We want our children to realize that there is nothing in the outside world worth sacrificing what we have
Our 14-year-old son has been extremely musical since childhood, and we do everything we can to help him maximize his talents. We recently heard some strange-sounding music coming out of his bedroom, and when we asked him about it, he smiled and told us he was listening to a very talented non-Jewish singer. My wife and I were displeased and asked him why he had to listen to this when there are so many wonderful Jewish singers. In reply, he rolled his eyes and said, “C’mon, they have so much that we don’t have.”
My wife and I find this concerning. Non-Jewish music is not good for the neshamah, and the lyrics are even worse. Can we straight-out prohibit our son from listening to it? Will that backfire? Is there some middle ground?
Singular talent of any kind presents a formidable challenge, as the desire to maximize such talents will almost always precipitate interest beyond our communal borders. Our community certainly has what to be proud of; limud Torah hones our cognitive abilities to their utmost, and the extraordinary levels of hasmadah displayed in our batei medrash are unparalleled in the outside world. And limud mussar, avodas hamiddos, chassidus and machshavah have refined our understanding of human nature to levels once again unequaled in the world at large.
Talents, on the other hand, are gifts found in percentages of population and honed by intense and consistent training. The more one exercises and perfects those abilities, the more successful he or she will be. The prodigious musicians and singers in the outside world are often objectively a lot better than ours, firstly because they are the top picks from a much bigger pool, and also because they pursue the development of their talents with a single-minded focus that is unrealistic for a Torah-observant Jew.
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