TRANSCRIPT
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The Rabbi Daniel Lapin Podcast
Episode: Music Morality and Mayhem
Date: 10/17/25 Length: 00:24:28
Daniel Lapin 0:01
Greetings, Happy Warriors, and welcome to the Rabbi Daniel Lapin show, where I your rabbi, reveal how the world really works. Thanks for being part of the show. And today's show is going to be entitled music, morality and mayhem, and one other M I'll add to the mix is Methylenedioxy methamphetamine. That's right. Methylenedioxy methamphetamine is a drug commonly known as ecstasy. And you know, it depends in what circles you move, but they say about a half a percent of the world's population has used or is using Methylenedioxy methamphetamine or ecstasy. And so that means that if you see 200 people in the street, at least one of them is or has used ecstasy. Now, of course, if you attend certain gatherings, well, the number goes much higher. What sort of gatherings? Well, my mind and heart have been on the returning hostages in Israel at the present time, and like so much of life, I find myself having to deal with two conflicting feelings at the same time. And it's that's perfectly legitimate. We do often have to cope with conflicted feelings. At the same time, one might be in mourning for the loss of some dear relative, and at the same time, you could be watching your toddler play on the floor with a big grin on her face. And you know you're filled with joy at one and you're filled with sadness at the other, and they both coexist at the same time. That is part of what it means to be a human being. You can, you can't always act. In fact, you probably very seldom. Can act in accordance with two conflicting themes at the same time, but you can experience two conflicting thoughts or two conflicting emotions at exactly the same time. And so that's what happens with me, whereas I'm at the one hand, I am happy and joyful and relieved that families are reunited, and so many of these young people who endured up to two years of horrifying treatment at the hands of hideous humans, their home again, and they reunited. And at the same time, I feel sadness and anxiety about those who were killed in captivity, who did not make it home. And I am filled with anxiety and unease and unhappiness at the release of such vast numbers of the perpetrators of the massacre of October the seventh, 2023 in Israel, and knowing full well that they know nothing else. It's not as if they can now become babysitters and chemists and, you know, dancers and plumbers. No, they are who they are, and that's what they know, and that's what they do. And so there's absolutely no reason to believe anything optimistic. In fact, it's naive to think that they will do anything else other than what they've always done and so there I am, coping with happiness and sadness at exactly the same time, and these returning hostages you will remember were captured at a music festival, a particular kind of music festival known as a rave, R, A, V, E, and this was at the nova music festival which the terrorists who came In by motorcycles and in some cases by paragliders. Apparently, from what I know, they were not aware this was one piece of intelligence in an otherwise frighteningly effective intelligence machine. Apparently, they didn't know about this festival, and they sought, and they decided to drop in easy pickings, right? They there were girls to rape and there were guys to kill and both to capture and take back. And so it was an unexpected and unanticipated bonanza for them as. They came in on the early morning of October the seventh. And one of the things about a rave music festival is that it doesn't last for two or three hours. It very often goes on for 24 hours. And so in those early morning hours on Saturday, October the seventh in southern Israel in the desert, many of them were still dancing. Many of them were listening to music. Many of them were sleeping. It's just, you know, that kind of thing. It's called a rave. And so when I say that today, I want to talk to you about music, morality and mayhem. Well, you see exactly where we're going. And as far as Yes, Methylenedioxy methamphetamine or ecstasy, yeah, that fits in as well, because that is very much a part of the rave culture. And indeed, from what I gather, it was fairly prevalent and easily obtainable at the Nova festival in October 2023, in the south of Israel. And what is, what is that drug? Well, it's a, it's a stimulant. It's a it's a dopamine releaser. From what I understand it, it feels good. It heightens sensation and it makes the theme of the Nova Festival, which is peace and love and we're all together and we're everything is going to be great. It fits in very well with that, apparently. And so there it is. And what about music? Well, before I go on to speak about the music and the morality and the mayhem, I have one more thing to tell you about the people who attended the rave at the Nova festival. But first of all, just a reminder, I'm not going to take valuable moments to talk extensively about why this is good for everybody. But if you wouldn't mind, if you haven't yet subscribed to the Rabbi Daniel Lapin show, I'd appreciate you doing so that'll be great. And how about making sure that you are a member of our Happy Warrior community. That's also easily done by going to Rabbi Daniel Lapin.com and what I do every week is I prepare a private podcast exclusively for members of the Happy Warrior community. It's called the bonus podcast, and you'll be able to have access to that as well, where I go a little more deeply into things that I do in this main podcast, and where I sometimes divulge things that I'm not quite as comfortable speaking about in general public. So subscribe and become a member of the Happy Warrior community, and onwards we go. When I tell you that in Israel, the Jewish population in Israel is broadly divided between those who are religious and those who are not. And I think I should probably be a little bit more specific when I say there are people who are religious but not observant, so they may not wear a yarmulke or a kippah or a beanie or a skull cap on their heads. If they are men, they may not wear modest clothing if they are women. Those are areas of observance. They may travel on the Sabbath. They may have a dance festival on the Sabbath.
