Man expresses the stirrings of his heart through speech, but the depths of the soul can only be expressed through melody. A focused niggun (chasidic melody) reveals the spark of Mashiach within the soul and brings redemption to both the individual and the collective
Man is unique in being a 'speaker', capable of expressing his inner world. The defined and articulated letters of speech, which formulate thoughts, are joined by the voice, allowing others to hear the words and express the emotions that accompany them. The more the voice emanates from a heart full of love, the more it benefits the listener – illuminating his soul, awakening feelings within him, and when necessary, even healing and effecting changes within him.
Indeed, there are deeper layers in the soul, Divine and infinite, that cannot be expressed through speech or even through the revealed and external sound of the voice. These deep layers are expressed in the "kala pnima'ah" – the inner voice of a person, which is not expressed in ordinary speech. This inner voice can be heard when playing a deep niggun. On this, the Alter Rebbe said that "speech is the quill of the heart" but "the niggun is the quill of the soul."
The Zohar explains that there are two types of inner voice – "kala pnima'ah d'ishtama" (an inner voice that is heard) and "kala pnima'ah d'lo ishtama" (an inner voice that is not heard). The inner voice that is heard can be perceived by a person who listens to himself; it belongs to his conscious realms, even if it cannot be expressed in a way that others can understand. In contrast, the inner voice that is not heard is hidden even from the person himself, concealed and hidden in the depths of his super-conscious. Any true chasidic niggun can express the inner voice that is heard. It is sung by chasidim in their prayers or during a farbrengen, with feelings of longing and yearning or in a dance of erupting joy. But to express the inner voice that is not heard requires a deeper niggun, a focused niggun composed by a true tzaddik, a shepherd of Israel, who is a general soul that senses the unique hidden niggun of each and every Jewish soul.
The voice expressed in speech is a voice of tzedakah (charity) – a voice of beneficial influence towards others. The inner voice that is heard is a voice of prayer – a voice that a person whispers between himself and his Creator, heard only by his own ears (physically or spiritually). But the inner voice that is not heard is a voice of teshuvah (repentance and return to God) – a voice that exposes the innermost, highest, and most hidden place of the soul, a place that has never been blemished by sin, a deep place that is all longing for the living God.
"Israel is redeemed only through teshuvah" and "Mashiach comes to bring even the righteous to teshuvah" – the deepest focused niggun, when sung from an awakening of teshuvah, is capable of bringing to expression the spark of Mashiach within every soul and effecting for it a personal redemption (in all that it needs, materially and spiritually). The revelation of many individual sparks of Mashiach will ultimately reveal the general redemption for the Jewish people and the entire world.
Indeed, the ultimate goal is to unite the quill of the heart with the quill of the soul – to succeed in expressing even the most delicate and focused tones in explanatory letters. The Mashiach – who plays the niggunim of all souls and awakens everyone to teshuvah – will come to expound and reveal the reasons for the Torah, to give meaning even to the inner melody of our holy Torah.
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