Rebbe Rebbe Rebbe

Song: Rebbe Rebbe Rebbe 

Album: “Barcheni” — Yehuda Green 

Composer: Reb Pinchas Pomp 

Year: 2014

Any bochur learning in Yerushalayim knows he’s welcome. They call on Thursday or sometimes even Friday to book themselves in for a seudah bringing along a friend or two. Reb Pinche Pomp is delighted to have a full table but his precondition is well known too. “Don’t come if you don’t want to sing ” he tells the callers.

“I don’t need a lot but I need that Shabbos singing in order to get through the next week” he says. It’s not just the sweet sound of a couple dozen harmonizing voices that does it for Pomp; it’s the spiritual uplift which a group kumzitz affords — the neshamah yeseirah expressed in song.

Reb Pinche’s own famous song “Rebbe Rebbe Rebbe mir villen zich mekasher zein tzu dir” has been adopted by many chassidic groups and its composer is just fine with that. Some people think it was originally composed as an ode to Rebbe Nachman of Breslov but the song actually came in to being at the tziyun of the sainted Bnei Yissaschar in Dinov where Reb Pinche — head of Mosdos Dinov in Poland — has built accommodations for traveling chassidim. The song was fine-tuned with the help of mashpia Rav Motta Frank.

“Around four years ago I was in Dinov by the tzaddik’s kever. I feel a great connection to the Bnei Yissaschar. I’m a Toldos Aharon chassid so I’m a talmid of Rav Aharon Roth [the founding Rebbe of the chassidus from two generations ago]. Rav Ahreleh in turn was a talmid of the Dinover dynasty. The nusach that we daven is the nusach of the Bnei Yissaschar. I wanted a song to connect to the tzaddik.”