21. "Tal Ya'asis"

^{R. Shmuel Bezalel ("Rashbaz") Alt'hoyz, United States, 1960s; Recorded by Samuel Zalmanoff.}

Dew to make the mountains drip with sweetness,
Plantyour chosen people in Your province,
Deliver Your beloved ones from their chains,
So we may sing pleasantly and raise our voices,
With dew!

Dew with which You will bless our food,
Let there be no leanness in our fatness,
The nation that You have led forth like sheep,
O, grant them Your favor,
With dew!

This is the "official" version of a Lubavich niggun in the "Hasidic-cantorial" style, composed by one of the brothers Charitonov of Nikolayev (above, no. 12). This version, published in a "Nichoach" recording, appears to be a synthesis of two niggunim transcribed by Zalmanoff (vol. I, pp. 42-43, nos. 50, 51). The latter probably wrote the melody for his own professional use as a cantor, and, as frequently done by Hasidic ba'alei tefillah, he fit it to the words of the fourth and sixth stanzas of "Tal ten lirzot arzekha" ("Grant dew to favor Your land"), the Prayer for Dew (the central piyyut in the Additional Service for the first day of Passover). The niggun was first brought to the Rebbe R. Shalom Ber (1860-1920) during the Sukkot festival of 1898. Impressed, the Rebbe gave instructions for it to be sung throughout the festival, as a segullah (magic spell) to encourage young men about to be drafted into the Russian army (see Zalmanoff, "Index of niggunim," p. lii, notes to the above niggunim). Alt'hoyz is a member of a well-known family of Lubavich menagnim, which has produced several generations of excellent musicians (see Zalmanoff, "Index of niggunim," notes to niggunim nos. 57 and 115).