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“Rebellion” in the Talmud

שו”תCategory: Halacha“Rebellion” in the Talmud
asked 2 years ago

I recently came across a discussion about music on the Omer, and the call for a general ban on music after the destruction of the Temple.
The excuses regarding recorded music are well known, but today it seems that everyone is making light of live instruments, even drinking wine, and the like.
The discussion brought up opinions from all kinds of jurists who qualify the prohibition and limit it to certain circumstances, and the idea of ​​a ‘decree that the public cannot abide by’ was also raised.
One of the members referred to the words of the Maimonides in the Law of Mary, that a decree that the public cannot abide by is not null and void by itself, but rather the Sanhedrin must permit it, and until then, whoever does not abide by it is still a criminal (or in other words – if someone asks, they will tell him it is forbidden).
Then he claimed that if we are honest, we are simply doing against what is written in the Talmud. And we have no formal permission for this. Do you agree with that? This is a bit different from the “fast nicht” arguments that you hold, because here on the face of it there is no socially-substantive reason to repeal the prohibition.


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מיכי Staff answered 2 years ago
It is certainly possible. But you are not correct in your distinction from the Fast Not argument. There are cultural situations in which it is out of the question to prevent people from a certain type of activity, and therefore it is Fast Not. The place that music occupies in our world is probably like that. It is no different from the Fast Not argument that today it is out of the question to destroy churches or burn Christian books. In my understanding, this is not an argument of rape or danger, since this does not require Fast Not arguments, but rather a cultural argument. In our culture today, it is out of the question to act in this way. We are all very shocked by acts of burning synagogues or Torah scrolls, or harassing people with distinctly Jewish clothing. But in fact, we are also supposed to do the exact same thing to others. This only demonstrates why it is not Fast Not today to act in this way. [Perhaps the passage of time has also taken its toll. The destruction happened two thousand years ago, and perhaps there is a feeling that it cannot go on forever. I don’t know.] As for the rules for repealing regulations, the law does not operate exactly according to the rules. It has its own ways. Sometimes people stop acting according to a certain law without it being repealed by the minyan, simply because the public collectively understood that it no longer belongs. This can be justified by the fact that the public’s consent (even if it is implicit) is considered a ruling by the Great Court (Raj”a Kook and Beit Yishai and others have made such claims). But it seems to me that the repeal came before these explanations. You can find many examples of this in my articles here on the site about repealing regulations today. In my opinion, the poskim who found ways of granting permission also based themselves on the permission that the people practiced “from below”, and only later offered it some kind of halakhic anchor (usually not very convincing). They do not want to leave the public (and probably themselves) with the feeling that it is possible to act outside the boundaries of formal halakhic law. But in fact, the basis of permission is not a halakhic consideration. In the above articles, different ways of reasoning are presented, and it is clear that they were all created retrospectively.

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