If You Want to Sing Out, Sing Out (Or Don't?) ~Part 1~

As my father so studiously pointed out, I haven’t written on my blog for quite some time. I know that not all of you are as enthralled or invested in my life as my father is, but I figure that you all deserve some catch up.

I wrote part of this in my journal in mid-October. I’ve embellished a bit to give you a better understanding of where I’m coming from….

Let me first preface this by explaining how much I love to sing. Most of you who know me know that I sing all the time. I sing while walking, in the shower, I’ve sung in choruses, in school plays, and I even sing instead of talking sometimes. It’s kind of a big thing for me. Before coming to Israel, my most powerful religious experience was singing to patients in a hospital in the Dominican Republic. It was almost four years ago, but I remember so clearly the feeling of complete joy and openness, and…God that washed over me as I sang, not for myself, but for these people and for them to be healed. I connected so deeply by using my voice for something higher and greater than I was. It was the closest I’ve ever felt to transcendence.

And it’s also something that according to Jewish law, I’m not allowed to do in front of men. It’s called ‘kol isha’ (woman’s voice). Basically, a woman’s voice is said to be alluring to men and keeps them from concentrating, and therefore women shouldn’t sing in front of men. There are also interpretations about women’s voices being something to be shared among women, etc. but for the most part it’s basically for the sake of men. This, of all of my issues with Jewish law, is probably the most difficult for me to deal with.

In many ways it is the epitome of my biggest problem with religion. Faithfulness. In Hebrew, it is called Emunah. First, I worry about what it is exactly that I’m trusting and putting faith in. As an academic, I’ve read a lot of historical analyses of what ‘actually’ happened and I’ve read a lot of theory about the social, cultural, and anthropological reasons why the Rabbis decided to create certain laws around women. So basically, learning from a completely religious perspective is using the opposite side of my brain. Actually, I don’t even know if it’s my brain that I’m supposed to be using here. And that’s the hardest, although also the greatest part.

In terms of where this ‘kol isha’ law came into being, it is never explicitly said in the Written Law, the Torah, that women should not sing in front of men, but there is a whole other part of Jewish law, called the Oral Law in which the most holy and intelligent Rabbis grapple with issues that are not made clear in the Written Law. Basically, to my best knowledge this idea that women shouldn’t sing in front of men stems from the Biblical passage where Miriam leads the women in song after the Jews cross the Dead Sea. From here the Rabbis say that a woman is not allowed to sing certain songs in front of men, then in order to ‘build a fence around the Torah’ (protect it and make sure that it is not lost, basically) five of nine rabbis decide that women should not sing anything in front of men. So basically if one Rabbi had a wife who nagged him to let women sing around 2,000 years ago, I wouldn’t be having this problem.

This is what I’m supposed to have faith in. This….is hard.

To be fair, that is a very dry interpretation of the process, but because I’m relatively opposed to it, that is my fairly biased explanation. In actuality, these men were not only complete and utter geniuses, but apparently all of this information came directly from Sinai and there are countless other vital judgments that these men made that are responsible for the foundational day-to-day continuation of Judaism and Jewish philosophy.

And leaving the academic stuff and the rabbis, I myself have actually learning a lot through dealing with this whole singing conundrum. I have begun to watch myself as I sing, seeing that there is in fact a lot of ego involved in my singing, in having a nice voice and singing loudly and with...gumption. So, I must ask myself, is the singing good for me all the time anyway? Is it just another way for me to get love and attention? Or am I really doing it for Hashem? And if I am, can I sing for Hashem softly so as to be able to praise God AND not fluster men at the same time? Or should I say, screw what the rabbis said and just sing my heart out? Is there a middle ground?

Basically, I could talk about this forever and I’m struggling with it and asking lots of questions and will be sure to keep you all updated if I ever do ‘figure it out.’ But that, believe it or not, was not supposed to be the theme of this post. This post is supposed to be about how my happy, innocent, gender-separated, modest dressing Har Nof bubble was popped.

That, my dear friends, is coming soon....(bli neder*)



*Since my time in Israel I have acquired some helpful new phrases. One is 'bli neder' which basically means "without taking a vow".....so basically no promises, but I do expect that part 2 will be coming soon. :)

Other excellent really religious phrases include:
Has va-shalom (God forbid)
Has va-haleela (An even cooler way to say God forbid)
Baruch Hashem (Thank God)
Meertz Hashem (With the help of God)

Although I definitely say a lot of these things in jest much of the time, it's actually really interesting to talk about God so much during the day. It makes lifes little dramas seem....diminished in many ways. More on this later as well.