https://halachipedia.com/index.php?title=Listening_to_Music
Halichot Shlomo (pg 412) quotes Rav Shlomo Zalman who permits listening to music that doesn’t lead to (or accompany) dancing (whether it’s sung or played by an instrument). For example, classical music would fall into this category. It’s proper not to listen to such music during the three weeks as a sign of mourning. Similarly, Rabbi Shlomo Dechovsky (Techumin, Vol 21 pg 67) quotes Rav Moshe Feinstein as permitting listening to classical music as one works because it’s unrelated to dancing (the primary prohibition of simcha is dancing, as in Magen Avraham 551:10). Others including: Rabbi Yosef B. Soloveitchik (quoted in RJJ Journal vol 14 pg 34) and Aseh Lecha Rav (3 pg 16) agree. Lastly, Peninei Halacha (pg 145) permits songs that don’t lead to or involve simcha and, all the more so, sad songs. [Sh”t Shelat Shlomo 7:60 says that classical music should depend on the dispute between Rashi and Rambam.]
Soooooo, not Schweky or Schmeltzer then?
ReplyDeleteRambam says that they would play music to neviim to make them happy, because simcha is a prerequisite to nevuah.
DeleteBut no, last thing we need is for nevuah to come back. Another case of the Gedolim mocking Moses, who said :
Enviest thou for my sake? Would God that all the Lord’S people were prophets, and that the Lord would put His Spirit upon them!”
There's a bit of psychology at work here. We deal with this problem every year on 9 Av. Having never seen the Temple, having never experienced true holiness or the presence of the Shechina, and frankly being alive at the best time for Jews in the last 2000 years, how does one properly summon the feeling of mourning? One can be disappointed to have missed out on something but mourning, a sense that one's life is incomplete? It's impossible for all but the saintliest of us.
DeleteAnd that's the thing about music. Yes, technically we should never listen to music. We should certainly not happily enjoy it to show our dedication to remembering our loss. But skipping out on music does not create a sense of mourning, it's just another regulation to follow at this point.