Q&A with HaRav Ginsburgh
Can Music be Tainted?
Question:
As a musician, I am intimately familiar with many styles of music. I'm confused about modern chasidic music, particularly disco and dance/trance rhythms, which are also applied to Chabad melodies. I feel these rhythms awaken the animal side, ego, and self-centeredness. When I participate in family weddings where such rhythms are played (of course with kosher lyrics), it's really difficult for me to connect to the joy during the dancing. What is the Rabbi's opinion on this matter? Are there rhythms considered Jewish as opposed to those that are not? Some also claim that the chasidic rhythm is also borrowed from non-Jews (polkas, waltzes, etc.) and it's all a matter of habit.
Answer:
Your natural feeling is very correct. Stick to the original Chabad melodies, and similar melodies (from other tzaddikim and chasidim), in the exact way that true servants of God sang them in the past. The modern rhythms you mentioned, which awaken the evil inclination (pride and lust), are not good at all. Distance yourself from them. However, at weddings and such, one must accept the discord with love for the sake of rejoicing with the bride and groom.
In more detail: The words of Rabbi Nachman of Breslov are well-known, that one should not listen to music played by a wicked musician but only by a kosher musician. There is positive music—a kosher melody—and there is negative music created by people who are not good, and consequently, the melody itself is cheap and full of lust. It is customary to say that "a melody does not receive impurity," and yet there is a melody created initially out of lust and heresy, with the intention of arousing lust in the listener and it is a very cheap melody.
Indeed, many chasidic melodies came from completely foreign sources, but they were brought into the fold by tzaddikim with great and refined souls who knew how to "convert" the specific melody, sometimes with just a slight change, and transform it into a holy melody (like the Alter Rebbe who took a melody known as "Napoleon's March" and turned it into a holy melody, thereby extracting the spark of holy vitality that was captive within it).
A significant portion of contemporary music is cheap music created out of lust, and instead of rectifying, it corrupts. Unfortunately, much of what is called "chasidic music" is very cheap music with a negative influence, it would be better if it had never been composed at all. Even if the singers are God-fearing, the music they sing is nothing but an imitation of jazz or pop and the like. While we don’t want to make sweeping generalizations, this is how things appear.
Additionally, we must distinguish between melody and rhythm. The main problem with improper music is specifically in the rhythm. This point has a source in Kabbalah and Chasidut: It is written that there is a kelipah (husk of impurity) called Lilith, whose gematria, 480, alludes to the negative drum (ףֹּת), as opposed to the positive drum of Miriam the Prophetess. The drum is responsible for the rhythm, and hence the main attraction to lusts and temptations is through rhythm. In this context, it is explained that by reciting Psalms with an outpouring of the soul, one can repel this kelipah (as hinted in the word “Psalms” (יםִּלִהְּת) whose gematria is 485; still, it is customary to call Psalms, Tilim (יםִּלִּת), which equals 480 too), since David, King of Israel, "the sweet singer of Israel" and "skillful in playing music," put himself into the book of Psalms.
In our days, most of the negative melodies are more rhythm than melody, to the extent that sometimes there is no melody at all but only a drum, only rhythm, which awakens the lower layers of the soul and corrupts it. Moreover, sometimes it's not music but simply noise. In the laws of Shabbat, there is discussion about the prohibition of playing musical instruments on Shabbat (lest one repair the instrument), and it is written there that there are things that seem like song but are not called song since they are not sung in a way of "pleasantness and tranquility." "Pleasantness" refers to the melody itself, whether it is beautiful or not, and "tranquility" refers to the rhythm. If so, that contemporary music which is not in the category of "pleasantness and tranquility" is not song and melody but simply noise.
May there be good tidings, and may we merit to hear and compose kosher melodies that elevate the soul, until the redemption "with abundant song and melody" (in the words of the Lubavitcher Rebbe).
