The farce of prohibiting music on the omer

The omer is a tough time for me because music is so important to me. To go 40 days without music and then not long after another 3 weeks is difficult, especially during the spring and summer when there are so many more opportunities to hear live music.

I also never understood how a capella music is acceptable. If the omer is a mourning period, how does a capella music change anything? Musical instruments don't inherently promote joy and a capella music is in fact often joyous (and terribly kitschy in the modern Ashkenazi world).

I looked up the source of this minhag and was surprised at the result. The ban against music is not found anywhere in the Mishnah, Gemara, or even the Shulchan Aruch. The earliest source is found in a 17th century commentary on the Shulchan Aruch known as the Magen Avraham who argues that celebrational dancing is forbidden. In order to prevent people from dancing in a celebratory way, such as at a wedding or a bar mitzvah, he included that any type of music that brings people to get up and dance is also impermissible. But the logic would follow that music that doesn't encourage shaking your booty, but rather is downtempo, reflective, and most importantly spiritually exalting, is permitted (and maybe even encouraged since it evokes an atmosphere of mourning). Thus, the custom of not listening to music at all is only a chumra (an extra stringency) and the custom of only listening to a capella music is simply misguided.

This leads me to argue that the later rabbis who invented this chumra of only listening to a capella music didn't understand music at all and probably didn't really listen to it themselves. While a capella music can certainly be spiritually exalting (just ask a Catholic - in fact the term itself is Italian for "in the style of the church) it isn't necessarily, and if you have ever heard some of the "omer friendly" music they are trying to sell in music stores here in Jerusalem, you might just lean over and wretch - an act that I would consider not spiritually exalting. They aren't just bad, they also are upbeat and dancy - just because there are no instruments doesn't mean a song with a good rhythm won't encourage you to get up and dance.

It means that unfortunately, I will not be listening to any funk, disco, or electro for the next 40 days, but uplifting genres like classical, post-rock, ambient, maybe some Bon Iver, these are genres I feel comfortable listening to. I'm still deciding which category jazz falls into - I would love to hear some opinions on the matter.

Thanks so much to Rabbi Chaim Brovender at the WebYeshiva for bringing these sources to my attention: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKjYVdH-kAM