More on the Rabbinical Music Ban September 12, 2008
In this interview with the BBC, Rabbi Efraim Luft of B’nei Brak gives more insight into the workings of the new tyrannical ban on multiple types of modern music:
What Rabbi Luft objects to so vehemently is not just contemporary, western music - rock, rap or pop - but the use of modern instruments and beats in the tunes of orthodox singers like Lipa Schmeltzer.
“The main part of the music should be the melody. Percussion should be secondary. They should not bend notes electronically and should not use instruments like electric guitars, bass guitars or saxophones in Jewish music,” he says.
No electric guitars. No bass guitars. No saxophones. (How a saxophone is treif, but the endless cacophony of trumpets in every mainstream Jewish album is kosher, is beyond me.)
It is a broad charge, but the rabbi is convinced that in the last 25 years music has gradually eroded moral standing in society.
Saying that music is “powerful”, he says the “purpose of modern music - its influences - is to distract young people and change good characters into bad”. The Rabbi says such music, even Jewish rock music, “where the dangerous beat plays more of a part than the melody, has no place in a society where people are trying to keep their moral standards high.”
The PDF is just pitiful. The saxophone can not be used as it was known as the “devil’s flute” in the 1920’s, and all sounds which promote a “disrespectful or indecent feeling” — which includes, according to the text, “distortion and note bending” are also forbidden. The use of “swing” in the singing (what does this even mean?) is disallowed. The text says “all forms of modern popular music” are forbidden, including “rock, pop, rap and trance.”
What good could possibly come about if this tyrannical thing is accepted into k’lal Yisra’el wholly? Some group of smug ba’alei batim are going to sit back and think “we won” as their children sneak off to listen to WPLJ? Do they really think kids are going to start liking what I have heard termed “shiny shoe music” — mainstream Orthodox Jewish music — out of the blue just because of some edict of rabbis who have never met them?
I have seen Hasidic faces light up to the sound of Lipa coming over the speakers in the way that I have yet to see most rabbis duplicate. So many Orthodox Jews go through life depressed, ekeing out existence based on “what one has to do.” Here we have a kosher type of leisure — which up until recently was “not m’kabel tumah” in the eyes of da’as Torah — which could be a pro-Torah, G-dly escape, but no. Now vocalists have to watch to enunciate their words, now virtually every musical stimulus which could have provided inspiration is patently treif.
I can not imagine this horrible legislation having any value or positive outcome. I wish we could ignore such shtuss but the reality is, this is the future of the Jewish Nation we are talking about, and I, for one, think it to be a horrible tragedy that in a few years, a kid could be thrown out of yeshiva simply for saying “yo” in a Shabbos song.
Couldn’t agree with you more. While before I was apathetic to the whole thing, your post moved me so much I had to do a post on the subject myself.
umm…you can probably guess how I feel about this.
No note-bending = no B-3 = I have a problem with this. I don’t think you need to worry about too many things being accepted by k’lal Yisra’el wholly (for better or for worse). You’re doing a good job countering all of this with a hot cup of [keep on keepin’ on] and unabashed positivity.
I don’t even want to guess where Link Wray and the Raymen fit into all this…
RUMBLE? OMG!
I know it’s hard to find this funny, but look at number 8 on the pdf, it cracks me up.
I think such outlandish comments like “The modern drum set was created specifically for disrespectful music” are nothing short of stupidity quite frankly.
Some of these “rabbis” have wayyyy to much time on their hands…..
No “note bending”? So jewish music must stick to the well tempered 12 tone scale of J.S. Bach? I think the problem here is obvious…
[…] some of us have been ranting furiously about the new tyrannical music ban making its rounds in the Orthodox world (and its contrasting […]
I come from a classical music background and know most of nowdays genres, including house music, hip hop, rock, etc.
In my opinion, there’s a good chance this Rabbi’s study and the laws he found necessary to write down… are actually kind of relevant.
Remember music is communicating not only to your ears, but to your neshama aswell. Thus it can really be harmful for the ones who try to keep everything kosher in their lives. Including what they see, what they touch (shomer neguia). So why not apply it to what they hear ?
I really hope Rabbis come up with a “universal” kosher stamp / laws because it is a critical issue nowdays. How many kids have we lost / assimilated themeselves with music ? Let’s face it, non-”kosher” music is most of the time the beginning of assimilation. It’s a terrible and real fact.
Again, I don’t agree with all the points in this PDF. And it’s not about restricting artists from doing what they want. Artist will always have a wide range of freedom to create new, inspiring, and beautiful music. But only a few artists are really creating it with H.achem in their mind, and a few more think about the impact of their music / words. Here resides the issue. If they’re is Laws for music that are in the ways of Torah, then it’s the Law. It’s not meant to be seen as repressive. It’s just there for people who want to respect it.
They are banning electric bass, guitars and saxophones. What about the hundreds of frum musicians who play these instruments. What if that is all they know how to do. Maybe they have been doing this for 20 years. They always could get jobs playing at weddings, at concerts, on records etc. But now these instruments are banned.You are taking away these peoples livelihood. Forcing them to be get a job working in a store making lesss then ¼ of what they made before or to go work in a non-Jewish environment. Maybe a bar or dance club with almost naked girls dancing right in front of them. And maybe in order to keep their jobs, they will be forced to work on Friday night (Shabbat). If they don’t make enough money they can’t pay the mortgage, rent, Yeshiva Tuition, put food on the table etc. They end up getting divorced or end up losing their house and go homeless. Now who are you hurting by doing this ban. This could possibly affect a lot of other people as well sound engineers, drummers etc. All would be forced to work in a non-Jewish environment and possibly violate Shabbat, or give up their careers and have to look for work doing something else.
Zacchino,
Please note that the habit of trying to ban any form of popular media goes pretty much back to the invention of the printing press. It may well go back further, but that is a convenient historical marker for when media began to become truly available to the masses. What we have here is a baby and the bath water problem.
Whether the content of reproduced music is moral has really nothing to do with the instrumentation or style of the music. Allow me to use the classic reggae song “Rivers of Babylon” by The Melodians as an example. The arrangement contains all the instruments which would be subject to this ban, but the lyrics are a direct adaptation of Psalm 137 (same for the chorus of Matisyahu’s “Jerusalem”). Personally I see nothing about that or countless other reggae songs inspired by texts in the TANAKH appeals to the yetzer harah. Of course there is lots of reggae records where the lyrics center on immoral themes but anyone with a basic moral education can judge one from the other. If there is a subtle moral confusion, one can always ask one’s own Rav. I see a hecksher for music as being just one more thing to divide Jews than as a thing to help.
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