Why the source of a song matters
Tehillim brings us to ten forms of song. Music has a powerful ability to draw a person with it. That makes the direction of the pull important. Likutey Moharan 3 distinguishes hearing music from a fitting, upright musician from hearing it from a wicked one, and connects the difference with the listener's ability to serve Hashem.
Some songs deepen a person's sense of being trapped in complaint. Others help him praise Hashem, regain a sense of his own value, and want to do something good. A tune's hold on us does not by itself tell us where it is taking us. A person can keep saying, “This is my kind of music,” even while it strengthens the mood from which he needs to emerge.
There is also a separate halachic discussion about music after the Churban. A strict view is mentioned here, alongside a reason offered for leniency: the need for encouragement in weakened generations, particularly since the Holocaust. That brief discussion does not establish a general permission or the scope of any particular posek's ruling. Our present point is the force of an appropriate niggun in a person's avodah.
Likutey Moharan 226 discusses songs of wailing in the language of the Erev Rav and the opposing spiritual force. It traces music's power of attraction to Leah and Levi. The term Erev Rav is used there within a spiritual teaching; we are not given a method for applying it to particular people.
We have already seen that Leah's eyes were tender. Rashi on Bereishis 29:17 explains that she cried because people said the older daughter would marry Esav and the younger would marry Yaakov. Leah's tears expressed her longing to belong with Yaakov. They were tears directed toward kedushah. The argument therefore cannot be that crying itself is wrong.
When Levi was born, Leah said:
וַתַּהַר עוֹד וַתֵּלֶד בֵּן וַתֹּאמֶר עַתָּה הַפַּעַם יִלָּוֶה אִישִׁי אֵלַי כִּֽי־יָלַדְתִּי לוֹ שְׁלֹשָׁה בָנִים עַל־כֵּן קָרָֽא־שְׁמוֹ לֵוִֽי׃
She conceived again and bore a son, and said: “Now this time my husband will accompany me, because I have borne him three sons.” Therefore he called his name Levi. (Bereishis 29:34)
The rav develops an everyday image of accompanying: with Reuven and Shimon, a mother has two children to take by the hand; with a third child, the father's help is needed too. The central point is the word yilaveh, “will accompany.” Levi's name expresses drawing someone close. This picture of the father helping with a third child is the illustration given in the shiur. Rashi's printed explanation instead speaks about Leah having received her share of the twelve sons; the two explanations should be kept distinct.
The Levi'im, Leah's descendants, served through song in the Beis HaMikdash. Rebbe Nachman connects this with music's ability to draw us after it. The same power of attraction can descend into wailing, or be used for a song that brings a person toward Hashem. A lively beat does not settle the question: the rav warns that music can sound cheerful while still drawing a person toward the desires and despair he is trying to leave. Leah's holy tears and Levi's holy song preserve the distinction: pain can be directed toward a relationship with Hashem, while a repeated insistence that everything is hopeless can leave a person further away.
The continuation of Likutey Moharan 226 also speaks of raising these tunes on Shabbos, when the light of sight is complete. The printed teaching contains this further possibility of repair. Its discussion of the danger does not supply a rule for condemning every tune or identifying particular people as Erev Rav.
Beginning before the feeling arrives
A person does not always feel like singing or dancing. He may be standing at the edge of a wedding, quite content to remain outside the circle. Someone brings him in. After a few minutes, the person who brought him has moved away, but he is still dancing. He has taken another hand and wants to remain.
That is the everyday picture used here. Likutey Moharan II:23 gives the underlying mashal of bringing a dejected person into a circle of dancers, then develops the deeper avodah of bringing the sorrow itself into joy. The initial movement can come before the desire to move.
There is room for this privately too. A person can go to his own room, put on a fitting niggun, sing, or make a little space to dance without an audience. The point of the private example is that he need not perform for anyone. The rav even suggests a bathroom as a place to move without being watched. The example concerns privacy and movement; it does not give permission to say sacred words or play sacred songs there. In an appropriate place, he can also begin with words: thank Hashem for something that is going well. Let the mouth say something beyond the complaint that has been repeating all day.
The advice is especially urgent after a fall. Deal with what needs repairing at its proper time, and return now to the strength needed for the next mitzvah. Remaining occupied with how low one has fallen can become another way of falling.
The hat seller's mistake
The rav ends with a mashal whose printed attribution he does not remember with certainty. A man sells hats in the market for ten dollars each. A thief takes a hat and runs. The seller refuses to let him get away and chases him down the street.
The thief has partners. While the seller is pursuing his ten-dollar loss, they take the rest of his stock and empty the cash register. In the illustration, he loses three hundred dollars' worth of hats and three thousand dollars from the till. The attempt to recover one hat leaves everything else unguarded.
After a failure, a person can become so occupied with what he has lost that he leaves the rest of his life exposed. He spends the day accusing himself. He misses the next opportunity, gives up on another boundary, or stops wanting to daven. The loss has spread.
The seller needs to guard what remains. After a fall, the next good choice still needs protecting. The rav's advice is to stop the pursuit that leaves that choice unguarded: regain enough strength to serve Hashem now, and address the loss through honest teshuvah at its proper time.