His new “Proik Yas Anach” soon emerged as the theme song of an eternal people facing challenging circumstances
The origins of the Modzhitz chassidic dynasty lie in the town of Kazimierz Dolny, which the Jews referred to as Kuzmir. Chassidim would travel by boat down the Vistula River from Warsaw to bask in the presence of Rav Yechezkel Taub of Kuzmir, a follower of the Chozeh of Lublin and the Kozhnitzer Maggid. The spiritual power of niggun was central to his avodah, and his descendants would have an outsized impact on chassidus of central Poland.
His grandson Rav Yisrael Taub — the Divrei Yisrael — settled further upstream in a suburb of the town of Deblin known as Modzhitz. Toward the end of his life, he moved to Warsaw, and his son and successor Rav Shaul Yedidya Taub — the Imrei Shaul — moved to the Warsaw suburb of Otwock in 1929. Chassidim from all over Poland would flock to this resort town to spend Shabbos in the elevated atmosphere of Modzhitzer niggunim.
The summer of 1939 brought rumblings of war from Nazi Germany to the west, and Polish Jewry feared an invasion. When the blitzkrieg arrived on September 1, 1939, the first few weeks were filled with doubt and gloom. Chassidim sought the Rebbe’s counsel, and he acknowledged that he was uncertain himself. He ultimately decided to flee, but those dark weeks in Warsaw produced a new niggun that gave poetic expression during those dark times. Taken from the words in “Kah Ribon” customarily sung on Friday night, “Proik Yas Anach” expressed the deepest yearnings of Jews in Poland at the time, begging Hashem to redeem them from the mouth of the lion, to save His chosen people from the coming destruction.
Seeking an escape route out of the inferno, the Imrei Shaul traveled to Vilna, where locals and refugees, among them thousands of yeshivah students, were exposed for the first time to the warmth of Polish chassidus. Drawn by his magnetic personality, many participated in his Friday night tish, where he taught them his new “Proik Yas Anach,” which soon emerged as the theme song of an eternal people facing challenging circumstances.
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