The Andrew Lloyd Webber of Hasidic music

Avrum Leib Burstein closes his eyes, coaxes his accordion, and quietly sings a Hasidic melody, known as a niggun, by Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev. Yechiel ‏(Chilik‏) Frank joins him on clarinet, and together they transform the Young Yiddish Center in Jerusalem into 18th-century Berditchev.

Today, only a handful the niggunim of Rabbi Levi Yitzchak, one of the greatest Hasidic rabbis of previous generations, are still familiar even to Jewish listeners. Among them is “Dudeleh” ‏(“The Flute”‏) − one of the best-known tunes of the Bratslav Hasidic movement, to which Burstein and Frank belong.

The tune appears to have survived in large part due to the thriving community of Bratslav Hasidim in Berditchev, which apparently helped to preserve the rebbe’s melodies. Burstein − 41, the chairman of the Jerusalem Klezmer Association and director of the Young Yiddish Center − first heard “Dudeleh” at the age of 13. He was on the way to his first hitbodedut ‏(self-seclusion‏) with other bar mitzvah boys, in keeping with the custom of the Bratslav Hasidim to venture out into open spaces at night and hold a private dialogue with God.

“Du, du, du” ‏(“You, you, you”‏), the young Hasidim sang, as their van bounced along the rocks. “Lord of the universe ... where will I find you, and where will I not?” they cried out in the dark. “If you’re good to me, and if − God forbid − you aren’t, oy, you! only you, and again you, and forever you, du, du, du.”

And so it was that last week Burstein and Frank played “Dudeleh” and other melodies by Rabbi Levi Yitzchak at the launching ceremony of the new Hasidic studies department at Bar-Ilan University, melodies that will be included among the department’s fields of research. The department − whose primary donor is one of Rabbi Levi Yitzchak’s descendants, Levi Yitzchak Nahmani − will be named after the famed rabbi of Berditchev.

The irony is that Rabbi Levi Yitzchak would probably have protested vehemently against such university studies if he were alive today. While last week’s klezmer performance symbolized the growing cooperation in recent years between academic scholars − such as the head of the new department, Prof. Zvi Mark − and Hasidim who are involved in documenting their Hasidic dynasties and researching their history, in the not-so-distant past, Hasidic objection to higher education prevented such interaction between the two worlds.

It is noteworthy, therefore, that Burstein and Frank − brothers-in-law who call themselves “niggun collectors,” and inexhaustible sources of information about the origins of various niggunim and the way they should be played − recently contacted two scholars from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Michael Lukin and Matan Vigoda, who also work at the Jewish National & University Library in Jerusalem.