Rebbe Abimelechs tanz

[Hayyim Feldman <hf...>]

On Sat, 14 Aug 1999, Lucy Fisher wrote:

>The tune sounds to me very like the English folk song 'Old King Cole'.
>Lucy

This is fascinating!  I just emailed Helen, who'd asked about this Hasidic
tanz, privately (cuz I'm just now catching up with old listmail), to say:

 I don't know anything about dance, Jewish or Celtic, but it's probably
 called Rebbe Elimelech's Tanz, rather than Abimelech.  Rebbe Elimelech,
 z"l, was a well-known second generation Hasidic rebbe.  The name is
 Biblical and means "My G-d is King".  Abimelech means "My father is
 King" - an unlikely Jewish name [even, I'll add now, on the rare
 occasions when it happens to be true].

There's a famous song about Rebbe Elimelech, called Un Az Der Rebbe
Elimelech (it also just came up, coincidentally, in the Leonard Cohen
thread here).  The notable thing is that the words to the song are also
a Yiddish version of the Old King Cole theme:

  Un az der Rebbe Elimelech iz gevorn zeyr freylech
    iz gevorn zeyr freylech, Elimelech
  Hot er oysgeton di tfiln, un hot ongeton di briln
    un hot geshikt noch di fidlers di tzvey

  Un az di fideldike fidlers hobn fideldik gefidelt
    hobn fideldik gefidelt hobn zey

  And as the Rebbe Elimelech is getting very happy
  He takes off his tefillin, and puts on his glasses
    and he sends for the two fiddlers

  And as the fiddly fiddlers fiddlingly fiddled
    fiddlingly did they fiddle...

...and so on.  

I didn't think I knew the music of the tanz until I read your message,
Lucy; now I think it's to this same song.  I never connected the song with
Old King Cole musically before, despite the obvious textual connection,
and I'm still not sure cuz I don't know the OKC tune so well.  But
listening to them both now in my head, I think it is the same melody or
very close, just transposed into a different mode.  (What do we call
modes here, ta'amim?)

It's not so surprising to me that I'd have missed the melodic similarity
until now (if I'm not making it up).  For another good example of how
similar-yet-different a tune is when it's rendered in another mode, think
of I'm a Little Teapot and Hatikvah (courtesy of my ethnomusicologist/
librarian friend Hugh "Pogo" Blackmer). 

Now I'm really curious about the history that connects these two songs!

-Hayyim

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You say I took the name in vain
  but I don't even know the name   
    and if I did well really what's it to ya?

There's a blaze of light in every word
  it doesn't matter which you heard
    the holy or the broken hallelujah.

                 -Leonard Cohen, "Hallelujah" (1985)
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