[Avodah] Is having a good time ossur

[Micha Berger]

On Fri, Apr 04, 2008 at 04:08:41PM +0100, Alan Rubin wrote to Areivim:
: Below is a quote from an article quoted in the recent discussion ...
: http://chareidi.shemayisrael.com/CHS67features2.htm
...
:> You see that there are people who actually go to restaurants just to
:> have a good time, not because they are hungry and they have come from
:> out of town and need to eat -- just as a source of entertainment. And
:> the same thing is happening in the music field.

: Is this a point of view that anyone on this list identifies with?

I try to live by RSSkop's words in his haqdamah, which include:

> We should not use any act, movement, or get benefit or enjoyment that
> doesn't have in it some element of helping another. And as understood,
> all holiness is being set apart for an honorable purpose -- which is
> that a person straightens his path and strives constantly to make his
> lifestyle dedicated to the community. Then, anything he does even for
> himself, for the health of his body and soul he also associates to
> the mitzvah of being holy, for through this he can also do good for
> the masses. Through the good he does for himself he can do good for
> the many who rely on him. But if he derives benefit from some kind of
> permissible thing that isn't needed for the health of his body and soul,
> that benefit is in opposition to holiness. For in this he is benefiting
> himself (for that moment as it seems to him), but no one else.

(Translation mine, from <http://www.aishdas.org/asp/ShaareiYosher.pdf>.
I included the Hebrew as three pages starting from the back. Warning,
though, it's a very pedantic translation, with an attempt to preserve
as many of the diyuqei lashon I found in the original as possible.)

Enjoyment for the sake of being refreshed to return to one's task in
life is part of qadeish es atzmekha bemah shemurat lakh.

Restaurants for me pose a perishus issue, as I will eat more (and worse)
food than I should to the point of losing self-control. So they aren't
really ideal for my entertainment personally. But for most people,
what's wrong with an enjoyable meal?


Music for the sake of music is more problematic. Not in and of itself;
you're "speaking" with a fan of Baroque and Rhennaisance music, as well
as some of New Age (if it isn't too muzak-y) and lately (I guess I'm
getting older) some forms of Klezmer and Jazz.

But contemporary Jewish music, if it has lyrics, has religious themes. It
bothers me to hear someone present such ideas in a manner that strikes me
as though he is entertaining the audience. Maybe it was naivite/youth on
my part, maybe it was the decades in which I grew up, but back then most
of the famous singers were the same people who did kumzitzin. Even stage
performances seemed like they were trying for a religious experience,
not simple entertainment. How can you speak of a dream that one day
"again will be heard in the streets of Y-m the sounds of a groom and
bride" and not say it like you mean it?

Have a great Shabbos
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             "'When Adar enters, we increase our joy'
micha at aishdas.org         'Joy is nothing but Torah.'
http://www.aishdas.org    'And whoever does more, he is praiseworthy.'"
Fax: (270) 514-1507                     - Rav Dovid Lifshitz zt"l