Banning Lipa
I know, I know--every other frum blogger is writing about the ban and all. (I am not claiming to know much about Lipa, the Kol Koreh and the process. )Despite that, here's my take:
The Rabbanim who signed the Kol Koreh may not have known exactly what they were signing. Some people might have ulterior motives... Assuming the Rabbanim knew what they signed..
Trust me, I'm no Lipa fan, but why make an example of him?
Whose decision was it to cancel the concert? Despite the ban, I'm sure those who were interested would have gone anyway. This reminds me of my post "aimed at no one." Whom are they targeting here? Who will listen? Who will take them seriously? Practically no one.
The ban seems random, too.
A commenter on Vos Iz Naies suggested a kol koreh against people who are dishonest in business. Well, if only people listened to these darn things.
There are many more serious moral and religious issues plaguing the community than a separate seating all-male performing concert.
If they were worried about "ta'aruvos," they accomplished nothing. The guys and girls will meet elsewhere.
If they were worried about him adapting goyishe tunes, they'd better go after everyone else as well. Even the song "Yidden" that's played at Weddings and Bar Mitzvahs (or was that only in the 1990s?) rooted from non-Jewish Germans.
If they were worried about "Laytzanus," (Lightheadedness--[is that a word?]), one must ask where one draws the line between fun and lightheadedness. I'd consider The Chevra, who desecrated Kadeish in their song, more Laytzanus than Lipa singing about...well, whatever it is he sings about.
Fellow blogger Isaac Kaplan also discussed this and compared the situation to Imus. At first I thought he was crazy. The more I thought about it, the more I agreed.
I'm not saying I'm for or against Lipa.
I am against bans. They're pointless.
posted by Michelle @ 11:58 PM
17 Comments:
Uh... Who's Lipa?
Lipa Schmeltzer (sp?) A Chassidishe musical performer
I'm still waiting for the ban on child molesters...
Where were these 35 rabbonim when one of their colleagues was locked up for tax fraud a month or two ago? I didn't hear of anyone banning tax fraud.
Sad state of affairs...
My experience with Rabbis, mostly in the context of a beit din proceeding, is that many (though certainly not all, nor even necessarily a majority) accept the story of the first disputant who comes to them, and then give little regard to the explanation of the opposing disputant who gets his/her story in afterwards.
I think that some of that phenomenon may have occurred with this Lipa concert banning. The rabbis did not give fair hearing to Lipa's side of the story.
For the record, I agree that the so-called "Jewish music" has gone to excesses, both in terms of loudness and in the subliminal messages of the tempo. But the manner in which the rabbis conducted the whole affair gives the impression that they allowed themselves to be duped into being instrumentalities to advance someone's ulterior motive having little or nothing to do with music.
Though I personally am pleased that the issue has now been brought to the fore, this incident was not the finest hour of the American rabbinate, nor of Hamodia.
We as a Jewish community should be able to do better than this!
hey, just wanted to let you know that i added a link to your blog on the links page of my website. hope that's alright. if not, i'll take it off. you can view my site at http://philosophy.and.mixtapes.angelfire.com
Jessica- not problem at all! In fact, Thank You!
I'm not as against bans in general as the way they did it. Why did they have to smear Lipa so publicly..using names and all? Is he on the category of someone withholding a Get to make such a national campaign to ruin his reputation and embarrass him and his family? And the fact that they wrote that Gertner backed out when in fact, Lipa did first..just makes me wary of it all.
There are two very relevant articles that appear on Rabbi Yakov Horowitz's website.
Bans are Not Chinuch, by Rav Yonoson Rosenblum
"Lipa" - Where Do We Go From Here?, by Rabbi Yakov Horowitz
[I apologize for not posting the URLs, but they are very long.]
I love this - I keep seeing comments such as david's:
I'm still waiting for the ban on child molesters...
so the molesters will look at the hamodia and say "SON OF A GUN! so now I had better keep my hands to myself. This is bad? They should have SAID so!"
You think banning child molesting will help that problem?
Dude, wake up and smell the pollution!
Megapixel, I think David was just making a commnet on how the rabbanim have expressed their outrage with Lipa concerts but have not officially expressed disgust with Orthodox jewish child molesters. I doubt he really believes that a ban will effectively solve the problem.
*comment
Thank you, Tova, for clarifying my position.
expatriate owl- a beit din will more readily believe the first disputant's claim than the second's? that's very unfair to say, especially if you lost that din torah. IYHBYYOU
tova- why do they need to "come out against child molesters"? It's something that does not have to be said because it is extremely obvious. they do not have to officially come out against every type of odious behavior.
and besides, I believe the Torah came out against it a really, really long time ago.
btw everyone check out my post about lipa. thanks
Nobody is saying the rabbanim "need" to come out against child molesters- I think you're taking things a little too literally. David was just making the implication, I believe, that it seems awfully silly to make such noise against a Jewish music concert and barely any for something as significant as the recent cases of child abuse in our community. Surely the energy of rabbis could be better utilized for a cause more worthy than preventing a concert of Jewish music. I guess David and I both feel that something like child molestation would be more worthy of their consternation.
You have to express more your opinion to attract more readers, because just a video or plain text without any personal approach is not that valuable. But it is just form my point of view
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