Q:
What was the function of music in the Beis Hamikdash? Was it really hevel? Where does one draw the line?
A:
Ah, that’s a good question.
And the answer is, it’s like saying anything on wheels is great. Is that so? It depends what. There’s a tumbrel that used to be used to carry people to the executioner in the good old days in France. The tumbrel was on wheels. As it rolled through the streets of Paris carrying the victims to the guillotine, the victims didn’t appreciate the wheels. They hoped the wheels would fall off. To them, the wheels were the very worst thing in the world.
So it depends what the vehicle is used for. If music is used to let a man climb up to heaven with noble aspirations, then music is fulfilling its purpose. If a person will sing the shirei kodesh with music, then there’s no question it ennobles his life. That’s the purpose of music.
But if music is going to be used just for military purposes, to arouse people to thoughts of bloodshed or arouse people to thoughts of immorality, romance and so on, so it’s being dragged into the mud. That’s what the Kuzari complains, that this which was once the klei shares of the Kohanim is now degraded into the plaything of servant girls.
June 12, 1980
