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Question: There is a new fashion to perform musical hymns, with musical instruments. as well as receiving Shabbat before Shabbat. and differentiation. Is kosher the thing?
Answer: First of all, it is not completely new. There was a similar thing, when the reformers introduced an organ into their synagogues, with the aim of resembling the Christians, and against this they fought with all the force of the Hatas (the omissions of Hom. C. Katsav. Ibid. 6, 5), Shovat Melamed Laha’il (C. 16), Uziel’s Laws (8, 18), and Rabbi Kook’s Law (Sho’at Orah Mishpat Lu-Laz. ii. in the book of rulings from Maran Sai’a).
Although nowadays this is not the trend, it is clear that this fashion of attaching a musical or other experience to the prayer is of Christian origin. As a matter of fact, there are some very serious problems with it.
1. Do not change the order of work on the fourth day. We do not know all the overt and hidden reasons.
2. Throughout the generations, the great men of Israel did not lead like this, although of course, they too had musical instruments and we are no wiser than them and no more righteous than them.
3. Furthermore, great people knew that they did play music in the Temple, yet they did not learn from him. But surely they knew that in this matter the synagogue is different from the temple.
4. Prayer is not a concert. One should pray out of holy fear and not out of musical enjoyment, and even more so not with the goal of musical enjoyment.
5. Some argue that the youth do not “connect” with the prayer, but are bored to death, and in this way of attraction and excitement, they do connect. This is a logical fallacy. They declare that they want to connect it to prayer, but in fact connect it with attraction and excitement. Rather, it distracts him from concentrating on the prayer itself.
6. And another claim: when you do to God, break your Torah. And to that one must answer with two. A. It has nothing to do with God. B. This is an authority that is given to the greatest generations and not to everyone.
7. At the end, there are heads of synagogues who testify that this is the only medicine they have found so that they will come to prayer at all. It is possible, but it should be known that the drug has severe side effects, therefore it is only allowed for patients.
8. As for the proof that under the canopy they do sing and play if I forget you – after all, this is also a new invention that has no origin, and it is not clear who invented it. The breaking of the glass has an ancient origin, but not the playing. But this also stems from the thirst for experience. And recently there is another new invention for the poem “You will give a rest to your people”.
9. In the Berura Mishna it is mentioned that on Shabbat they used zamirot, that is, prayer with melodies (Raft SKA). But even this should not be exaggerated. And an act of a public emissary who curled too much, for the pleasure of the public, our Rabbi Rabbi Zvi Yehuda gently reminded him that one should not sing too much. And an act At Bi Hadel, when once at the end of the prayer a public emissary came to wish me Shabbat Shalom, I told him: His Honor is not a cantor, but a prayer leader. He responded with tears of excitement at the high compliment.
10. A great scholar commented that before Hallel they bless “reading the Hallel” and not “singing the Hallel”.
11. And an act in a synagogue where they sang hymns of receiving Shabbat. A child asked people, one after the other, what is the meaning of “Forty years I will strike a generation and say to those who are foolish in heart and they did not know my way, which I swore by my breath, if I come to my rest.” After all, these are seemingly very difficult verses and how can one sing. And no one knew how to answer him, but told him that he had not thought of it. From this the boy concluded that they did not pray these verses on purpose, even once, and were busy singing only.
12. There are many synagogues, where people pray with great intention, and hardly sing.
13. Although it is written in the Gemara “to listen to the chanting and to the prayer – instead of chanting, there shall be prayer” (Berachot 6:1), Varshi explains: “The synagogue where the public say service and praises in the melody of the Arab voice.” But the melody of the Arab voice is not exactly Singing, of course, is not a musical instrument.
14. In conclusion, music does not increase the intention, but distracts from it. Or to conclude, from the words of Rabbi Soloveitchik in a conversation with Korah: “The religious experience is not the main thing, it is secondary. The starting point must never be the inner-subjective experience, and no matter how redemptive this experience is, no matter how colorful it is, how much healing power it has, how enormous the impression the experience makes on a person’s tough personality”
“The religious feeling is changeable, fickle and transitory, like on another head.”
“We are never able to determine what a religious experience is, and in stark contrast to that – what a lustful secular experience is. We know many non-religious feelings, hedonistic feelings that have enormous power. They are hypnotic, and at first glance they are ‘redemptive’. One can easily confuse a religious impulse And between the impulse of love.” Replacing religious feelings with secular feelings is again a pagan method. The idolaters in the ancient world would indulge in debaucherous hypnotic rituals and mistakenly recognize them as a religious experience. The Torah forbade the introduction of pagan practices into the act of worshiping God. “How will these heathens worship their gods and I will do so Me too – you shall not do that to the Lord your God”
The idea that the religious consciousness can be awakened by encountering it with the powerful hypnosis of the aesthetic experience, such as music, plastic arts, architecture – is a foreign matter to Halachic Judaism. For example: take the organ – what is the role of the organ? The organ serves a purpose: to set the mood. The organ does not prepare a religious mood, because the organ itself is not a tool of the religious experience, but of the artistic experience. But an artistic experience is used to pave the way somehow to a religious mood. The religious mood will never come! Because the road is lined with an aesthetic experience. The same if you dance – the dance may arouse you personally, of course, because it is stimulating, the rhythm itself is intoxicating – but the whole rhythm of the dance is an experience of sand. This is not a religious experience! It is an aesthetic experience. Do you expect the aesthetic experience to prepare the way for a religious experience to follow? – This will never happen!! This is basically idolatry.
In my opinion, this is the real reason for not including the organ in the prayer. Judaism wanted the religious experience to be born in its own world, not to be stimulated or awakened by a routine secular hedonistic experience. And more – that if we use the experience of love as a stimulant – in Judaism it becomes an abomination of course, it is idols ‘par excellence’. The religious experience is born within the religious consciousness, not under the pressure of sensual physiological tendencies”
“We never tried to do that, the Catholics did. The whole ‘mass’, the music, the architecture, everything is adapted to the same goal: to arouse in a person an ecstatic experience, which is opened by this stimulation – and the worshiper will also awaken to a religious experience – and this is a complete mistake! The religious experience is autonomous, free and original, moving at its own pace and within its own special path.”
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