Re: Ovadia Yosef's ruling (Yediot Ahronot)

[Eliezer Kaplan <zelwel...>]

I have a gut feeling about this whole issue and the bigger picture it lives
in. When it finally comes time for these wounds to heal (bimherah
b'yameinu!) music and cultural interchange can be the ointment that soothes.
                                            ek




----- Original Message -----
From: "Robert Cohen" <rlcm17 (at) hotmail(dot)com>
To: "World music from a Jewish slant" <jewish-music (at) shamash(dot)org>
Sent: Sunday, February 03, 2002 7:38 PM
Subject: RE: Ovadia Yosef's ruling (Yediot Ahronot)


> > > Ovadia Orders Shas Pupils to Study Arab Music
> >
> >
> >Arafat will be pleased.
>
> Though I can understand the (understandable) anger with respect to
> Palestinians and/or the Arab world that perhaps prompts this response, it
is
> really not a very thoughtful one.  As the release points out, "many
prayers
> in Sephardi synagogues are sung in [they mean "to"] Arabic tunes"--and,
> indeed, in some (or many) Sephardic prayerbooks you find the notation
> "lahan:" next to a hymn or other text, followed by the (often Arabic) tune
> to which the text is to be sung.
>
> (In an exact parallel, so-called broadside ballads--and often political
> candidates' songs--were typically printed--if they referred to a melody at
> all; it was sometimes, apparently, assumed to be known--with the notation
> "Tune: ---" or "Air: ---" next to the text, followed by the tune to which
> *they* were supposed to be sung.  Example:  "The Star-Spangled Banner."
> "Rosin the Beau" and the melody we think of as "Auld Lang Syne" were very
> commonly cited as the intended melody, btw.)
>
> Ovadia Yosef has been a "liberal" voice on the question of borrowing
> melodies for prayer for many years, quite aside from this specific
> application.  Amnon Shiloah cites a 1976 opinion of his approving the
> practice of using in services any melody that inspires religious feeling
> among congregants--*even if they recognize the melody as having secular
> origins*!  That's doubly* "liberal";  more "conservative" psaks on this
> issue might allow any melody *unless* it will be familiar to the
> congregation [e.g., "Scarborough Fair," "Ode to Joy," etc., etc.]; might
> [more conservatively] exclude melodies used by other religions, or
melodies
> used for sensual love songs, or both; or might [still more conservatively]
> exclude *any* melody that has origins outside of Judaism.  One can find
> examples of rulings from every point in this spectrum; though the most
> restrictive/conservative opinion does have to deal with the fact that some
> time-honored Jewish liturgical or para-liturgical melodies do, in fact,
have
> non-Jewish origins--as we've occasionally discussed on this list.
>
> Ovadia Yosef's feeling about the spiritual potential of Arab melodies is
> intriguing, but it very much falls within the history of Jewish
> liturgical-music practice--and of *his* practice in particular.
>
> --Robert Cohen
>
>
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