I. Musical Instruments on Shabbat?
A. Our portion today, Beshalach, mostly translated as When he let the people go, or as explained in this week’s Jewish Journal by Lubavitcher Rebbe Menachem Schneerson, When Pharaoh sent the people out, which has a completely different connotation, has a wealth of themes to analyze, interpret and explore. We could look at the import of a release from literal or figurative slavery, explore an explanation for the splitting of the sea, examine the miracle of manna, analyze the symbolism of Moses striking the rock in Horeb so the people might drink, or evaluate Moses’ hand positions in battle versus Amalek.
B. Which to choose? Actually, we’re not going to consider any of them. Instead, we’ll begin with a musical celebration, expand our assessment to a study of the use of musical instruments during Shabbat services and conclude with an evaluation of Orthodox versus Non-Orthodox Halachah.
C. At the Chochmat HaLev (Wisdom of the Heart) Jewish Meditation Center in Berkeley and IKAR in Los Angeles, Shabbat services include praying and drumming in an attempt, as IKAR (“Essence”) states on its website, …to help redefine what it means to be Jewish today. Drumming may appeal to spirited, pluralistic Jews, but sacred Jewish law sternly prohibits such inspired imaginative originality.
D. The Shulkhan Arukh, the legal code compiled by the great Sephardic Rabbi Joseph Caro in the mid-1500s is still the standard legal code of Judaism. One provision states:
On the Sabbath, it is forbidden to make a musical sound, either with an instrument or with the limbs of the body. It is even forbidden to snap the fingers or to strike on a board to make a sound.
E. And yet, when drumming fills Chochmat HaLev & IKAR, the percussive reverberations invoke a moment of Exodus in Beshalach.
Miriam the prophetess, Aaron’s sister, took a timbrel in her hand; and all the women went out after her in dance with timbrels. And Miriam chanted: Sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously, horse and driver he has hurled into the sea.
Exod. 15:20-21.
F. The Bible plainly reveals & even celebrates that singing & dancing, music & percussion, once accompanied the sacred rituals of ancient Israel. We read in 2 Samuel 6:5, 16:
David and the House of Israel danced before the Lord to the sound of all kinds of instruments, lyres, harps, timbrels and cymbals.
And Psalm 92 notes:
A song for the Shabbat day. It is good to praise the Lord and make music to your name, … to the music of the ten-stringed lyre and the melody of the harp.
G. After the destruction of the Temple in 70 C.E., classical Judaism saw the use of musical instruments as unseemly & inappropriate. Music likely to stir excessive human passion was condemned.
H. The competence of Hazzanim was judged by personal propriety rather than musical ability. Rabbis were inclined to reject Hazzanim of virtuoso ability. They were thought to be aiming at public applause, but Rabbis often compromised because of public demands & agreed to a Hazzan with a beautiful voice. Musical performances at public worship were still subject to other bars though, such as women singing.
II. 3 Reasons Not to Use Musical Instruments on Shabbat.
A. Three reasons are generally posited against the use of a musical instrument during Sabbath services:
1. We are grieving for the Temple’s destruction.
2. Not to follow the Gentile’s or heretics’ ways.
3. The possibility that someone will try to fix a Musical Instrument if it breaks during Shabbat Services.
As with all discussions Jewish, each position has supporters and critics. We’ll take a look at each argument in turn.
B. Grieving for the Temple’s Destruction.
1. According to rabbinical tradition, the ban on music is a gesture of mourning over the loss of the Temple. We must await the coming of the Messiah & the building of the 3rd Temple before following David’s example in 2nd Samuel.
2. Those opposing ask: How long should we grieve? Even mourning for the closest relatives lasts no more than a year. We’re not supposed to grieve forever. The rationale is that endless grieving is neither a healthy nor a Jewish practice.
3. In addition, if it’s good to praise the Lord & make music in his name with musical instruments, as Miriam did & as Psalm 92 instructs, why deprive Jews of that ability? The Jews’ finest place to become near to God, the Temple, was destroyed & then a transformative way to get closer to God, with instrumental music, was forbidden. Jews were left with no Temple & no instrumental music.
C. What of Not Following the Gentile’s or Heretics’ Ways?
1. Rabbis of the Talmudic era sought to distinguish Jewish from Christian services. If Christians accompanied prayers with choirs & musical instruments, Jews must pray a capella.
2. In the early 19th century, the Reform movement began installing organs & choir lofts in their synagogues. The Orthodox held they were blatantly aping Christians, transforming the synagogue into a church. The Orthodox believe sacrifices & liturgical music are reserved for the Temple & it’s sensible to maintain a difference between synagogue & Temple worship.
3. In 1819, the Rabbinic Court in Hamburg published a series of letters by Halachic authorities in which they unanimously prohibited playing musical instruments in a synagogue, particularly the organ; a reaction against the Reform movement playing instruments during services. Beginning in 1863 the Hildsheimer Yeshivah in Berlin ordained Rabbis on the condition they would not serve in synagogues with organs.
4. The opposing position is that Reform & Conservative synagogues permitting organs, guitars, drums & choirs are taking the longer view, that they are coming full circle & embracing the oldest traditions of Judaism. The non-Orthodox believe they are simply filling their synagogues with the joyous sounds heard in the Temple & there is nothing at all wrong with catching the attention of & sparking interest in our 3,000-year-old faith.
D. What If the Instrument Breaks During Sabbath Services?
1. The Talmudic source on use of musical instruments on Shabbat is the Babylonian Talmud (Tractate Beitza 36b), where the concern is someone might attempt fixing one if it breaks on Shabbat.