Daniel Lapin 9:04
There is a difference between religious and observant, and so you do have in Israel in a way that you don't have, shall we say, in in France or England or America or South Africa, or places where there are thriving Jewish populations, generally speaking, if people are not religious, then they're not religious and they're not observant. If they're not religious and not observant, men do not cover their heads. They do not refrain from working on Saturday on the Shabbat, women do not dress modestly. That's pretty much how it is around the world. If you see people who do, then they are going to be religious. If you don't, if people are not dressed or behaving in certain ways, then they're not religious. And that's all there is. Israel is a little more complicated, because you have people who are. Religious, but not observant. In other words, they have a real connection to God, but you may not see it when you notice them, because people tend to think that the only religious Jews in Israel are those who are of Hasidic visibility or identification or and to be sure, there is a very large population of religious and observant Jews in Israel. And you will see the women are wearing dresses, the men are wearing hats or skull caps or kippahs or yarmulkes and they certainly are. They are religious and observant. But there are also people who are religious but not observant, so they feel estranged from the general larger population of religious Israelis. And so, you know, they, they, they may, they may not. I mean, the women will dress as they do. The men will probably not be covering their heads when it comes to the observance of the Shabbat. Will they ride cars on Shabbat? Possibly, yes. But nonetheless, they've got some kind of genuine connection with God, you will notice people. You will find you know, I remember seeing a waiter in a restaurant I was enjoying a hamburger in in the north of Israel and the waiter absolutely did not strike me as in America. I would have said he belonged to a not particularly discriminating motorcycle gang. That's kind of what he looked like, you know, perfectly pleasant, perfectly friendly. But as far as faith is concerned in America, I would never have said, you know, religious guy in Israel, little bit different. I noticed that every single time he walked in and out of the kitchen door, as you know, doors in Jewish establishments have on the doorpost on the right hand side, going into the room, about two thirds of the way up from the floor will be a slanted little box containing verses from the Torah. And this little box is called a mezuzah. And many times, many Jews walking in and out of doors will touch their hands to the Mezuzah and then kiss their fingers as well, or the other way around, kiss their fingers and then touch the Mezuzah. And I noticed this waiter who in America would have been the leader of a rather noxious motorcycle gang. And I don't think all motorcycle gang members are noxious, by the way. There are many, many, many instances where I'd rather have some of those guys around me than some university professors around me, but I'm just trying to jocularly make the point that he certainly did not look in any way like a conventional observant Jew. But never once did he walk in and out of the kitchen and waiters do that awful lot right without kissing the meat. So I identified him immediately as non observant, but clearly religious. So on some level, in some way, he has a God. And the God, God is real to him. I don't mean a god, I mean the God. So there you got it. And one of the things that that we became aware of my wife and myself, was that a very large number of the young people at the Nova rave in Israel in trend in October 2023 came from conventional, observant Jewish homes. And so, you know, I can tell if somebody is observant by how he dresses and how he behaves, I can't tell if somebody is religious. You never know that's between him and God that's on the inside, and one simply can't tell. But it was very intriguing to us to discover how many people were at the Nova rave who came from conventional, observant religious families in Israel. And so thinking about that a little bit more, I I had some insights that I thought might be useful and perhaps even valuable to you, and in order to glance at them, what we need to do is go back to 1969 many, many, many years ago. Many of you weren't born yet. And in 1969 there was a music festival at Woodstock in a. State New York. And in that same year, there was also a music festival at Altamont in Northern California. And the you know, supposed to be that, you know, the atmosphere in Woodstock and in Altamont was supposed to be about love and peace and harmony. But the truth is that both events were as much about sex and violence as they were about music. And although there was this sort of veneer of friendship and harmony, both these events did have a dark undercurrent. Yes, there were rapes, there were brutal beatings, there were injuries, there were countless concussions at both of those festivals. At the time in 69 several people died at each event. Yeah, who would have thought? Right? Woodstock, everybody you know who was of that generation, baby boomers? Yeah, you know anyone who wasn't at Woodstock wished they were there. But yeah, there were people who died at Altamont. For instance, in