This is one of the more well-known nigunim since it’s included in the “seder nigunim,” an informal ritual where songs composed by each of the Chabad Rebbeim are sung in succession as a sort of meditative sing-along. A seder nigunim can be held on Shabbos, holidays, or “chassidic holidays”–the birthday or anniversary of the passing of an important chassidic personage.
So I hear this one all the time, as frequently as once a week if I go to the seder nigunim my neighbor holds on Shabbos afternoons, and was familiar with the whole thing about the Baal Shem Tov, Maggid of Mezritch, and Alter Rebbe each contributing a stanza. But there were some interesting surprises (interesting at least to me as I nerded out) as we looked deeper.
Here’s my recording of the tune as it is now popularly performed, as per a recording of it from a farbrengen with the Rebbe (date unknown):
Here’s what we found in Heichal HaNeginah, from Section 2, page 247. There is no attribution or source, and my guess is that these are reports from the Rebbe. They could also have been overheard by a 3rd party.
On the 2nd night of sukkos 1966:
In conversation at the apartment of the Previous Rebbe, the Rebbe’s brother-in-law Shmaryahu Gurarye remarked to the Rebbe that he had never before heard the Shalosh Tnuos, and wondered at its source. The Rebbe responded that he too had never heard it before he first arrived in the United States. He quoted its source as being the transcription by Shmuel Zalmanov in Sefer Nigunim [the project commissioned by the Previous Rebbe to record as many Chabad niggunim as possible, undertaken by Reb Shmuel Zalmanov]. He then described the niggun: “This niggun contains three movements that are nearly identical. According to tradition, [included as an introduction to the niggun in Sefer Nigunim] the first movement was composed by the Baal Shem Tov, the 2nd by [his student] the Maggid of Mezritch, and the 3rd by [his respective student] the Alter Rebbe.
The next year, at one of the festive meals of sukkos in 1967, the chosid R’ Yaakov Katz sang this nigun. Rabbi Gurarye was there, and brought up his quibble again: “This nigun was never heard in Lubavitch.”
The Rebbe acknowledged, “I also never heard it, but when Zalmanov printed Sefer Nigunim in the lifetime of the Previous Rebbe, including a full introduction for the niggun, the Rebbe approved it, and so it came to be.”
(The nigun as Zalmanov transcribed it is significantly different than how the Rebbe sang it at farbrengens. More on that below!)
Rabbi Gurarye then brought up another question about the performance of this nigun: The three movements are sung consecutively, without any pauses in between. Each of the composers also produced an important book, and the [Previous] Rebbe instructed that each chassid should own all three. However, he also instructed that the three books never be printed or bound together in one volume. How is it that the written words of each composer shouldn’t be “bound together,” but their musical works are?
The Rebbe responded that he had never heard an explanation for the performance of the nigun, but had heard the explanation about why the books are not bound together: the Tanya was written by the Alter Rebbe himself, while Or Torah was compiled and printed by the Maggid’s students, and Keser Shem Tov was compiled by a scribe that was two generations removed from the Baal Shem Tov. The Keser Shem Tov and Or Torah came first and therefore may be higher in spiritual stature, but on the other hand, the Tanya came from the Alter Rebbe himself and therefore may have a stronger spiritual foundation. But this is not the case with the nigun. {We can’t make sense of the following explanation though.} “Those who understand” say that the 2nd movement is commentary on the 1st [implying a direct relationship?]. Another nigun by the Besht “is not found (אינו בנמצא?).”???
Another related explanation, that may shed more light, is from the 2nd night of Sukkos 1970. Bringing up that there are ten known compositions by the Alter Rebbe, the Rebbe addressed the question of how the particular one that goes with the other two movements came to be. He said that the Maggid himself was the one who passed down the first two, and the Alter Rebbe added the third and continued to pass it on to his students.
The next year, on the 2nd night of sukkos 1971, the Shalosh Tnuos was sung as usual. One of the chassidim in attendance said, “hey, we sang this yesterday already.” Rebbe retorted, “We have no other niggun from the Maggid, and the second night of Sukkos is when we welcome the Maggid to our sukkahs.”
Discrepancies
A bunch of different recordings of this nigun are freely available on chabad.org, chassidus.com, and youtube. The one below, recorded as part of the Previous Rebbe’s Nichoach project, includes the recording from the farbrengen with the Rebbe that is the basis for how everyone sings it nowadays, and is very different from Zalmanov’s transcription. In the same recording, they brought on HaRav HaChosid Dovid Leib Marozov a”h to sing a version of this niggun that he reports was the version known in Russia, also totally different from Zalmanov’s transcription. I have not found a recording to match Zalmanov’s transcription. Rabbi Marozov also includes a few words about how the Rebbe RaShaB (the fifth Lubavitcher Rebbe) learned the niggun from his father, the Rebbe Maharash, and taught it at his yeshiva, Tomchei Temimim. (Thanks to Rabbi Chayim Boruch Alevsky for translating the Yiddish!)
Here’s the audio in full. The recording from the Rebbe’s farbrengen is at 1:34. Rabbi Marozov comes on at 4:23.
One more thought
As a personal interpretation, I think this nigun is an illustration of the role each of its composers played in the genesis and spread of Chassidus. The first stanza, by the Baal Shem Tov, lays a stable foundation, and then offers material to be developed further. The second stanza, by his student the Maggid, takes that material and does the developing–more movement, and a more exalted-feeling place higher in the scale. Then the Alter Rebbe’s stanza does something that is both really simple and really powerful: it’s the exact same material as what is found in the Maggid’s section, but taken a fifth higher. I think the Rebbe’s performance of this nigun reveals the meaning of the Alter Rebbe’s addition: once the Alter Rebbe’s leap is taken, further repetitions of that stanza can continue to take that leap again and again. It happens naturally. I think this is a musical parallel to the same way the Alter Rebbe refined the Baal Shem Tov’s teachings into Chabad Chassidus, and the Rebbe taught them in a way that was accessible for his time so that his constituents could go on to further them themselves.
The Chamber of Song 