niggunim once a week where they learn & practice them

  • Chasing after kovod: become a Rebbe

    Litvish gedolim and Rosh Yeshivas love to do rebbishe shtick. It makes them feel really important!

    They used to make fun of THIS very niggin and mock it. They used to call chassidim with pictures of Rebbeim – Ovdei Avoda Zara, until they started with their Gedolim Pictures.

    They used to make fun of chassidim asking the Rebbe for brochas and aztzos. Now they call it Da’as Torah and always ask their Gedolim for brochas and aytzos in business, medical issues, shidduchim etc.

    Their Gedolim already accept “pidyonus”. Soon their Gedolim will start giving out Dollars, lekach and Kos shel brocha…

  • Yidden ein mishpacha

    I still don’t get why its a story when fellow yidden sing a nice hartzike yiddish song? But whatever gets a couple of hits I guess, is worth posting on your blog.

  • OMG

    This is the first step. When they wear flags and start singing Yechi then Moshiach will come.

  • Yossi

    It was actually MBD who popularized it in the litvishe world. I went to lakewood type yeshiva and they would play this one MBD album called Once upon a niggun, it has Tzomo lecha and avinu malkeinu and I think a few more.

  • ns

    that boruch mordachai ezrachi. the rosh yeshiva of ateres yisrael. a yeshiva in eretz yisrael, though he is more choshuv then his yeshiva, though he has gor an interesting derech halimud, and is gor an interesting person. he is extremely respected. he holds of the rebbe snd went to farbrengens where he is seen listening intently. though he some interesante shtikery ke’ilui he thinks he is ah groise rebbe albeit litvish. and this is one of his old ones, he has been doing this for years

  • ns

    there are many people who were involved in shach stuff, and were not real misnagdim like lefkowitz. this rosh yeshiva actually was by the rebbe’s farbrengen. yes his yeshiva are ment for lav davke people of litvish descent, but it most certainly goes in the litvishe oifen albeit in hebrew like so many other ones today, rather that his was the fisrt that started this whole maase of in hebrew to give others a chance to learn also though kol torah existed way before

  • hoping for better days

    oye, how pathetic to read all these negative comments.
    Making negative comments about other yidden does not make us better or bigger – no matter how loud nor how often. Why do we need to knock something like this? What’s wrong with their singing this song? It is not a bad thing. Why look at them and find fault? – it’s time we start looking at all the good cause it seems the more we find fault with other yidden the more “our” group is falling apart. Has anyone looked at us lately? No matter how many times you will find fault with ‘Litvish” it will not make us better or taller, of that I am certain. Let’s start standing tall on our own merits and not on their corpses. Moshiach Pleeeeeeeeeez we need you badly!!!

  • Other side of the coin

    Maybe you should have a post about Avrohom Fried (aka Avremel) singing the Litvishe Boruch Elokeinu Shebro’onu Lichvoidoi in a recent release of his? Is that a problem too?

  • Ding Dong the Klipa-s Gone

    The baal ha-klipa in Bnei Brak was like a Mafia don, handing out patronage to his friends and putting his enemies in cherem. Some rabbonim went along with him because they had no choice. He is gone and forgotten except among a core of baalei machloikes and soinim who don’t matter for much these days.

  • Niggunim History

    “Litvishe Boruch Elokeinu Shebro’onu Lichvoidoi”

    ———————

    No, it must be a niggun that comes from the same area where both Chassidishe communities like Vitebsk and Litvishe communities like Novahrdok were located. Remember also that the Alter Rebbe was called “Der Litvak,” as “Lita” of then is not “Lithuania” of now, so it could be from anywhere in the region.

    Reb Yitzchok Kogan, the “Tzaddik of Leningrad,” now of Bolshaya Bronnaya shul in Moscow, sings that niggun at every Shabbos and YT meal and at farbrengens. Until he sang it, I had never heard it anywhere. I asked him where he heard it and he said that it is a Chabad niggun.

    I suspect he either heard it from one of the elterer Chassidim who were still in Peterburg when he began his activism, or that he heard it from older relatives from Vitebsk, which is where his family is from.

  • Milhouse

    #31, Among yidden, “Litta” means the old borders of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, which includes most of Vais Russland.

  • Other side of the coin

    “No, it must be a niggun that comes from the same area where both Chassidishe communities like Vitebsk and Litvishe communities like Novahrdok were located….”

