[Avodah] Dancing on Shabbos - Redux

[Michael Makovi]

> I know nothing about the halachic literature on this subject (except what
> I've read on Avodah)
>
> R' Toby Katz

Ditto for me. But I'll respond with AFAIK anyway:

> maybe there's a heter to dance on Shabbos precisely because you are dancing
> with other people, but not to dance by yourself
>
> So maybe if you're dancing with other people, there's no danger that you'll use musical
> instruments?
>
> R' TK

But I think that people would dance in such a festive spirit so as to
make musical instruments a concern, davka as a group. An individual by
himself wasn't considered likely to start playing festive music.

> (And BTW isn't the issur of using musical
> instruments based on the fear that you'll tune or fix the instruments?
>
> R' TK

My understanding is that the concern is you'll build a new musical
instrument from scratch l'gamre, on the spot, as people apparently
were capable of back in the day.

> So not dancing puts that issur at two removes -- you /might/ use an instrument
> and then you /might/ tune it.
> R' TK

If I am correct above, then there is only one step: you /might/ build
a new instrument l'gamre, and since this is only one safek and not a
safek safeka, it is within the bounds of a gezera.

And being with others doesn't make it less likely to happen; on the
contrary, it is what enables it to happen in the first place!  And
probably, everyone else is in a festive spirit similar to your own,
and they won't think to stop you, and that's if they're not making
their own instruments too!

--------

Now, obviously, most people today don't know how to make their own
instruments l'gamre even if they wanted to, and kal vachomer they
won't make an instrument simply because someone is tapping on the
table or clapping with his hands (or making circles of "Lecha Dodi"
around the beit midrash followed by a rousing rendition of "Mehera
hashem elokeinu, od yishama, b'arei yehuda..." on the bima, dancing
around the chatan-to-be...) I believe this new fact of society (viz.
not making instruments on a spur of the moment) is what raises the
question in the first place of whether there is grounds to be exempt
from this gezera.

Mikha'el Makovi