Hearing love songs and the composer’s influence through the melody
Hello Rabbi. Is there a prohibition on listening to love songs from a man to a woman? And does every composer really invest his personality in his melodies, in a way that affects me as much as the story about the rabbi-hermit who was unable to hear a melody that Wagner composed?
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I don’t see any prohibition in this. Love is a subject like any other, and there’s nothing wrong with singing about it. Although I personally find its dominance in our poetry and hymns a bit excessive, it’s of course a matter of taste.
If it is about the love of a particular person for a particular woman, there may be an interest in leaving it to the individual, for reasons of modesty. But I don’t see a prohibition here in any way. As mentioned, I don’t see any problem with poems that deal with love in general.
If there is a person for whom listening to these songs arouses forbidden thoughts, then perhaps there is room for discussion. And even there, perhaps the law of not being able to do anything and not being able to do anything is relevant on Passovers, and this is not the place for that.
As for the relationship between the composer and his songs, I don’t know how to answer. To me, it sounds mystical and not really convincing, but you should ask music experts and composers (and accept their words with limited liability). In any case, you should think about what the definition of this claim is that the composer invests something of himself in the song. It’s trivial in the simplest sense (after all, the song is his product, and therefore it’s clear that his personality has an influence on the song) and mystical if you interpret it in a broader sense. Therefore, the question doesn’t sound well-defined to me.
As for the Nazir Rabbi, I would be happy if they did an experiment and played him Wagner’s music without telling him that Wagner was the composer. This could also be a test of the meaning of the question about the relationship between the composer and his music (see my comments above). This reminds me of the joke of the Gur Rebbe, who, when told that the Rebbe of Lolov raises his father (who died long ago) to the Torah every third Saturday of the month when he prayed the Shabbat mincha (meel zaman), and answered after him with a habesh and amen, answered and said: “A great sage, we see him giving him a raise.”
In any case, even if this experiment were done and the monk was disgusted by it, it can still be said that there is a matter of taste here (related to personality, etc.).
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Shalom Rabbi,
If so, I would prefer to discuss this as impossible and not because of why the Shulchan Aruch, in the 67th chapter, wrote: Rhetoric and parables of mundane conversation and lustful words, such as the book of Immanuel and the books of war, are forbidden to be read on Shabbat, and even on a sabbath, because they are a gathering place for mockers and transgressors, because they do not turn to idols, nor do they turn to your own understanding, and because lustful words are forbidden because they stimulate the evil inclination, and those who composed them and those who copied them, and it is needless to say that the printer misleads the multitude?
He perceived this as a literal prohibition and not as something permitted that could lead to prohibitions. Therefore, in his view, neither possible nor impossible belongs here. But I disagree with him, and so does Amma Davar. See B’ Kam for more unacceptable assertions by the author. It may also be a matter of context and cultural environment, and not really a dispute.
Incidentally, I am not sure that he means a literal prohibition. It is possible that he just wants to say that these things are obscene (in his eyes).
It's hard for me to understand that there is no real prohibition according to the Shulchan Arba'ah, after all, he wrote that even the printers mislead the many.
As for whether this is a cultural matter or not so agreed upon even at the time, there is perhaps a bit of proof from what the author of the Seder Dorot wrote about Rabbi Emanuel, "and he composed a commentary on the Torah and a book of songs, although some people perceived it." And I also think that today it can be said that it does not raise so many problems (even if in many cases the listener of the song can put it on or imagine it about women he knows), of course in the case of normal people and not under mental stress due to all the severity that is added to these matters.
But, and this is a big but, it is difficult to come and untie the yoke of an accepted tradition of hundreds of years of ruling and reliance on the author, especially for a Sephardic person like me who was mentioned in all the poskim from his time until our own time, who received his instructions.
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