The Niggun

A Hasidic melody sung without words, usually on syllables — bim-bam, ya-ba-bam, oy — repeated for as long as it takes, at a table, in a group, unaccompanied.

⭐⭐⭐ THE CENTRAL OBJECT OF THIS WING, AND IT IS NOT ATMOSPHERE — IT IS EQUIPMENT. The words are removed for a stated reason: a text tells you what to feel and therefore stops you at the meaning. Strip the text and the singer has nothing left to interpret, so repetition stops being boring and starts being an operation. ⭐ Three details that give the practice away as technical rather than decorative: it is usually sung in a group (so the individual voice is buried), it has no ending (so no one performs a conclusion), and the great ones are attributed to rebbes, not composers — a niggun is received the way a teaching is received.