In this past weeks torah portion we learned that Esav used to ask his father really dumb questions that he knew the answer to in order to make himself seem more frum in his fathers eyes. This same thing is happening in the frum community, especially the Yeshiva World News Forum, otherwise known as the coffee room. People in the coffee room try to make themselves look like zealots compared with the rest of the frum community – complaints about everything from people not wearing hats, wearing colored shirts to kids having cell phones and I-pods is touched on. The response to the forum topic below is priceless.
Is anyone besides me worried and appalled at today’s frum music?
The only thing frum about it is the words, but the lighting and the big bands and the driving rock-and-roll beat and the choreography and the drums and everything else about it besides the words is strictly adopted from non-Jewish music. I guess they are all doing it because it sells and everyone is so “golus-ized” that they think that’s the way things should be.
Anyone who’s been to a Yerushalmi wedding with the two singers and a tom-tom drum sees what real happiness from Jewish music is. There has to be a way to stop this goyification of Jewish music.
Does anyone else care?
Response:
BS”D
Yes. I am getting sick and tired of all these uplifting psukim set to music, as if Yiddishkeit is just about having a good time, about kol chosson vekol kalla, about Moshiach, etc.
It is time to set psukim that end in mois yumos, or begin with arur, to music and to play these at chassunes to remind the couple and all guests that ours is a life of responsibility and following rules.
As a great godol, one who is so holy that he rarely sees the light of day, once said: “Yiddishkeit iz nit nor gefilte fish in bagels. S’iz skila, sreyfo, hereg in chenek!” (Judaism is not just gefilte fish and bagels. It is lapidation, immolation, supracervical amputation, and asphyxiation.)
If the beat would symbolize say skila or malkos, and the words would be quotes pertaining to aveirois, the songs would really inspire our youth and instill yiros shomayim in them.
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{ 35 comments… read them below or add one }
C’mon, Hesh. You submitted that yourself to see if anyone there nodded in agreement, didn’t you?
The funniest part is how some people actually agree with this poster. Read the rest of the comments.
Whatcha got against Gefilte Fish?
You had me going until 4th paragraph.
I think the comment was very smart – too smart for me – an am-haaretz like myself doesn’t think in such a torahdicke way
OY!
Not cool.
As an aside, do you think he meant Gefilte Fish on the bagel. Because frankly, I find that more offensive than the idea he presents in the comment…
Actually, when we learned Sanhedrin in school we used to sing “Skila, sraifa, hereg v’chenek” to the tune of Asher Bara Sason V’Simcha
Good to know my friends aren’t the only ones who did (in some cases do) that.
we used to sing “gila rina ditza vichevva” as “Gaiva, taiva, kina visina”
Seems like a troll to me…
I am the author of the original post on YWN. It made quite a stir there. I’m glad to see you picked up on it. People do not realize how rock-and-rolled they’ve become. It really is the yetzer hora and the sitra achra. Most of the comments on YWN said that if people couldnt get that kind of music from frum sources they’d get it other places, which might be a reasonable stance. It still seems to me that people should realize that they’re succumbing to the yetzer hora when they listen to it, and the performers should realize it as well, even though it does sell well. We are supposed to fight against the yh. It seems to me that people have the ability to conquer their base drives and strivings.
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It is vitally important that Jewish Music be centered in music taken from Goyim in the alter heim, rather than from Goyim in America.
Thank you. My sentiments exactly. After all, the former was much more hospitable to Yidn and Yiddishkeit.
did anyone read the rest of the comments posted on this article? the guy who posted the comment about using skila and sreyfo, etc. for our music was making a joke. he posts in a later comment that he was just being sarcastic. obviously, there are more serious problems in the frum world than music with a rockin’ beat.
We all realize it was a joke why do you think I posted it?
i’m not sure all the people who responded to you realize it was a joke.
I can’t guarantee that everyone knew it was a joke but trust me a majority of them did
Here, here! Especially Germany! So let’s continue taking music from German pop!
It’s a joke bc it’s kosher only because there are black hats bobbing to it. Just close your eyes the next time you hear such music and you’ll see multi-colored disco lights and hot slinky bodies. Na you won’t see that b/c the music is so aweful and so loud it would never be played anywhere else.
This is no joke. We must do something to reverse this trend. It’s giving strength to the yetzer hora and the ????? ??????. Don’t be like the donkey boys in Pinochio. Follow the yetzer tov, not the yetzer hora.
Those question marks in comment 17 are in the place of “yoridas hadoros” in Hebrew.
I think it’s counterproductive to say that something is yetzer hara full stop, and expect people to take your word. If I say something is yh without explaining (or knowing) my reasons, it’s just like banging my fist on the table and it may lead people to stop taking the concept seriously. I don’t think a music style is yh just because we’ve borrowed it from someone else – if this were the case, Kol Nidre would be treyf because it’s inspired by medieval plainsong. Two guys singing and a tom-tom… hmm… sounds to me as if it could be a bit African.
“If the beat would symbolize say skila or malkos, and the words would be quotes pertaining to aveirois, the songs would really inspire our youth and instill yiros shomayim in them.”
Am I the only one thinking “Yeshivish Death Metal”?
BTW, Jews have always used the music of their Gentile neighbors. That’s why Klezmer doesn’t sound like Yemenite music. And chances are, the music of Ancient Israel was also very similar to other nearby cultures.
Actually no – I tried to find a good death metal picture to put up.
My metal band is called “sinas chinam”
Don’t you think listening to that “Americanized” music makes it harder to apply one’s mind to learning and generally pulls one away from striving to be a tzaddik and talmud chochom, and sinks one, unknowingly, into the gashmius of the current culture?
Heard some comedian point out that only the Jews put the saddest words to the merriest tunes, and the happiest words to the saddest tunes.
Think “Avinue Malkeinu Chatanu Lefanecha” vs. a slow rendition of “Kol Chatan VeKol Kallah”..
He has a point.
Dovid Shmuel -
I love your picture at the bottom of your webpage.
Thank you. It’s nice of you to say that.
My metal band is called “sinas chinam”
Classic!
What a chtuzpah. Striving to be a tzaddik and a talmid chochom. First of all you have no clue what’s a tzaddik. But is that really your whole yiddishkeit? Trying to get the title? Going for the schar? What about learning because oraisa vkudsha brich hu kulo chad?
No wonder you need doom and gloom to keep it going. An empty religion like that, bereft of chasidus or any real ahava or yira is bound not to last.
What?
You should have a daily segment of the retarded comments on yeshivaworld.
That web site is being managed exactly like a yeshiva, they censor any comment that doesn’t fit with the Ruach or the Toyrah.
Typical yeshivish snobbery.
I am willing to put down money that this comment is by the YWN editor himself. It has his handwriting all over it. He obviously realizes how many hits he’s getting from posts like these (especially because you linked to the coffee room).
He’s desperate for comments. Whatever it takes.