Music taps into a dimension of the soul that might otherwise not be reached, a sensual experience that ideally serves a spiritual function. Music, as the Vilna Gaon was quoted as saying, can open for us new vistas in Torah. Such is its power. And therein lies the problem.
There are halachic prohibitions that are implicated regarding secular music, in terms of provocative content, dissemination of poor values, performers with depraved lifestyles with whom the listener might identify, kol isha, and the general issue of music after the Churban. Modern music, for the most part, is a cultural wasteland. To the impressionable, secular music can be devastating.
Yet, the landscape is not totally bleak. I don’t know much about secular music today but in a more innocent time there were songs that reinforced good values. I recall one song from the 1970’s, Harry Chapin’s “Cat’s in the Cradle,” about parents and children not spending enough time with each other. At first, the young son says, “When you coming home, dad?” and the father responds, “I don’t know when, but we’ll get together then, you know we’ll have a good time then.” By the end of the song, the aged father pines for a visit from his grown son, and says, “When you coming home, son?” and the son answers, “I don’t know when, but we’ll get together then, dad, you know we’ll have a good time then.” And then it dawns on the father, “And as I hung up the phone, it occurred to me, he’d grown up just like me, My boy was just like me.”
I’ve listened to that song as a child, father, and grandfather, and it never fails to move me. That is good mussar regardless of the source. And if all secular music were like that, there would be no concern at all.
– Rav Steven Pruzansky is Rabbi Emeritus of Congregation Bnai Yeshurun (Teaneck, NJ), Israel Region Vice-President of the Coalition for Jewish Values, and author “Repentance for Life” and “Redemption for Today” (Kodesh Press).
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I think the answer is that it depends on context (although that’s not a popular term nowadays). Men listening to women singing is forbidden under the prohibition of kol isha. Some poskim allow one to listen to a woman’s voice on recorded music (Tzitz Eliezer, 5:2) and some poskim are only lenient in this instance if one doesn’t know what the singer looks like (Yabia Omer, 1:6). Some poskim forbid a man to listen to a woman’s voice even on recorded music (Chelkat Yaakov, 1:163).
If the lyrics of the song are immodest or antithetical to Torah values then one should not listen to the song. This would include songs that contain profanity or songs that could lead to forbidden sexual thoughts.
If secular music does not raise any halachic issues of kol isha and if it contains appropriate lyrics, then one may listen to such music. Whether it’s appropriate to do so may relate to a broader Torah U-madda question, about the value of engaging the broader world through the prism of Torah. If we believe that we can read appropriate secular literature because it has value and/or as a way to relax then we can also listen to appropriate secular music because it has value and/or as a way to relax.
That being said, the Rema rules that even though one may study secular disciplines, one may only do so b’akrai, i.e., on a temporary basis (Yoreh De-ah, 246:4). A person should realize that Torah study is ultimately what is most important in his or her life. Similarly, even though it may be appropriate under some circumstances to listen to secular music, that dispensation should only be b’akrai. A person should mostly listen to songs that contain lyrics from Biblical sources and ones that reflect Torah values so that he or she can use this powerful medium as another avenue to draw close to G-d.
– Rabbi Jonathan Muskat is the rabbi of the Young Israel of Oceanside, a rebbe at Shulamith High School, and a pastoral health care liaison at Mount Sinai South Nassau.
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Secular music with lyrics that are inappropriate due to heresy or lack of modesty is obviously not permitted. Otherwise, it’s not necessarily prohibited – just as secular wisdom is not prohibited merely because its source is not Jewish; the Rambam and Meiri quote secular sources and say, “Aaccept the truth from wherever it comes.” Surely, secular music with appropriate lyrics is no worse. A great gadol of the previous generation permitted a mourner to listen to classical music if he needed it to relax his nerves. Obviously, he permitted it despite the fact that it was secular classical music.
However, music even without lyrics can induce one to a frenzy, or whose beat could accompany a group of headhunters dancing around someone cooking in a cauldron – then even if the words of Tanach or Chazal are applied to it, in my estimation it is prohibited and not fit to be called “Jewish” or “chassidic” music.
– Rabbi Zev Leff is rav of Moshav Matisyahu and a popular lecturer and educator.