2. Halacha Yomit, a modern Orthodox website declares this decree would certainly apply today, for it is quite common for musicians to tune their instruments. My suspicion is that the religious authority coming up with that ruling knows little of music & less about musical instruments. To fix clearly connotes a repair of a broken musical instrument. To tune plainly signifies a calibration of an unbroken instrument to a standard pitch.
3. The opinion continues: Even if the reason for the decree no longer applies, the edict still stands. In other words, even conceding that tuning is not equivalent to fixing a musical instrument, the decree must still be obeyed. This is akin to the Catholic Church conceding, as it did, that Galileo’s sun-centered theory of the solar system was correct, & then declaring, as it did, that the earth revolving around the sun could not be, since Holy Scripture obviously opposed that idea.
4. There are those who think musicians attending services do not completely lack self-control. Others maintain very few can actually fix instruments in any case, & would certainly not attempt fixing one during Shabbat services.
III. The “Conservative” Position.
A. The Conservative movement’s position is that though there should be an architecture of restraint to craft holy space, such a plan is subject to review & reconfiguration, keeping in mind the ultimate goal of setting aside holy time.
B. In 1958, based upon that position, the Committee on Jewish Law & Standards of the Rabbinical Assembly considered playing the organ in services, setting Halachic policy for the Conservative movement. It said:
The committee does not consider the organ Halachically prohibited. But we caution those who would introduce organ music into the service that there are a number of undesirable effects that may result, particularly in the loss of congregational participation in the services.
C. In 1970, instruments such as guitars were added. The well-intentioned caution about organ music may well have been premature. There are those who find organ music inspiring & stirring to the point of enhancing participation.
D. According to Rabbi Elie Kaplan Spitz of Congregation B’nai Israel in Tustin, Conservative congregations introducing instrumental music on Shabbat have done so because:
they feel music fosters communal singing, offers beauty, spiritually uplifts, & draws participants. Some argue musical instruments may put a damper on introspection & communal singing, but these dangers are also present with cantorial music & choirs.
E. Which, of course, is just why the Orthodox opposed these practices in the first place. The dialogue is important & should continue.
IV. A Rich Emergence or the Disappearance of Judaism?
A. Use of musical instruments in a synagogue on Shabbat is only part of a larger dispute; one of transformation. Orthodox Jews reason we must follow the proper methods that have served Judaism well for millennia. The slightest degree of innovation in ritual or practice must be based on sound religious scholarship, justified and defended according to Halachic rules of interpretation, and ratified by authoritative, ordained scholars, according to Rabbi Haym Donin in his book To Be a Jew: A Guide to Jewish Observance in Contemporary Life.
B. One who improvises on Jewish tradition on his or her own initiative and according to his or her own imagination, Rabbi Donin insists, goes beyond the legitimate boundaries of Judaism. What is at stake is nothing less than the survival of the Jewish people. Assimilation begins when Jews discard the binding character of Halacha and ends, he argues, with the disappearance of Judaism. The assumption is that Orthodox Halachic scholarship is the only version worthy of followers.
C. Rabbi Donin isn’t the 1st to lodge this argument. Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, a prominent 19th century Frankfurt rabbi, argued that paying dues to Reform-led activities lent support to an inauthentic Judaism. Rabbi Moses Sofer, called the Hatam Sofer & one of the leading Orthodox rabbis of European Jewry in the 1st half of the 19th century,
is particularly important to understanding emergent Orthodoxy. He waged a long-standing campaign against any deviation from traditional modes of Jewish practice, & succinctly expressed his views in his slogan hadash assur min ha-Torah–that which is new is biblically prohibited.
D. The deepest irony between traditionalists & modernizers isthat it is very ancient, very familiar & very Jewish. He who studies Jewish history, wrote Simon Rawidowicz in his essay The Ever-Dying People, will readily discover there was hardly a generation in the Diaspora that did not consider itself the final link in Israel’s chain. Yet it was that very fear of extinction, Rawidowicz maintains, that marked every effort at revival.
E. Samuel G. Freedman discusses revival as an ongoing clash in his book, Jew vs. Jew, The Struggle For The Soul Of American Jewry. He states:
The present struggle is between unity & pluralism, & both are innocuous euphemisms for more controversial agendas. As invoked by America’s Orthodox Jews, unity means all Jews act & think as we do, accepting the inerrancy of Torah. As invoked by America’s non-Orthodox Jews, pluralism means any variation of Judaism must be accepted by everyone, no obligations required, no questions asked.
F. Sociologist Steven M. Cohen describes the vying camps as transformationalists & survivalists. The former sees Jewish identity enriched by the influence of an America of diverse views & vision. The other fears Jewish identity’s erosion for precisely the same reason.
G. Samuel Freedman puts it this way:
The dueling models might be expressed as I am what I feel versus I feel what I am.
I am what I feel: I define the terms of my Jewish identity.
I feel what I am: Judaism defines the terms of my Jewish identity.
I am what I feel: Jewish ethnicity exists independant of Jewish religion.
I feel what I am: Jewish ethnicity arises from Jewish religion.
H. If Judaism changes beyond the constraints of Orthodox Halacha as depicted by Rabbi Donin, are Jews on the road to extinction? Conversely, must everyone, no obligations required, no questions asked, accept any & every view of Jewish identity & practice? Or, will change outside the prescribed limits of Orthodox Halacha result in the emergence of a richer Judaism?
I. Are Youwhat youFeel or Do YouFeelwhat youAre?
Shabbat Shalom.
