20190911 112445.mp3

Topics

• Halacha and Hashkafah Are Not the Same Question
• Music Carries More Than Words
• The Nuance Hidden in a Melody
• Small Influences Become Large
• No One Outsmarts the Torah
• Guarding the Inner Environment
• The Strength of Remaining Uninfluenced
• The Boundary of the Jewish Home
• Jewish Music Awakens the Jewish Soul
• Music Reaches the Inner Person
• The Power of a Niggun
• Halacha and Hashkafah

Transcript

## Halacha and Hashkafah Are Not the Same Question

When discussing music that is not authentic Jewish music, the first distinction must be clear. Music containing vulgarity, profanity, immorality, or corrupt ideas presents an obvious problem because of its content. There is no need for a complicated discussion about songs whose words themselves are forbidden and degrading.

The more difficult question concerns music that appears clean: an old cultural melody about ordinary life, a classical composition, or instrumental music without lyrics. Can one say that every such piece is halachically forbidden merely because it originated among the nations? That is difficult to establish. The general halachos governing music are a separate discussion, but once music is being permitted, it is not simple to declare every clean non-Jewish melody assur.

Nevertheless, the hashkafic question is much broader than the narrow halachic classification. Something may not carry a clear issur and still possess an influence that a ben Torah should not welcome.

## Music Carries More Than Words

A person must understand the power of nuance. The same words can communicate entirely different messages depending upon the tone in which they are spoken.

A father once received a letter from his son in yeshiva: “I need money. I need clothing.” The father read it harshly: “Send money! Send clothing!” He became upset by what sounded like chutzpah and refused to send anything.

The mother said, “That does not sound like our son. Let me read the letter.” She read the identical words softly and respectfully: “Father, I need money. I need clothing.” Nothing in the written text had changed. The entire meaning changed through the tone.

A melody is the tone beneath the words. Even when there are no words, the music may carry attitudes, desires, and emotions. One tune can express refinement; another can express arrogance, taavah, unrestraint, or rebellion. The message may be subtle, but subtle influence is still influence.

## The Nuance Hidden in a Melody

It is reported that Rav Hutner listened at times to classical music, which can be calming and dignified. This demonstrates that a melody is not automatically disqualified merely because it is not Jewish in origin. Yet one must know what he is hearing.

I once knew of music that sounded beautiful and spiritually stirring. I later learned that its composer developed those melodies while involved in severe aveiros. That discovery was shocking. Music conceived in such a setting cannot simply be assumed to carry genuine kedushah because the listener experiences it as moving.

Most people are not trained musicians. A person with a highly developed ear may hear within a composition traces of gaavah, taavah, aggression, or distorted middos that an ordinary listener cannot identify. We hear that it sounds pleasant; we may not recognize what is entering beneath the surface.

Therefore, even where it is difficult to state a formal issur, there is real merit in caution. When music originates in a world whose values are foreign to Torah, a person should not casually assume that its influence is neutral.

## Small Influences Become Large

The danger of influence is that it usually does not announce itself. A person imagines that nothing has changed because each individual movement is slight. But a tiny deviation, repeated and allowed to grow, can eventually carry him very far from where he began.

This is true in physical growth and it is true in spiritual growth. Someone who sees a person every day may not notice the gradual change. Someone who has not seen him for five years may immediately say, “You are not the same person. What happened?” Nothing dramatic occurred in a single moment. A little influence entered, then a little more, and then a little more.

The Rambam writes that it is the nature of a person to be drawn in his opinions and actions after his friends and environment (Hilchos De’os 6:1). This is not a weakness found only in foolish people. It is part of human nature. Very few people can repeatedly expose themselves to an atmosphere and remain entirely untouched by it.

## No One Outsmarts the Torah

A person may say, “I know what I am doing. I can expose myself to this and it will not influence me.” Shlomo HaMelech, the wisest of all men, believed that he could understand the reason behind the Torah’s restriction upon a king and avoid its consequences. Yet the very result the Torah warned against ultimately occurred: his wives turned his heart (Melachim I 11:4; Sanhedrin 21b).

A person does not outsmart the Torah. If Shlomo HaMelech could be affected, no ordinary person should confidently declare himself immune.

Music is among the strongest forms of influence because it can alter a person’s emotional state almost immediately. Calm music can settle him; wild music can awaken wildness. At the end of a wedding, change the rhythm and within seconds the entire demeanor of the room changes. People move, shout, and behave differently because the music has reached them before they have stopped to think.

## Guarding the Inner Environment

One of the gedolim was exceptionally guarded against the influence of the street and kept the shades of his home closed. When asked why, he referred to the Rambam’s ruling that if a person lives among people whose conduct is corrupt and cannot resist their influence, he must separate from them—even to the point of dwelling alone in caves and deserts (Hilchos De’os 6:1).

