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Ujm – i can’t find anything on the subject, but I’ll look into it
It’s not against the Torah for a woman to sing. It’s a sin for a man to hear. You can always just not listen.
Yte – please read the thread. We’ve thoroughly debunked the high school “just don’t look” refrain
You didn’t debunk anything, you just stated your opinions. He happens to be right per halacha
He’s only right if the women are in a place where they don’t have reason to think men are listening. Women are not allowed to sing wherever they want and tell men not to listen, much as they cannot dress however they want and tell men not to look.
You graduated from high school several decades ago; time to move on.
I’m sorry, do halachos change after we leave high school?
I’m referring to the “if you don’t like it don’t look” refrain that many high school girls pratter away when they’re taught about tznius. It’s false, and when people get older they’re expected to abandon the childish ideas they once had
Well maybe the girls you hang around with say that but it’s not something I’ve ever heard. And thanks for, once again, putting someone down with a personal insult for disagreeing with you on halacha.
I love how joe used quotes around the word “Frum” in the title. That was hilarious. The actual argument being made to support their ridiculous stance, however, is just sad. But what can you expect from a grown child, still living in their mother’s basement, who has an unnatural fear of women? I pity him.
I aalso lways use quotes around “frum” – because most people are using the word to improperly look down at some undefined mass of observant Jews who “ain’t frum”. To appreciate, I never heard someone who excels in chesed, or tzedoka, or middos be called “frum” because of that, it is usually based on more trivial things, like levush or limiting food choices. As in: “a driver stopped to let a pedestrian cross the road, I did not know he is so frum”
Ujm, i haven’t had much free time lately.
Singing erva if not known and seen is permitted according to the Yabia Omer (1,6).
You have to be careful; permitted to say brachos, etc, but it’s never permitted to listen to it for enjoyment
I can’t believe nobody mentioned the obvious heter that recorded kol isha is not a problem because it’s not the actual woman’s voice but rather the airwaves that one is listening to. I know that Rav Dovid Feinstein held like that and there are other poskim as well. People are so ready to bash these woman without thinking of any melamed zechus.
So now the consensus is that not all ervah is the same and there are variants with different levels of risk to consider (e.g. a woman singing in short sleeves is less assur than one singing in a swimsuit??) Perhaps another common sense rule is to simply follow the guidance of your LRP (which some will caveat that is fine as long as he didn’t get his semicha from Chovevei Torah)
Marx, we did mention it. That’s regarding saying devorim shebekedushah. Nothing to do with being allowed to listen to it for enjoyment. That’s clearly megareh yatzer hora.
No, you mentioned it in the context of that you don’t know what she looks like, not because it’s not her actual voice.
“That’s regarding saying devorim shebekedushah.”
Not what I heard bshem Rav Dovid Feinstein. It is also well known that there was a certain Egyptian female singer that Rav Ovadia liked to listen to. If your listening to it and it causes hirhurim its obviously assur. But there is a big difference between listening to a song because its enjoyable and it happens to be sung by a woman or listening because you davka want to hear a woman sing and it causes you to have hirhurim.
marx; that was a child, re rav ovadia – according to the ones who say it’s even a true story, of which im not convinced
I don’t know what you mean by “story”, it was pretty well known that he did. But besides that, why don’t you show me in the teshuva where he says davka by devorim shebekudasha and not just stam. And he’s not the only posek that has been meikel on this issue. (though most say that if you know what she looks like it’s assur)
Why? Did you hear differently? I heard it from a pretty close relative of his.
Look at all the teshuvos (including rav ovadia) who discuss kol isha that’s recorded. They NEVER mention it being assur or muttar to listen to, rather the subject matter is invariably regarding its erva status vis a vis davening, etc..
“If your listening to it [kol isha] and it causes hirhurim its obviously assur…”
Some of the posts here in the CR send tingles up my spine yet are not flagged as assur by the Mods….
If I am not mistaking him for someone, R Ovadia used to have erva issues when he & family lived in Mitzraim in one room. His wife would nurse under the table or something, so that not to interrupt his learning.
So you agree that it’s not meforesh. Rav Ovadia ends his teshuva by saying that it’s not considered kol isha not that his heter is only for devorim shebokdusha and we know from his personal life that he did listen stam.
Are we consistent here? If you forbid Kol Isha on a recording or radio, then would you allow shofar blowing over the same media?
