Kol Isha

[Robert Wiener <wiener...>]

Alex (Jacobowitz),

The premise of your post seems to be that the principle of Kol Isha is for
"the sake of approaching the divine, i.e., trying to leave the physical
behind" while engaged in the Avoda Kedosha.

If you are correct in your interpretation, do you mean (as has been noted
before) that a man singing cannot "distract" or "arouse" women, or, for
that matter, other (perhaps homosexual) men?  Would you consider it a
logical rabbinic ruling that a homosexual, to leave the physical behind,
may only listen to the voice of a shaliach tsibur of the opposite sex?

If the rabbis made women exempt from the requirement not to listen to the
voice of the opposite sex, why is that do you think? Because,
1. the voice of the man is not distracting, at least to women (see above)?
2. women are less easily distracted in general?
3. women aren't expected to be at t'filot?  [If so, should women and men
always be separate for t'filot, as before Matan Torah at Sinai?]
4. women are not expected to approach the divine?
5. women are already so close to the divine that this is not a concern for
them?

Bob


> [Original Message]
> From: Alex Jacobowitz <alexbjacobowitz (at) yahoo(dot)com>
> To: World music from a Jewish slant <jewish-music (at) shamash(dot)org>
> Date: 1/19/2004 3:21:44 AM
> Subject: Kol Isha - erotically
...
> 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.

...
>
> 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?
>
...
> 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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