SECULAR MUSIC IN THE SYNAGOGUE

A congregation has been asked to lend its building for a general concert of high-grade music, an operatic star leading the concert. Is it proper to lend the synagogue premises for this purpose? (From Rabbi Joshua O. Haberman, Trenton, New Jersey.)

THERE are a number of full discussions of music in the synagogue. The outstanding one among those discussions would be the famous one of Leon of Modena (Number 6 of his Responsa) on Jews and music. This responsum is to be found in Treasury of Responsa, p. 160.

Modena goes thoroughly into all the questions of music and the Jews and the synagogue. He deals with all the ancient prohibitions which seem to forbid instrumental or secular music in the synagogue on the ground that we are in perpetual mourning for the destruction of the Temple. He disposes of these general objections. Then he justifies the use of music as an aid to the fulfillment of a mitzvah, such as marriage (for which purpose instrumental music was permitted even on the Sabbath) and also as an aid in the service. He also says, in reference to his friend Solomon dei Rossi, who was a choir leader for the Duke of Mantua, that if one is under the command of the King or the Prince, one may study and make music. He ends up with saying that in order to fulfill these various mitzvos, a person is permitted to study music in general. Therefore it is possible to argue that increasing the standard of musical appreciation among our congregations would aid us in enhancing the musical beauty of our services which is, of course, a mitzvah.

In Shulchan Aruch, Orah Hayyim 561, 3, giving the old law, Caro says that we must not have instrumental music at all and that it is forbidden even to listen to it, but Isserles says at the end of the paragraph that for the needs of mitzvos as, for example, weddings, all is permitted. Similar permissions of dancing, etc., are recorded, generally by Isserles, indicating that the people have simply moved away from this excessive puritanism, and that these various pleasures hitherto frowned upon have gradually become permissible.

So we have to consider, in addition to the strictness of the law, what has “become permissible” in the mood of our day. We are now all accustomed to listening to good music and do not find it an hilarity but a cultural satisfaction. Of course, much depends upon the type of music which is to be permitted in the synagogue. To give a sensual, riotous jazz concert in the synagogue would insult the sanctity of the building and would be contrary to Jewish law, as could easily be proved. There are decisions, for example, against holding even temporary Holy Day services in hotel ballrooms where hilarious modern dances are given during the year.

But a high-grade musical concert is culture to us. We do not feel any more that it is a violation of the older objections against any singing and any music. Those objections were already refuted by Leon de Modena and by the life of the people in the time of Isserles.

A negative answer prohibiting secular concerts in the synagogue was given by the Orthodox Professor of the Hildesheimer Seminary in Berlin, Jehiel Weinberg. He calls to mind the prohibition of listening to music altogether, though there is justification for listening to religious music. He bases his opinion on the material referred to above. Even a religious concert which may be deemed permissible in the synagogue should be preceded by the reciting of a chapter of the Psalms, which would make it surely an act of study. But secular music should be resisted in the Orthodox synagogue and the rabbi should never yield to the congregation on the matter.

This strict, unyielding Orthodox opinion is of special historical interest because as Jehiel Weinberg explains, it was written in Berlin during the Nazi times, when Jews were forbidden to meet in any sort of assembly except in the synagogues. Since the German Jews loved music, and concerts of secular music were given in the Liberal synagogues, the inquirer was concerned about the danger that Orthodox Jews would go to the Liberal synagogues to hear music and thus, perhaps, be weaned away from their Orthodoxy.

At all events, it is clear that the Orthodox synagogues had some doubt about the permissibility of a secular con cert in the synagogue, or the question would never have been asked, and Liberal synagogues had no objection. The responsum is in the newly published S’riday Esh, Volume II, 12.

Our answer, however, would be that just as we have lectures on general culture in the synagogue and do not feel that they contradict the mood of the institution, so can we have music as an expression of general culture, specifically since raising the standard of musical appreciation may aid us in our efforts to enhance the beauty of the service, which is a direct mitzvah.