Funeral: Music

Question

If a person's last wish is to have a song played at their funeral, is that permitted?

Answer

Shalom!

Thank you for your question!

While there is Talmudic discussion about music at a funeral, the halacha as practiced today is to forbid this.

In fact, a mourner, one who is mourning for one’s seven closest relatives, is forbidden to listen to music. In fact, the ban continues for an entire year for one mourning a parent.

As such, it is clear that at the funeral, which begins the procees of mourning and its restriciton, music is forbidden.

Furthermore, music at a funeral has become characteristic of non-Jewish funerals which is another reason they are forbidden. Our religious practices are not to imitate or even appear as imitating non-Jewish ones.

See Shabbat 151a; YD 391 and commentaries


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