Some poskim are more strict by ervah and arayos but yes there are poskim that mention the fact that since shofar blowing doesn’t work over a microphone there should be a tzad to say kol isha also does not apply.
Marx, “we” don’t know about the supposed singer, but i believe she was a child in any case.
The header of the teshuvos are always about about krias shema etc… I don’t have time at the moment to look at his teshuva in YO, but I’m pretty sure it begins that way too; you can’t be medayak from the fact that he just ends off saying it’s not ervah that it means you can listen to it. It’s not a pasuk in chumash.
She was not a child. For the record, her name was Umm Kulthum and her singing career began when she was an adult and she became one of the most recognized celebrities in Egypt.
I’m not being really being medayak from that, it’s the lack of any explicit mention in the teshuva that it’s only for krias shema and tefillah. Pashut pshat is like me.
Had to throw down the gauntlet there.
The chofetz chaim and many rabbonim were at a meeting in his house. His little granddaughter was pacing back and forth in the next room, and the chofetz chaim told her to stop – he said “do you think we’re malaachin?”
This story is in multiple books, including harav hadmomeh lemalaach, ironically.
Tzadikim are extremely sensitive, and need more shmirah from women than regular people. Either the story about rav ovadia is false, which i think it is, or he thought it was a boy, or he simply wasn’t on the level of gedolei olam – I’m inclined to believe either of the first two.
My old shtell is, that the people who always talk about ladies and busy saying that people are watching ladies etc are the pigs themselves who have taivos, and feel the need to make it as if their such tzadikim and they care about it. Its all GARBAGE you have taivos so go speak with a therapist. Don’t blame Klal Yisroel. Klal Yisroel is doing beautiful and no-one does such things.
If you answer me with the traditional “Kol Hapoisel” thing, you will just be proving my point.“Tzadikim are extremely sensitive, and need more shmirah from women than regular people. ”
Kiddushin 81b:
רַב אַחָא בַּר אַבָּא אִיקְּלַע לְבֵי רַב חִסְדָּא חַתְנֵיהּ שַׁקְלֵיהּ לְבַת בְּרַתֵּיה אוֹתְבַהּ בְּכַנְפֵיהּ אֲמַר לֵיהּ לָא סָבַר לַהּ מָר דְּמִקַּדְּשָׁא אֲמַר לֵיהּ עֲבַרְתְּ
לָךְ אַדְּרַב דְּאָמַר רַב יְהוּדָה אָמַר רַב וְאִיתֵּימָא רַבִּי אֶלְעָזָר אָסוּר לְאָדָם שֶׁיְּקַדֵּשׁ אֶת בִּתּוֹ כְּשֶׁהִיא קְטַנָּה עַד שֶׁתַּגְדִּיל וְתֹאמַר בִּפְלוֹנִי אֲנִי רוֹצֶה מָר נָמֵי עֲבַר לֵיהּ אַדִּשְׁמוּאֵל דְּאָמַר שְׁמוּאֵל אֵין מִשְׁתַּמְּשִׁים בְּאִשָּׁה אֲמַר לֵיהּ אֲנָא כְּאִידַּךְ דִּשְׁמוּאֵל סְבִירָא לִי דְּאָמַר שְׁמוּאֵל
הַכֹּל לְשֵׁם שָׁמַיִםKesubas 17a
זרַב אַחָא מַרְכֵּיב לַהּ אַכַּתְפֵּיהּ וּמְרַקֵּד. אָמְרִי לֵיהּ רַבָּנַן: אֲנַן מַהוּ לְמִיעְבַּד הָכִי? אֲמַר לְהוּ: אִי דָּמְיָין עֲלַיְיכוּ כִּכְשׁוּרָא — לְחַיֵּי, וְאִי לָא — לָאI also recommend seeing the Yam Shel Shlomo in Kiddushin 4:25 who explains that only a chasid gadol who knows his yetzer and where he is holding can rely on this.
“Either the story about rav ovadia is false, which i think it is, or he thought it was a boy, or he simply wasn’t on the level of gedolei olam – I’m inclined to believe either of the first two.”
I remember when I was in yeshiva a bachur also had a very difficult time believing this about Rav Ovadia; it was upsetting him and the Rebbeim had to talk to him about it. Honestly, for me, I don’t see what the big deal is for Rav Ovadia to follow his own psak and why that makes him any less of a gadol.
“Tzadikim are extremely sensitive, and need more shmirah from women than regular people….”
