Question & Answer With Shlomo Katz - A Musician During Sefira
(Picture courtesy of ShlomoKatz.com)A Simple Jew asks:
As a professional musician, do you find the seven weeks of Sefira particularly challenging?
Shlomo Katz answers:
To be honest, on a certain level, I find myself looking forward to Sefira and the Three Weeks more than any other time of the year.
I guess I'm not a true musician because I can certainly live without live music, at least for a short period of time.
It is in these times where one is able to get in touch with a deeper realm of one's musical connection to Hashem. It is the level of longing, patience and of gathering thoughts and ideas which can only come from a certain special place of silence.
It only gets tough when you see how broken certain people are, knowing that all it takes is just a few chords to pull them out of wherever they are.
UPDATE: Eitan Katz comments:
When I read my brother's answer, I was laughing because I would of written almost the same exact thing. It’s definitely hard not to be able to play guitar for myself during this time (even though it can be considered practicing...I haven’t really practiced since high school...I’m not gonna start during this time if ya know what I mean). Nevertheless, I still look forward to the this time where I can really exercise my self control with my avodas Hashem. Music is my life and it is so hard for me not to listen to music during this time, and that’s why I live it so much, because it's like a challenge that doesn’t come around to often.
5 Comments:
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HEY, there's a few things here. Firstly, there's a lotta acapella music tapes around these days - singing without musical accompaniment, which is perfectly permissible. Of course, us niggunim lovers have been doing that for years, with recordings of Tishes and the like.
Secondly, Shlomo's point: It is in these times where one is able to get in touch with a deeper realm of one's musical connection to Hashem. It is the level of longing, patience and of gathering thoughts and ideas which can only come from a certain special place of silence, is a very important one. That is, although I'm not the musical person that Shlomo is, I find my deepest and best musical inspiration comes when I haven't been "taking in" too much music from the outside. For the true music is that what comes from within, and from Above. Just like in the Laws of Kashrus, when something's "absorbing" it can't "discharge," so too, when we're taking in a lot of music, not too much can come out.
A healthy and good Summer to all!
PS - Please note that the above comment, #2, is from Yitz of Heichal HaNegina, while the first comment above is from the "other" yitz.. - the one with the 2 dots. :))
6 months before Rav Shlomo Carlsbach passed away I met him in Eugene Oregon.I was a new baal teshuvah who didn't realize I was Jewish at all until just before meeting him...I had a dream shortly before meeting R. Shlomo, in the dream I was standing on a hill, I could see steaples on the other side of a hill below to my left, a dirt road lead from me downward to a hill going into this town...seemed to me was somewhere in Europe...I saw a old man standing down in the valley below as I looked at the green grass and flowers that seemed so bright...next I looked up and this man stood before me,looking as if he should have come from the middle east...he reached out his hand to me as I took his hand he said "This is the connection". and lightening surged through my body and I awoke...when Rav Shlomo entered the building he looked my direction, walked immediately toward me and as he reached out his hand to me and I took it,,,he said "This is the connection" I nearly fainted....I knew at this point, inspite of my extreme lack of knowledge I was on the right path as a Jew...Now, i was raised thinking 'my family had been Jewish, not realizing I was Jewish as my mother, mothers mother and so forth were indeed Jewish and so was I...This year I am making aliyah and want you to know that Rabbi Carlsbach to was the vessel Ha Shem used to return this Jew to the Jewish People and Judaism to keep the mitzvahs....B''H...daniel
Question: as a professional musician, is one permitted to write music with the use of an instrument during sefira?
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