He explained that he could not literally flee to a desert, but he could create separation within his own home. The point was not fear of sunlight or an irrational fear of the street. It was an awareness that outside influence is real and that a person must actively protect the atmosphere in which his neshamah lives.

Influence does not stop at the door merely because a person considers himself religious. It travels through what he sees, what he hears, whom he admires, and what he repeatedly allows into his mind. Music enters through the ears, but it does not remain there. It becomes part of the inner environment of the person.

## The Strength of Remaining Uninfluenced

A well-known account relates that when Ben-Gurion visited the Chazon Ish, the Chazon Ish spoke with him but remained visibly guarded. Ben-Gurion left with an increased respect for what genuine gadlus looked like. There are moments when a person’s refusal to accommodate the values of the outside world does not repel others; it reveals conviction, and conviction can command respect.

When Ben-Gurion later sought to visit the Brisker Rav, the Brisker Rav would not receive him. The question was asked: Why had the Chazon Ish agreed to a meeting while the Brisker Rav refused?

The answer given was that the Brisker Rav represented a rare point in the world that remained completely uninfluenced by the surrounding culture. That independence itself had to be protected. “Leave it untouched,” the Chazon Ish is reported to have said. The outside world will come with honor, power, flags, and an impressive entourage. Influence does not always enter as an enemy. Sometimes it arrives at the front door dressed in importance.

## The Boundary of the Jewish Home

The placement of the Chanukah menorah teaches the same lesson. The Gemara says that the mezuzah is placed on the right side of the entrance and the Chanukah lamp on the left (Shabbos 22a). The doorway forms the boundary between the Jewish home and the street.

Yavan did not seek only to destroy Jewish bodies. It sought to fill Jewish minds and homes with the culture of Yavan. The answer of the Chachamim was to establish kedushah at the entrance. The outside remains outside, and the inside must remain recognizably Jewish.

The mezuzah and the menorah stand at the doorway as protection and testimony. A Jew must sometimes enter the street, conduct business, and live among people whose values are not his own. His body may need to pass through the outside world, but his penimiyus must remain protected. The inner home—and the inner person—cannot be surrendered to every influence that knocks.

## Jewish Music Awakens the Jewish Soul

This returns us to the question of music. Halacha may analyze whether a particular melody is formally permitted. Hashkafah asks an additional question: What does this music awaken within the listener?

Authentic Jewish music can awaken ahavas Hashem, ahavas Yisrael, yearning, simchah shel mitzvah, and the distinctive emotions of a Jewish neshamah. It touches chords that belong to the inner life of a Yid.

Music therefore had a place in the Beis HaMikdash. The Levi’im sang during the avodah. Their song was not decorative background music added merely to create a pleasant atmosphere. It belonged to the avodah itself. The melody helped open the heart of the person bringing the korban and prepared him for teshuvah and kirvas Hashem.

## Music Reaches the Inner Person

The music of the Levi’im was not comparable to background music played in an office or waiting room merely to create ambiance. The Netziv explains that their song was intended to awaken the person bringing the korban. Through the melody, feelings of teshuvah, longing, and kirvas Hashem were stirred within him. The song of the Levi’im was part of the spiritual movement of the korban itself (see Arachin 11a).

This reveals the unique force of music. Many influences remain external. Music penetrates inward. It bypasses argument and enters the emotions, shaping the atmosphere of the heart before a person has consciously analyzed what he is receiving.

For that reason, music is often an expression of the inner world of the one who creates it. When a singer or composer lives through corruption, coarse desire, and damaged middos, it is difficult to assume that the music emerging from that inner world is entirely pure merely because it sounds beautiful to us.

Our inability to hear the defect does not prove that no defect exists. A person with an undeveloped palate may praise food simply because he has never tasted anything finer. In the same way, a listener may call a melody beautiful because he lacks the musical and spiritual sensitivity to recognize the gaavah, taavah, aggression, or emptiness carried within it.

## The Power of a Niggun

A niggun has power. It can awaken the best parts of a person, or it can awaken what is wild and unrefined. It can draw a Jew toward Hashem, or slowly accustom him to a foreign emotional language.

This does not mean that every pleasant melody created outside the Jewish world can automatically be declared assur. Halacha requires definitions, evidence, and proper distinctions. But hashkafah requires wisdom. The absence of a clearly formulated prohibition does not mean that a person should absorb everything indiscriminately.

A ben Torah should ask more than, “Can I prove that this is forbidden?” He should ask: What is this doing to me? What emotions does it strengthen? What world does it make attractive? After listening repeatedly, am I more refined, more settled, and more connected to Hashem—or less so?

## Halacha and Hashkafah

The halachic discussion must be addressed by those qualified to pasken the particular circumstances. The hashkafic guidance is clear: be careful. Music is powerful, and powerful things must be handled with intelligence.

Whatever a person is capable of protecting, he should protect. Whatever foreign influence he can avoid bringing into his penimiyus, he should avoid. The ears are an entrance to the heart, and the heart of a Jew should not be left unguarded.