The story of the famous melody for “Ani Maamin,” in the style of a slow march, is one of the most amazing accounts of faith during the Holocaust. For those unfamiliar with the story, the following is a brief summary, based on the website of the Modzitch Chassidim: (1)
Reb Azriel-David Festig was famous throughout Warsaw for his singing. Crowds would throng to the synagogue where Reb AzrielDavid and his brothers – also gifted musicians – would pray during the High Holy Days. Reb Azriel-David would lead the prayers, while they accompanied him as a choir. He was blessed with a powerful, clear voice that carried its listeners along with him.
The material conditions of his life were fairly modest; he had a small store which provided him with a respectable living, but his real satisfaction and pleasure in life came from the world of music. His moving melodies made their way directly to Otvatsk, to the beit midrash of his Rebbe, Rabbi Shaul Yedidya Elazar of Modzitch – a gifted composer of songs in his own right – who loved his works. When the war broke out, the Rebbe was taken to Vilna, from whence he made his way via Japan to the United States.
Reb Azriel-David was transported from the Warsaw ghetto in one of the death trains, together with thousands of his Jewish brethren, to the Treblinka extermination camp. The air in the crowded cattle-car was stifling. Men, women and children, crying out for a little air and water, had been brutally crammed in by the Nazi beasts. Reb Azriel-David was deep in thought. The monotonous clacking of the wheels, with the tiny amount of air that came through the small window, served to calm the atmosphere somewhat.
People stood pressed against one another, sighing and groaning quietly. Before Reb Azriel-David’s eyes the words of the twelfth “principle of Jewish faith” suddenly appeared: “I believe with perfect faith in the coming of the Messiah; and though he tarries, I nevertheless await his coming every day.” He closed his eyes and meditated on the words and their meaning. It is at such a time as this, he told himself, when everything appears lost, that a Jew’s faith is tested.
Suddenly, his lips began to sing a quiet tune. The melody flowed and slowly became one with the words. Reb Azriel-David’s rapture grew from one moment to the next. His eyes were closed and his body was crushed, but his spirit was detached from the circumstances of time and place, and soared upwards. He was oblivious to the complete silence that now reigned in the cattle car and to the hundreds of ears that were listening with incredulity to the wondrous music, seemingly wafting in from a different world. He was equally oblivious to the voices that began to join with him as he sang on and on – first very quietly, but then with growing feeling.
An entire cattle-car, crammed with humiliated, starved, crushed people making their way to Treblinka, sang with a great voice: “I believe… in the coming of the Messiah… and though he tarries…” The wondrous singing continued for some time. Suddenly, as though awakening from a distant dream, Reb Azriel-David opened his eyes and looked around him. His eyes were red from weeping and his face was wet with tears. He was greatly moved. “Dear brothers and sisters!” he addressed those around him. “This melody is the melody of the Jewish soul.
It is the melody of pure faith, which even thousands of years of exile and persecution cannot defeat.” For a moment he choked back a sob. “I want to make everyone here an unusual offer: whoever is prepared to jump from this train, to save himself and to bring this melody to my rabbi and teacher, the Admor of Modzitch – I will give him half of my portion in the World-to-Come.”
Reb Azriel-David raised himself onto his tiptoes and looked around at the people pressed in on all sides. A moment later, two hands were raised – two young men who still had some strength. “I agree,” said one. “I’m ready,” said the other. A short time later, these two men – with the help of some of the others – managed to pry open the boards that barred the small window at the top of the wall. They bid their brethren farewell and jumped, one after the other, from the hurtling train.
The war finally came to an end, and not long afterwards one of the men presented himself at the door of the Rebbe of Modzitch in America. It turned out that his friend had died in the jump from the train, but he had been fortunate and had survived. He entered the Rebbe’s room, told him the whole story, and sang the melody that he had brought with him from Reb Azriel-David, one of the Rebbe’s Chassidim. The Rebbe sat before him, weeping bitterly all the while.
It was the Rebbe of Modzitz who disseminated the melody of Reb Azriel-David Festig throughout the world. “With this melody Jews marched to the gas chambers,” he would say, “And with this melody Jews will march to welcome our righteous Messiah.”
I believe that it would not be an exaggeration to regard this story as a central, formative legend of the triumph of faith – and especially of Chassidic faith – during the Holocaust. The train ride from Warsaw to Treblinka offered nothing at its destination but death. The journey from Warsaw to Treblinka takes less than two hours, and at Treblinka there were no “selections,” no factories, no huts for slave-workers as at other camps.
Jews simply arrived at Treblinka and were murdered. Half an hour, an hour at most, and thousands of Jews who had traveled together on the same train would go up in flames. And yet this unspeakable journey, in this short time, produced an altogether extraordinary melody.
For every tune there are words that sit just right; every poem has a tune that is perfectly suited to wrap around it. There are many lost tunes in the world, as well as a great number of words that have not yet found their melody. Only rarely, in a moment of grace or an instant of profound inner truth, in a stroke of genius or in the opening of one’s heart, does the miracle of union come about between a melody and some words. It is a perfect union, like a perfect match between bride and groom that seems to have been made in heaven, ready and waiting since the world began. The melody composed by Reb Azriel-David Festig, hy”d, for the words of “Ani Ma’amin,” is one of those special occasions.
The unwavering and incorrigible faith that ultimately the Master of the universe will reveal his Face and the world will be good prevails here over the greatest challenge that has ever presented itself: the Jewish nation was on its way to be killed, utterly helpless and hopeless, with the spark of faith itself the only illumination within the terrible darkness.
1: To the best of my knowledge, this account is accurate. It was recounted to me by someone who heard it from the chassid who disseminated the melody.
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