Kol Isha - erotically

[Alex Jacobowitz <alexbjacobowitz...>]

B"H Munich

Good morning,

Some of the posts I´ve seen recently on this
issue have indeed forwarded the discussion,
if not the debate. The present thread seems
to touch a few points about classical/traditional
Judaism. Additionally:

Erotic "imagery" isn´t eroticism; if it were,
there would be little need for imagery.
Anthropomorphic images in Judaism are a means of
putting a "human" face on the divine - we don´t
take them literally (though many Christians do),
and the same goes for our "erotic" liturgy.

When viewed spiritually, why not count 
the physical (erotic) imagery as divine metaphor?
That is, shuckling isn´t Ersatz Sex; rather,
sex is ersatz shuckling? Seeing only what´s
immediately visible is boring, and ultimately
counter-productive, to informed Judaism.

Biblical text is (B"H) so variegated that one
can read in or read out almost whatever message
one chooses. THAT´s why we´ve needed hard-and-fast
legislation from the get-go. The Tora acts as
(lehavdil) our constitution, and rabbis are
in fact our legislature. And ignoring a law
doesn´t invalidate it - on the contrary, it
obviates the need to again discuss and confirm
its existence, to the bewilderment of some,
and to the benefit of all.

Nor is the "Kol Isha" law by any means the only form
of "separation" in Judaism. We separate Shabbos from
the week, in that playing music (for the time being)
is forbidden. We separate men from women
(or, if you like, women from men) with a mechitza
during the Avoda Kedosha for the sake of approaching
the divine, i.e., trying to leave the physical behind.

(This goes back to the receiving of the Tora,
where we read in the Midrash that the men were
separated from the women for three days prior.)

We are required to dress modestly at all times,
but particularly during the Avoda Kedosha. Why?
To support the concentration (or, if you like,
holy intercourse) by deleting the superfluous.
And it´s quite likely that this was the
context of the Kol Isha´s provenance. If
women were (are) exempt from davening, then
listening to women´s voices during a man´s davening
could only have been considered a distraction. At the
time, these laws were made, may I point out that
concerts as such didn´t exist, and instrumental
music was banned in most Jewish communities,
with only particular exceptions: weddings
or funerals, for instance. And with time, the
general public decided to ignore the ban
on instruments, creating their own "halacha vivendi".
This process of change is happening in similar areas
of observance, though faster in our generation,
in many cases so fast that many Jews don´t even
have time to learn what the law is, or was; they´re
too busy reestablishing a new "praxis". And
Kol Isha is part of this new practice. 

An important question: will the Kol Isha issue
be able to be settled within the context of
Orthodoxy? Or only from without?

Why hasn´t anyone written about the hard fact,
that a woman singing in public is for many men
a turn-on, a "spinning in the marketplace"?
Why hasn´t anyone complained, that men don´t
want to be aroused, or women to arouse? Why hasn´t
anyone forwarded the solution of Bruria,
who taught Tora from behind a barrier?

I fear that too many of us actually enjoy
being aroused, or enjoy arousing, to protest
too much. And if anyone chooses to answer
"that´s the men´s problem", well, what happens
when a woman on stage decides she wants to
show more skin than halacha would allow? "Well",
shall we say, "that´s show business"?

Most succinctly, at what point do we -
as a community - draw the line? Has no one
here ever received fan mail? Has no one
here experienced an enthralled listener with
that look in his or her eye? Are we all
really ignorant of the effect our music
has on our listeners, holy as well as provocative?

Alex Jacobowitz

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