ABSTRACT
The idea of musicality, a propensity for music, has long been examined in fields including ethnomusicology, music education, psychology, and neuroscience. An expectation of universal musicality requires not only egalitarian sentiment but also a musical praxis that makes possible, and may even require, such broad participation. The mainstream interpretation of Orthodox Jewish law, or Halacha, accepts with some empathy the innate nature of homosexual desire while steadfastly rejecting all lesbian, gay, or bisexual activity on Levitical and other grounds. Jews, especially Orthodox Jews, take pride in a fundamental, comprehensive morality inspired by faith, ethics, and religious law. Music is certainly experienced as a powerful desire, something that can attest to from a lifetime's experience. But, for better or worse and surely for reasons of political urgency, the consideration of desire as an essential attribute within academic area studies has focused almost entirely on sexuality. Music, like Roughgarden's conception of gender, can be both an identity and an occupation.