You miss the point. Tzadikim ARE regular people who are able to live their lives in strict accordance with daas torah. The concept of lamud vov tzadikim (also referenced as the Nistarim is premised on these individuals living their daily lives within their communities without being necessarily being known as big tzadikim. A big element of their “tzadikus” (if you buy into the concept) is that they emerge from their self-imposed concealment to avert threatened disasters and persecution and then return to their anonymity as soon as their task is accomplished concealing’ themselves once again in a Jewish community wherein they are relatively unknown.
Avira > Either the story about rav ovadia is false, which i think it is, or he thought it was a boy, or he simply wasn’t on the level of gedolei olam
Maybe he grew up in a different society than Chofetz Chaim with different attitudes and had different sensitivities? For one, it seems from the other story that R Ovadia did not have “another room” like Chofetz Chaim did… Another story that even in later years, R Ovadia lived in a small apartment and someone visiting him realized that the apartment does not have place of all seforim R Ovadia is quoting, so he apparently was quoting by heart.
More generally, Sefardim did not go thru haskala period and thus have more coherent communities without separating in bitter sub-groups, each trying to find faults with the other. So, a Sephardi Chacham can allow himself a moderate opinion without being called names. As the story quoted here before said “Hu Rav, Ani Chacham”.
ujm, there is a big difference between visual images and sounds. Images make a great impression, that is why Torah restricts images, esp 3D. Listening and reading provides information that you can process with your mind and analyze. Very hard to question images. A famous example is of Nazi “documentaries” showing Polish thugs destroying Jewish stores. The message was that Germans came to make order. Of course, the movie omits German soldiers who brought the thugs there in the first place and are now standing with guns behind the camera.
how about simple physics:
when you hear a man and a woman, voices mix, and there are some, like yakish, who use it for kulos.
I am not aware that seeing both men and women inappropriately dressed lead to any kulosMarx, we find elsewhere, like by rav amram chasida, abaya and rava who saw the am haaratzim walking together and not sinning(which i say is a very clear prediction of the argument MO makes), and dovid/batsheva…quite the opposite.
Rav nachman of breslov has a shtikel on this stirah. You raise good points, but they don’t change the way we see gedolei yisroel behave. There are a multitude of stories about gedolim jumping out of windows to avoid yichud, and the like.
On “kekeshurah”, the rishonim already say that in their time that they’re not on the level to do such things.
Have you ever seen a gadol pick up a kalah at a chasunah? Have you ever heard of anyone after chazal doing so? I haven’t. If you can find someone relying on kekeshurah at all, please tell us – you won’t find a single rishon or acharon. Not one.
This has nothing to do with sefardim/ashkenazim. The baba sali was known to never let himself be exposed to untznius women. He would walk with his eyes covered, guided by talmidim.
Someone once asked him how he was able to see things in ruach hakodesh. He said, if you guard your eyes like i do, you will automatically see things the way i do.
Also, just how “coherent” were sefardi communities who came to America totally ignorant of Torah.
The syrian community in Brooklyn would have gone the way of American ashkenazim if not for the mirrer yeshiva, rav avigdor miller, and many others who reached out to them.
Sephardim came to US before Ashkenazim did … But I agree that latest Sephardi arrivals benefited a lot of Ashkenazi assistance. As R Kamenetsky said at R Ouerbach’s yeshiva – Moshiach will come from there because they had top classes in Ivrit, enabling Sephardim to attend.
No doubt, when Sephardim got thrown into modernity, they encountered same problems Ashkenazim did 200 years before that, and Ashkenazi experienced helped them. Ashkenazim lost way more people to Reform and communism. That does not mean that Sephardim need to abandon their own Torah.
“There are a multitude of stories about gedolim jumping out of windows to avoid yichud, and the like…
I’ve never heard such stories of “gedolim” purposely risking self-harm or even death by jumping out of a window to avoid yichud.
There seems to be a new epidemic in the world – a CFO of a large companies jumped out, several days ago a Russian oil company CEO who said something about the war. The first one was in yichud situation with his wife, the second presumably with some men he did not know.
AAQ: I don’t think many consider the CFO of BBB who jumped out of an 18th floor window in NYC erev shabbos OR the Lukoil executive who also jumped out of a hospital window last week Moscow to be gedolim avoiding a yichud situation. The former was likely “avoiding” an insider trading investigation and the latter apparently was not a big fan of Putin’s war in Ukraine.
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