Here are some comments on Chapter 1 - The Influence of Music.
Rabbi Luft introduces this chapter as follows.
There are many people who have been led to think that there are no bad influences in music. They assume that if we do not find any prohibition mentioned by our Rabbis of previous generations to refrain from listening to any type of music, then everything is permissible. We do find one place in Chazal in Chagiga 15, that tells us that the Tanna Elisha Ben Avuya was influenced to become an apikorus by listening to a Greek song. This seems to imply that there did exist in the Geek music of that period bad influences that could corrupt the soul. This does not mean that all types of non-Jewish music are bad, as we find that over the generations our Rabbis permitted to use non-Jewish melodies even for Kaddish and Kedusha [see Birchei Yosef O'CH 560 and Pri Megadim O"CH 53, E"HAE 14].This opening paragraph is very relevant, because Rabbi Luft here essentially concedes that he's making this whole prohibition up, a fact that the rest of the book tries very hard to obscure.
It's important to note that, here too, Rabbi Luft is distorting his Torah source. The Gemara in Chagiga 15B does not say Acher (Elisha ben Avuyah) was influenced to become a heretic by "listening to "A" Greek song" [italics mine]. It says "Zemer Yevani lo pasak mipumeih"; i.e. he was always singing Greek songs [lit. Greek song did not cease from his mouth]. In other words, even without getting into the definition of "Greek song", we can already clearly demonstrate that Rabbi Luft has incorrectly cited a source. "Greek song" is worthy of its own post. Perhaps I'll write on the subject after going through the rest of the book in a general sense.
This chapter also contains the following:
We see therefore that our rabbis also mentioned that music has beneficial and detrimental influences. But we should ask why there is nothing mentioned by the Gedolim of Europe on this subject [as we find that the only type of goyishe music that they prohibited was music of avoda zara and shirei agavim (love songs), where the bad influence is essentially in the words, and not in the music]. The answer is that European music until the 20th century was generally clean and respectable, and did not contain negative influences. Therefore we see that those Gedolim who did write about harmful music were the ones who live among the arabs, whose music is full of immoral content...he then cites a quote from Kaf Hachaim who prefers that chazzanim shouldn't use melodies based on Maqam for kaddish and kedusha because they bring "hirhurim ra'im". [bad thoughts].
Rabbi Luft is forced to take this position because he is well aware of the numerous secular European melodies adopted by the chareidi community, especially various Chassidic communities.
Rabbi Luft ignores the fact that this is true of the Sephardic communities from Arab countries as well. They too have adopted many secular melodies from the local culture. Kaf Hachaim's opinion is one side of a well-known debate amongst Sephardic poskim over the years. The common practice in those communities has been to accept the use of those melodies. Indeed many Sephardic poskim to this date (including Chacham Ovadya Yosef) permit this. In his responsa Yechave Da'as II:5, Chacham Yosef includes a list of great Sephardic Chachamim who condoned the practice of using the melodies of Arabic love songs for Kaddish and Kedusha. Whether he is unaware of, or deliberately misrepresenting the reality, Rabbi Luft is once again shading the truth in his pursuit of his agenda. There is no distinction between the communities in this regard. There is is only a Euro-centric bias, here.
Citing a minority opinion as authoritative is not reflective of how the Halachik system operates. It's also intellectually dishonest. Either Rabbi Luft is being misleading here, or else he is opining in ignorance.
Rabbi Luft also describes the musical changes of the 20th century:
New forms of popular music appeared with a new purpose to promote immorality, rebellion, and violence. The results can be seen on the street. This musical anarchy has already destroyed the last two generations of modern society, and over the past 25 years has been creeping into chareidi music by means of irresponsible singers, arrangers, and producers who do not seem to care about our spiritual welfare.For Rabbi Luft, the blame for anything negative in society can be traced back to music. It's always cause, never effect. This is not a very nuanced position. It's not an accurate one either.
Next in the series will be a look at Chapter Two - Quotes from Newspapers and Books on "Rock and Roll".
Here are my previous posts in this series:
In Review - R' Ephraim Luft's "The Torah Is Not Hefker" Part I
In Review - R' Ephraim Luft's "The Torah Is Not Hefker" Part II
UPDATE 2/1/09:
For your convenience, I have updated the posts in this series to include links to all of the posts on this topic.
Here are the links to all of the posts in this series:
In Review - R' Ephraim Luft's "The Torah Is Not Hefker" Part I
In Review - R' Ephraim Luft's "The Torah Is Not Hefker" Part II
In Review - R' Ephraim Luft's "The Torah Is Not Hefker" Part III
In Review - R' Ephraim Luft's "The Torah Is Not Hefker" Part IIIa
In Review - R' Ephraim Luft's "The Torah Is Not Hefker" Part IV
In Review - R' Ephraim Luft's "The Torah Is Not Hefker" Part V
In Review - Ephraim Luft's "The Torah Is Not Hefker" Part VI
In Review - R'; Ephraim Luft's "The Torah Is Not Hefker" Part VII
In Review - R' Ephraim Luft's "The Torah Is Not Hefker" Part VIII
In Review - R' Ephraim Luft's "The Torah Is Not Hefker" Part IX
