6148 – The Most Beautiful Wedding?
Q. Hon. Rabbi, I have a few questions, as we spoke. My son is getting married in Yerushalaim as he is going to continue learning in a Kolel there. He wants to know if he is allowed to play music at his wedding played by an musical orchestra group, which is usually avoided by many there. Yet his large family is visiting and he wants to have a great and beautiful wedding ceremony to honor also his wife’s family. What and why is there such an unusual prohibition? Is there any way that he can he hire one?
A. The Rabbonim of Yerushalaim, in the second half of the nineteenth century, declared a self-imposed music prohibition upon the Jewish community in Jerusalem, (But not in the rest of Eretz Yisrael), forbidding the use of instrumental music at weddings, with the exception of drums to keep the beat for the singers. Rav Yosef Chaim Sonnenfeld zt”l (Shalmas Chaim 77) writes that the custom was first instated by Rav Meir Auerbach, (author of Imrei Binah, 1815-1877). He writes, “I heard that the Imrei Binah enacted the prohibition, and someone who is not concerned about it and denigrates it will suffer harsh retribution.” (from OU Torah and others)
Rabbi A. Bartfeld as revised by, Horav Yaakov Hirschman, Horav Dovid Pam, Horav Aharon Miller, Horav Chanoch Ehrentreu and Horav Kalman Ochs Shlit’a
Reviewed by: Hagaon Rav Shlomo Miller Shlit'a
Published: October 30, 2026