RE Kol Isha

[hainsof <hainsof...>]

    -----Original Message-----
    From: Eliezer Kaplan <zelwel (at) earthlink(dot)net>
    To: World music from a Jewish slant <jewish-music (at) shamash(dot)org>
    Date: 21 February 2001 05:03
    Subject: Re: libidinous swamps
    
    
    My wife and I decided that the Kol Isha thing is intimately related (no pun 
intended) to the shaitel thing and the yichud thing- and I'll bet if (you're 
living in the 'modern' world enough so that) the last 2 don't bother you, then 
neither does the first. OTOH, I'll bet all three of these these things bother 
my Rabbi.
                                        EK
    
    I've been following this discussion with detached interest.  We are in the 
middle of the worst storm in Jerusalem, high winds, rain (much needed), and the 
threat of snow.  In this country, snow just has to be mentioned on the news and 
the entire population runs to the supermarket, to stock up on food for the 
week. Anyone living on the East coast would be amazed at the Israeli reaction 
to the threat of snow.
    To Kol Isha - The Rabbis chose to classify  the injunction of Kol Isha 
along with the prohibition of seeing  the hair of a married woman.  It's not 
mentioned in the context of the laws of modesty.  I wonder if there's a 
difference between hearing the voice of a married or unmarried woman.  
    Quite a while after I began working on my lullaby CD (www.batkol.com)  I 
saw a quote from the Sede Chemed who was a well known Sephardic Rabbi  I think 
lived around 150 years ago.  He writes explicitly that it is permissible to 
hear the voice of a woman lamenting the dead, or  if she is singing a child to 
sleep.  I imagine he was referring to the mother singing in the house, rather 
than performing lullabies in public!!, but still in today's  religious world it 
wouldn't go down too well.
    I hope to look up Rabbi Saul Berman's article - probably find it at HUC 
library.  I feel that since this issue affects so many of us, and raises so 
many emotional responses, I'd like to have access to as much  information as 
possible.  I wonder if the  Gemara  tells us the name of the person who wrote 
those fateful words Kol Isha erva  - and then what else does he say?  Does he 
focus in on how to reach holiness and the spiritual, or is he a source of  
misogynistic statements?  
    I know the power of the voice, both male and female, and I can appreciate 
that there are some men who are on a spiritual path, and a beautiful voice 
could distract such a person, but such people are really rare, and it's a real 
shame that many of us suffer because the mainstream orthodox community, and its 
leaders cannot find the courage to say Yes, but keeps on saying NO, even when 
there are plenty of loopholes, and a way could be found to be lenient.
    All the best
    Hanna Yaffe