08/04/2025
Trance Music and the Jewish People: From the Golden Calf to Full Moon Raves.
Trance music, ablaze with colorful lights and endless beats, has become, over recent decades, a soundtrack of freedom, release, and community for many around the world—especially in Israel. But if we dig deeper, we may discover that the connection between the Jewish people and ecstatic, repetitive, transcendental music runs far deeper, rooted in our heritage and biblical stories.
The Golden Calf: The First Trance Party:
In the Book of Exodus, Chapter 32, we encounter one of the most scandalous episodes in Jewish history: the sin of the Golden Calf. Moses ascended Mount Sinai to receive the Tablets of the Covenant, and in his absence, the Jewish people lost faith. They gathered around Aharon, asking him to create a new god to lead them. They melted their earrings, crafted a golden calf, and then celebrated around it in a wild, uninhibited ritual: "and the people rose up to revel" (Heb: "וַיָּקֻמוּ לְצַחֵק" pronounce -"vayakumu letzachek")." To the modern reader, this phrase—describing dancing and revelry—could easily evoke the image of a trance festival in the desert.
Stripping the narrative of its moral framing, we can see a deep human need: for connection, for collective spiritual elevation, for release. The dance around the calf was not merely idolatry—it was a celebration. A profound expression of the human desire to plunge into shared experience, in rhythm, sweat, and emotion.
Israel as a Trance Powerhouse:
It is no coincidence that Israel has become one of the world's foremost hubs of trance music. Since the 1990s, Israeli artists such as Astral Projection, DJ Dede, DJ Miko aka California Sunshine, MFG, Oforia, Indoor, Xerox & Illumination, Loud, Eyal Yankovich (Hommega), Infected Mushroom, Guy Sebbag, Zoo-B, and Cosma (Avihen Livne) have broken onto the global festival scene, exporting desert psychedelia to every corner of the earth.
The desert, which once hosted the sin of the Golden Calf, continues to host trance festivals to this day—spaces where thousands gather once again to dance, connect, and escape the material world in favor of a spiritual and physical experience.
Trance as Release, Rebellion, and Modern Prayer:
In many ways, trance music serves as a form of modern prayer. It has no words, but it carries intention. It lacks written liturgy, but contains ritual. Its repetition, high tempo, and collective trance offer emotional release, opportunities for rebellion against norms, and at times—even healing.
For a people who have endured centuries of exile, restriction, and longing for redemption, trance provides a different path to self-expression—not through words or structured worship, but through direct experience. Perhaps that is why trance holds such a central place in our small country.
Conclusion & Understanding:
The sin of the Golden Calf can be viewed not only as transgression, but also as testimony to a deep human—and Jewish—yearning for moments of shared ecstasy. That ancient desert gathering might well have been the first party of our people, and trance music is its modern echo. We no longer worship golden idols, but we do dance—to forget, to remember, to connect, to escape. Because trance, like tradition, is a refuge.
As it is written, "And all the peoples of the earth shall see that the name of the Lord is called upon you"—perhaps they, too, will hear the bassline in the desert and sense there is something deeper than sound. Perhaps it is simply the Jewish soul, dancing under a full moon.
Enter the Trance - listen to the "GYROSCOPE 4" latest mix:
My Trance mix series expresses exactly its name - "Gyroscope" - maintaining orientation and angular velocity, where the axis of rotation is free to accept any direction with the circles around it, while it itself remains constant and allows you to understand; look to a fixed horizon; Keeping my cons...