California, The Rolling Stones were singing a hit in 69 by the way, the name of the hit was Sympathy for the Devil. And at the exactly while that was going on directly in front of the stage on which mix Mick Jagger was singing Sympathy for the Devil, a girl called Meredith Hunter, 18 years old, was stabbed to death. So this connection between revolutionary music and rejection of conventional Judeo, Christian sexual mores was not invented in 1969 we can go back earlier to one of the composers who I listened to a fair amount, and his name is Richard Wagner. He was notoriously known as Adolf Hitler's favorite composer. So what am I doing listening to his music? I think it's the most incredible, brilliant composition and at the same time, thoroughly evil. That's right. Remember what I said at the beginning? Right? One can do both things. There can be too in reactions at the same time, one can be repulsed by something and at the same time be completely infatuated by it. It's a reality. We human beings are complex, and we are capable of complex emotions and feelings and thoughts. And there's no question about it that Richard Wagner's music called for the murder of morality. I'm not saying it was intended, but his music definitely opened the door to hideous humans perpetrating horrible, horrible barbarism. Wagner himself was a socialist. He lived a complete dissolute existence. He incessantly betrayed his wife, Mina, very often with the wives of men who befriended and enriched him
Daniel Lapin 18:22
and his music, as I said to you, it's brilliant and evil, and it does celebrate and promote and advocate and Above all, celebrate sexual concupiscence, unrestricted and unrestrained sexual indulgence and also violence. And so there is a quality to music, and let me be clear, it will it is not a quality you will find, shall we say, in Beethoven's Seventh Symphony or his fifth symphony or his ninth symphony. You're not going to find it in the music of Johan Sebastian Bach, but you will find it in the music of Richard Wagner, and you will find it in the music that plays at rave celebrations, at rave concerts, our two most powerful bodily appetites are what I call the craving for carnality and the frenzy for food. I mean just playing around with alliterations there, obviously, but sex and food, yeah, and when we fail to treat these areas with an overlay of holiness, when we ignore the sacred aspect to both food and sex, what results is. Is decreased ability to succeed in life and eventual physical harm. So that's an important thing to understand and between the drug I described earlier, methylene dioxy methamphetamine, ecstasy, that along with the music and the atmosphere to rave, fills, I do believe, a vacant, hollow, spiritual, empty place in these young people. And so they were fully aware, many of them who came from religious households, families, many were obviously aware of what a sacred and holy overlay to the physicality of life brings, and somehow or another, it didn't speak to them, and so they abandoned observance, but they did not abandon religion, and it was their religion that found expression in the music and drama of The Rave experience. So I think, I think there's value in in recognizing for each and every one of us, as well as to realize in people in our orbit, friends, family, work associates, that music can very often be a substitute for somebody feeling a strong, unrecognized, maybe subconscious, spiritual yearning for God, for connection to the infinite and the ultimate, and yet cannot quite make that jump for various reasons there. There are a number of things that suppress and inhibit the yearning for spiritual connection and music, which is, when you think about it, obviously a spiritual phenomenon, much more than a physical Yes, physically speaking, there are vibrating air molecules which impact your eardrum and cause your eardrum to vibrate. But then something magic happens between your ears. Something happens converting almost arbitrary vibrations into something that impacts the soul. It's something we call music, and it is the the unpredictability in a sense. In other words, there is no musical there is no instrument. And I, I'd be interested to find out if artificial intelligence claims to be able to do this. Maybe some of you have more information on this and can help me understand it. But my question is, could artificial intelligence listen quote, quote, could, could AI listen to music and tell me whether that music is happy music or sad music? Is it somber and solemn, or is it upbeat and cheery? Is it possible for artificial intelligence to do that? Gosh, I'd really like to know the answer to that question, and we need to look more deeply into it. But is music camouflaging a deeper search for God and meaning for many of us, I think that might be the case, and it's something we'll look at a little bit more deeply in the future. At any rate, as far as today is concerned, this is as far as we're going to go. If you're a member of the Happy Warrior community, you will find that I'll be delving a little more deeply into that in the bonus broadcast, and for all of us, I want to wish us until the next show, next time we're together, a week of growth onwards and upwards in our families and in Our finances, in our faith, our friendships and our fitness. I'm Rabbi Daniel Lapin, God bless you.
