Shamil
Imam Shamil
This melody has the following background:
A story is told of a man named Shamil, a leader of assorted tribes that lived in Russia’s Caucasian Mountains over a century ago.
The Russian army attacked these tribes, intending to deprive them of their freedom. Unable to vanquish the valiant warriors in battle, the Russian army leaders proposed a false peace treaty, and thus succeeded in getting them to lay down their arms. Immediately afterwards, the Russians lured the Caucasian leader, Shamil, away from his stronghold and imprisoned him.
Staring out of the window of his small narrow cell, Shamil reflected on his days of liberty in the past, In his current exile and helplessness, he bewailed his plight and yearned for his previous position of freedom and fortune. He consoled himself, however, with the knowledge that he would eventually be released from his imprisonment and return to his previous position with even more power and glory. It is the above thought that he expressed in this melancholy, yearning melody.
The Moral: The soul descends to this world from the heavens above, clothed in the earthly body of a human being. The soul's physical vestments here are really its prison cell, for it constantly longs for spiritual, heavenly fulfillments. The soul strives to free itself from the "exile" of the human body and its earthly pleasures by directing its physical being into the illuminated and living paths of Torah and Mitzvot.
Rabbi Nochum Kaplan relates:
The morning after the Rebbe taught the niggun “Shamil” on Simchas Torah 5719. I was 11 years old at the time and it was my first time present when the Rebbe taught a niggun. It made a profound impression on me. The Rebbe wept profusely while telling the story and singing the niggun, to the extent that I wasn’t able to catch on to the tune.
Late the next morning on my way to 770, I met Rebbetzin Chana. “Were you at the niggun last night?” she asked.
“Yes,” I answered.
“Are you going to shul now? Come, let’s go together.”
The Rebbetzin asked which niggun the Rebbe taught, and I answered, “Shamil.”
“What niggun is that?” she asked.
“I don’t know who Shamil was and I don’t know the niggun, but the Rebbe cried a lot.”
To my surprise, she entered the men’s section of 770 together with me. The Rebbe was in the middle of encouraging the singing of Sisu Vesiumchu after krias haTorah. Tapping on the shoulder of the person in front of me, I motioned to him to move aside and cleared a path for Rebbetzin Chana to see the Rebbe. Soon, a complete opening was formed. As soon as the Rebbe caught sight of her, he made a slight motion of recognition, and she immediately turned around and left the shul.
At the time, I didn’t understand why she came in, but later it dawned on me that I had told her about the Rebbe’s profuse sobs. To me, it was a point of the story, but to Rebbetzin Chana, perhaps it was a point of worry, and she wanted to see how the Rebbe was doing.