The Beinoni

The Beinoni Nigun was composed by Reb Aharon Charitonov in the late 1800s. He was from a family of kosher butchers, who were also beloved composers of nigunim, in the town of Nikolayev.

This tune entered the Chabad nigun repertoire in the lifetime of the 5th Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Sholom Dov Ber Schneerson (1860-1920), but was popularized by his son, the 6th Rebbe, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneerson (1880-1950). He sang it frequently at his farbrengens, and at one point spoke about his interpretation of the melody (which he recorded later in his collected writings, the Likkutei Dibburim). Charitonov had not named this tune when he composed it, and the title “Beinoni” comes from Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak (also known by his initials as the Rebbe Rayatz).

The word beinoni literally means “average,” but has a specific connotation and special place of meaning in Chabad philosophy. In the Tanya, the first and defining work that started the Chabad movement, the Alter Rebbe outlines three types of Jews, borrowing terms from the Talmud but updating them for this context: the rasha, or evil one, is someone who is totally taken by their base and selfish impulses; the tzaddik, or righteous one, is someone who has completely quashed those base impulses and lives a life free of thoughts that distract them from doing the right thing in every situation; and the beinoni. Chaim Miller has recently introduced the translation of beinoni as “in-betweener” in his new translation of the Tanya, which makes more sense than the simple translation of “average.” The beinoni is defined in relation to the rasha and the tzaddik: the beinoni struggles with the inclination for indulgence and selfishness that the rasha lives by, but manages to overcome that to live as righteously as a tzaddik does. Being able to overcome the inclinations of a rasha is no small task, and the Tanya is a multi-volume work dedicated to the emotional and intellectual work required to strive to be a beinoni.

The Rebbe Rayatz pointed to this nigun as being a musical illustration of the inner life of the beinoni, which is characterized by both the struggle to overcome animalistic urges as well as the G-dly soul that always prevails over those urges. He didn’t go into detail, but some of my observations about the musical features of this nigun support his characterization. The most relevant one is about the repetitive pull downwards back to the tonic (the “home base” note). Even though there are frequent leaps upward, and a climactic high point in the third section, the melody consistently returns from those leaps downwards by step, and each section ends the same way by settling back on the tonic.

This article by David P. Goldman also supports an interesting thought about how the type of minor key (Phrygian dominant or Ahavah Rabbah) used here especially enforces the pull downwards, in contrast to the major mode that is characteristic of Western music. The natural resolution downwards (as opposed to the upwards resolution in the major mode) is a musical representation of retro- or introspection. The work required to be the beinoni of the Tanya requires intense introspection, and this introspection carries even more weight when considering that the Tanya specifies that a Jew’s true self is their G-dly soul within, which is “truly a piece of G-d above.”

The Beinoni Nigun, at the characteristically contemplative tempo of Chabad nigunim, is both the illustration and the guide for the experience of the beinoni: everyone has challenges, internal and external, but the prescriptive is to always be in touch with the G-dly soul as a stable core to return to.