    I heard Avraham Fried say that he never heard the niggun until relatively recently. He grew up in Crown Heights, went through the Lubavitch system, was involved in music, yet never heard it until relatively recently. And you still claim that it is a Lubavitcher niggun?? So why didn’t he encounter it in Crown Heights? Why isn’t it one of the recordings of Lubavitcher niggunim? Why not sung at farbrengens?

    And maybe R. Kogan got it from Misnagdim in Russia? Okay, maybe indirectly, maybe he didn’t know where it came from originally.

    I think that the problem here is that someone cannot conceive of or fargin that Litvaks/Misnagdim have niggunim too. Chassidim don’t have a monopoly on niggunim, believe it or not. :)

  • Niggunim History

    I heard it first from Reb Yitzchok Kogan in nun beis (and at least 250 times since then). I had never heard it before then and until Avremel recorded it I never heard anyone but R’ Yitzchok and people who are close to him sing it. Has anyone heard it elsewhere? I have hundreds of albums and plenty of connections with other kehillos. I would have heard it somewhere if it were that well-known as a “Litvishe” niggun.

    I only know what Reb Yitzchok told me and what I know about the history of the region.

    Avraham Fried, for all that he is now THE Chabad baal menagen, is from a very Poilisher family (hardly a secret). He has niggunim from his father (some are on the album that circulated a while ago) that I heard before as (insert Belz, Ger, and a few others) niggunim on albums that I have from years back.

    There are niggunim we share with other communities and no one knows where they come from. One of them is the one we don’t sing anymore because the tzioinim took it – but Skvere still does sing it on Purim. Chassidim from der alter heim have told me that this was a Chabad nigun. Lipa says it’s a Skverer niggun. Obviously it is just a niggun that made the rounds.

    This is why I suspect that Boruch Hu Eloikenu was a regional nigun. And sorry to say, but the misnagdishe approach was not one of niggunim. The one niggun that I know of that is truly Litvish is Kad Yasvun Yisroel, and it is associated with one of the early US roshei yeshiva. R’ Boruch Levine and others who sing a “yeshivish” style are just singing quieter frum popular music with no connection to anywhere in Europe.

  • sick.

    nauseated. the way that they imtitte to make themselves look holy, “kein bakodesh chazisicha”…. ugghgh.

    it is interesting to see them singing lubavitcher nigun. but, the way it is abused the way the power ond awesome holiness of this nigun is abused to elevate and the haughtiness and ego of the… ughghgh

  • Shtoltzer Snag

    I asked a shpitz Litvak and he told me that (the old) Boruch Hu Eleykeinu shebra’onu lichevydei was comnposed by no less than R. Chaim Volozhiner זצ“ל and was sung in Volzhiner Yeshiva!

    There is also a famous old Litvishe (Misnagdishe) niggun ”Eylem habo iz a gutter zach, lernen Tayreh iz a besser zach, varf avek yeder yoch, lernen Tayreh noch un noch…’.

    Those are a couple of the more famous ones but there are others also.

    Novhardok Yeshiva had their own niggunim, a great recording of which came out in Eretz Yisroel a few years ago.

    Rav Mayshe Shmuel Shapiro of Yeshiva Be’er Yankeyv, who was niftar a few years ago, was bavust als a baal menagen. And those are just some examples.

    Chassidim have no monopoly on neginah, just like they have no monopoly on simcha, despite stereotypes, and despite propaganda you may have been raised on.

  • Jewish and Proud

    One thing I have learned from this website, especially after reading the comments on this post; Lubavitchers are Barak Obama. If you are with me against Litvaks, you are a Baal Shalom. If you pro Litvak, you are a Baal Machlokes! Can’t we leave the loshon hora of the last dor where it belongs-in the last dor? No wonder Moshiach is here!

  • Shtoltzer Erlicher Yid

    And I am sure that if I asked others, they would give me other answers for every one of those niggunim.

    That “Eylem habo” is often used to make fun of Chassidim, vehamayvin yavin.

    Today’s recordings of “niggunim” are actually fundraisers or souvenirs (such as albums for anniversaries of moisdos or simchas in rebbeish families) in most cases. Composers who have no shychus to any organization get paid to write niggunim for these albums. Some of these composers, like Pinky Weber and Meshilim Grinberger, are the same ones who write for the big names like MBD, Lipa and Shwekey.

    In any case, a niggun like Boruch Hu was probably just a niggun that made the rounds in its region, but it is interesting that only Avraham Fried ever bothered to make a recording of it. Hie fellow Chabad Cohen, Reb Yitzchok Kogan, is the only one I ever heard sing it, and I’ve been around. Neither of the Cohanim is davka of Chabad ancestry, but both shtam from Chassidim.