Q&A: Benefiting from Music of Idolatry
Originally published:
This is an English translation (via GPT-5.4). Read the original Hebrew version.
Benefiting from Music of Idolatry
Question
Hello, recently I realized that there is a prohibition against benefiting from idolatry, and it may be that I’m violating it. I listen to Indian music (chanting) in which Hare Krishna is mentioned. I don’t understand at all what is being said there or the words in Hindi, and I use it for when I’m solving practice exam problems (it’s exam period now haha). Is this forbidden?
Answer
I’m not familiar with Hare Krishna, so it’s hard for me to know whether this counts as idolatry. Assuming that it does—then indeed it may be proper to avoid it. I don’t think there is an actual prohibition, since a music recording, even if it was created for idolatry, is not itself an object of idolatry from which benefit is forbidden. The same applies to church music.