When I was a kid there were about two popular Jewish singers [Carlebach and MBD] one popular choir [Miami] and that was about it.
In the last decade or two there has been an explosion of Jewish music [I am listening to music as I write this].
I see that as a positive development. A] Better Jewish music than the alternative. B] Music makes people happy and often more connected to spirituality. C] A lot of people are making a good parnassa off this market.
Recently someone desscribed how he went to a store in Bnei Brak to buy Mordechai Ben David's latest album. He was told that they were already all sold out.
He went to a second store and managed to salvage the very last copy.
It made me wonder. There is already SOOOOO MUCH music out there. Bnei Brak is a poor town [very large families, very low income]. Yet, people have a need to rush to the store to spend money on the latest album. What does this reveal?
Like we have pointed out numerous times on these pages, everything we do is in order to fulfill a need, whether it be spiritual, emotional or physical. If we were truly content we would do nothing. The goal is to feel a minimal amount of material needs and a maximal amount of spiritual needs.
What is so lacking in people's lives that they need to buy the latest album right away??
I'll tell you who WASN'T at the store purchasing a copy: Rav Chaim Kneyevski, Rav Shteinman and Rav Berel Povarsky [the Rosh Yeshiva of Ponovitch]. Why? They are not lacking another music album.
I write this not as a criticism with an expectation that people should be on the level of gedolei torah, but as a trigger to think about what we feel we lack, how we go about fulfilling those needs and what it says about us.
