[Avodah] Kol Isha - HETER

[Michael Makovi]

> But you missed my focus on KEDEI leihanos. I'm not defining hana'ah, I'm
> pointing out the word before it.
>
> R' Micha Berger

No, I saw it, and I agreed with you. Even the attempt to find hirhur /
hana'ah is prohibited, whether or not the hirhur / hana'ah is
successfully found.

But I know that I myself don't seek hirhur / hana'ah when I listen to
kol isha. I myself will listen listen to men and women singers in
succession, but f I'm seeking hirhur / hana'ah, then why I am
listening to men too?

I've also found that I can switch off my sexuality when I want to. It
takes a bit of concentration, and so I have to know the sexuality is
coming. I cannot switch it off as I'm walking down the street, because
a woman might pop out at any moment. But if I know the sexuality is
coming, then I am quite able to turn off my sexual impulse. I assume
other men are capable
of the same. If you just affect a certain mental mood, and slump your
posture and put on a smirk too if need be, then I've found that many
otherwise sexual things simply cease to have any appeal. If you laugh
as well, then almost nothing is sexual anymore. Mind over matter.

I assume others are capable of this no less than I am, and so why
shouldn't they be permitted to listen to kol isha, as long as they
have no intent to derive hirhur / hana'ah?

> Where's the qol ishah in your example [of Egypt and Umm Kalthoum]?
> Because they knew where the songs
> were from when they heard a male chazan sing them?
>
> R' Micha Berger

No. What I meant was, the rabbi knew EXACTLY where these tunes came
from, and far from criticizing listening to Umm Kalthoum, he instead
allowed her tunes into the synagogue!! What this means is, the rabbi
implicitly granted his heter to listen to her. If the rabbi thought it
was prohibited to listen to her, then he wouldn't let her tunes be
used in the shul. He might or might not take an outspoken stance,
depending on whether he thought the congregation would heed him, but
he certainly, in any case, wouldn't sanction the adoption of her tunes
by the hazan.

And my conclusion doesn't rest entirely on Rabbi Weinberg, nor does it
rest entirely on the practice of the Egyptians. I felt that the
confluence of so many heterim from so many directions, all together
permitted a heter. Besides, I was relying on the logic and direction
of what they said, not their substance. If the Ra'avya can permit what
was societally-normal in his time, then we can do the same in ours.
Even if the Ra'avya's heter was only to speak to women, nevertheless,
the basic logic and direction of his heter is useful for us today.
That's why I wasn't concerned that Rabbi Weinberg merely permits
zemirot; the direction of his ruling can permit far more than only
zemirot.

As for Rabbi Weinberg: for him, the eit la'asot lashem was a cherry on
top. For him, the primary factor was that hergel mitigates the issur.
Rabbi Micha Berger correctly points out that Rabbi Weinberg was being
lenient out of hefsed merubah, as it were, and that if the hefsed is
not present, then we cannot be matir. I'd argue, however, that
nowadays, when hergel is even greater than it was in Rabbi Weinberg's
time, that today, we need less hefsed to justify the reliance on
hergel. If hergel + hefsed = heter, then our greater quantity of
hergel allows for lesser amount of hefsed, with the same resulting
amount of heter.

To make an extreme example, I'd say that a eunuch would need almost no
hefsed at all. The fact that he has 100% hergel, and no hirhur at all,
means that he has a 100% heter, even with no hefsed.

> In general, I find your reliance on prefiltered sources, reading the
> promary sources via secondary ones and never revisiting them to form your
> own opinion bothersome. Particularly since you keep an unbalanced set
> of secondary sources. People can extrapolate, and then you extrapolate
> for them, leaving you cantilevered over the abyss.
>
> R' Micha Berger

I DID learn the primary sources, i.e. the rishonim. My article relies
on secondary sources, however, because I wanted to make it easier for
my readers to read further. If all I did was quote Rambam and Rashba,
I doubt any of my readers would go and do the same. But if I instead
quote Rabbi Bigman quoting the Rambam and Rashba, I hoped the readers
might at least read Rabbi Bigman's article after reading mine.

Besides, my conclusions are basically only a restatement of Rabbis
Bigman and Shammahs'. I wanted to frame my article around theirs,
because I feel like my article does nothing more than restate what
they stated. By focusing on secondary sources, my article made it
clear that I have no original conclusions of my own, that I am only
following others who came before me.

Michael Makovi