This nigun, “Der Zhebiner Kup” (Yiddish for “the Zhebiner mind”), also known as “Reb Hillel’s Kup”, is a melody that Reb Pesach Melastovka, a chosid of the Alter Rebbe, Mitteler Rebbe and later the Tzemach Tzedek, sent as a gift to Reb Hillel Pariticher.
It happened like this: Once, when Reb Pesach was visiting the Tzemach Tzedek in Lubavitch, he met a young man from the city of Bobroisk who was visiting Lubavitch for the first time. Reb Hillel Paritcher was the Chief Rabbi of Bobroisk at that time, so when Reb Pesach discovered that this man lived there, he requested of him, “I want to teach you a melody and I would like you to convey it to Reb Hillel as a gift in my name.” And so he taught the young man this niggun.
When the young man retuned home he was reluctant to go visit Reb Hillel, the Rabbi of the town, just to teach him this song… So it only happened a few days later when this man attended a Bris celebration of a chosid in town. The Rav of town, Reb Hillel Pariticher, attended as well. The young man and some other chassidim there, sitting some distance away from the head table where Reb Hillel was, began singing some chassidic niggunim, when young man remembered about the melody that Reb Pesach had taught him. He told his friends about it, so they approached Reb Hillel and told him that a young man had recently come from Lubavitch and had something for him from the chosid Reb Pesach.
Reb Hillel immediately invited the young man to come over and sing the niggun, and so he did. When the young man finished singing this niggun Reb Hillel said, “this niggun was composed with kup (i.e. by a profound mind).”
He then began to think of what use to make of this melody. For Reb Hillel had a custom that the three niggunim he would sing on Yom Kippur at the end of tefilas neila would be the three melodies he would later sing in Lubavitch before the Rebbe would say a maamar. When this story took place, it was after Sukkos, so he had already prepared the three niggunim to sing before the Rebbe’s mamar. He therefore was in a dilemma of what to do with this new melody he now received as a gift.
So decided like this, “it’s too late to use it as a substitute for the first melody,” he said. “To sing it second would be disrespectful towards Reb Pesach. Therefore,” he concluded, “I will sing it as the third niggun, which is the niggun right before the Rebbe recites the mamar.”
Thus this melody came to be known as “the kup”, the “mind”, per the title Reb Hillel gave it. Some even call it Reb Hillel’s Kup”, because it was him who introduced it in Lubavitch. Chassidim also call it “Der Zhebiner Kup” because this melody was sung often in the Russian town of Zhebin, a town filed with Chabad chassidim who were both masters of the deep teachings of Chassidus, as well as masters in emotional self refinement. Another niggun from the city Zhebin is the heartfelt “Zhebiner Hartz,” i.e “the Zhebiner heart.”