Kol Isha - or, the erotic in music

[Yoel Epstein <yoel...>]

Shirona's talk about motives got me to thinking about what lies behind the
orthodox concern - or perhaps obsession - with exorcising the presence of
woman from the man's religious experience.  At the risk of being retro and
freudian, I would suggest that the orthodox religious experience and the
erotic experience are close of kin.

There is certainly no lack of erotic imagery in the service, for example.
Come, my Sabbath Bride.  Also, the physical acts of prayer - binding the arm
and head, hugging and kissing the Torah scroll, rocking in the ecstasy of
davenning - all have sexual connotations.  Of course, a lot of
rationalization goes toward denying this relationship between the ecstasy of
prayer and the ecstasy of intercourse, but you don't have to look far beyond
the words and the acts to see the obvious.

Consider also the stylistic affectations of liturgical music - the breaking
voice, the glottal breaks, bending the pitch at moments of harmonic
intensity - these are also techniques used in classical and popular music to
express explicitly erotic feelings.

So, I ask, if religious ecstasy is essentially an erotic feeling, why is the
presence of women so disruptive of this ecstasy?  I don't have an easy
answer to that, but perhaps some of the Kol Isha firebrands on the list
would like to comment.

____________________________________________
joel epstein
moshav magshimim 56910
israel
972-3-9333316
972-52-333316
972-3-7255889 (fax)
yoel (at) netvision(dot)net(dot)il
____________________________________________


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