Matisyahu Opens Up About Pushing Jewish Teens Off Stage at Maccabi Games

Matisyahu wasn't always Matisyahu.

Born Matthew Paul Miller, the singer/songwriter's career took off in the early 2000's during a phase of his life when he was affiliated with the Chabad-Lubavitch movement. Six years ago, the reggae vocalist and alternative rock musician famously shaved his beard and stopped wearing a yarmulke in public. His religious transformation, divorce and struggle with addiction led to his well-received "Akeda" album. Matisyahu’s latest work, "Undercurrents," is the first album he’s produced by himself.

The artist, who brings his tour to St. Andrew’s Hall in Detroit on December 12, took the time to talk to me for an interview in the Detroit Jewish News. In this candid interview, Matisyahu opens up about his religious journey and shaving his iconic beard. He also, for the first time, addresses the controversial concert at the Maccabi Games this past summer, in which he pushed Jewish teens off the stage during the show.

Here's the audio of the interview with the published interview in the Detroit Jewish News below that:

Rabbi Jason Miller: What are the high points of your career?

Matisyahu: There’s been some great moments. The time I got to go on stage at Bonnaroo [Music and Arts Festival] 2005 with Trey [Anastasio of Phish] singing “No Woman No Cry.” That was a definite high point. I also got to sing “Roxanne” with Sting at Ramat Gan Stadium in Tel Aviv. That was incredible. Those are probably the two biggest artists that I got to sit in with in big stadiums. One of the memories just popping into my head was after the whole BDS thing in Spain, coming to Israel a month later and the warm feeling I got from everyone in Israel was very special for me.


What do you love about coming to Detroit, a city that like Matisyahu, has been on a transformative journey lately?

I have a song on the new album called “Back to the Old” and I think Detroit is one of those cities where young people who left the city have a real pride in the city and return when they’re older. And my first paid gig ever was in Detroit – at the Detroit Auto Show for Volkswagen. Every hour on the hour, I would play music at the Volkswagen display.

Hasidic Dancing in Interstate Traffic

A group of Hasidic students (bachurim) from Michigan were caught simcha dancing on Interstate I-80 during a four-hour traffic standstill over three years ago. However, the news report with a short video clip is once again making the rounds on the Web.

Most likely this fun video has found new life following the many snow-related traffic issues around the country, most notably the traffic standstill in Atlanta which Jon Stewart dubbed "South Parked" on The Daily Show.

Watching this video reminded me of R.E.M.'s great video for "Everybody Hurts," in which the band is stuck in a traffic jam along the double deck portions of I-10 near the I-35 Interchange in Downtown San Antonio, Texas. The music video shows the people in other cars while subtitles of their thoughts appear on screen. At the end of the video directed by Jake Scott, all the people leave their cars and walk instead; then they vanish. The video was heavily inspired by the traffic jam in the opening dream sequence of Fellini's 8½. Instead of getting out and just walking around, these five young guys turned up the music and started dancing like they were at a freilich (fun) wedding.

I was also reminded of the time as a pre-teen when my family was driving back from Toronto and a two-hour standstill ensued on the highway. My brother and I took our baseball mitts and a baseball out of the car and started playing catch on the side of the highway. The moral of the story is that highway standstills are horrible, but you have to make the best out of the situation.

Here's the video of the I-80 dancing.

Shabbat Around the World

I've experienced Shabbat in some very interesting places. One of the most memorable Shabbat lunches I can recall was in the home of a Chabad rabbi and his family in Kharkov, Ukraine. This was in August 2005 when I led a small Hillel/JDC mission of University of Michigan students to the Former Soviet Union.

The food at that lunch was delicious and the new plates of food seemed to continuously appear throughout the afternoon. As dessert was being served we sang Shabbat zemirot (festive songs) together. The students recognized the traditional songs and began harmonizing. The rabbi asked me to say a few words of Torah and I spoke about the pintele yid – that spark of Judaism that can be found throughout the globe. While the food might be different and some of the customs are unique to that community, the spark is there. How wonderful it is, I explained, for us Americans to travel to the Former Soviet Union in the 21st century and enjoy a warm, spiritual Shabbat, singing the Hebrew songs that are so familiar to us.

In Parashat Vayakhel (Exodus 35:3), the Torah says, לֹא-תְבַעֲרוּ אֵשׁ, בְּכֹל מֹשְׁבֹתֵיכֶם, בְּיוֹם, הַשַּׁבָּת "Do not light a fire in all your dwellings on Shabbat". Why is it necessary for the Torah to state settlements in the plural? Shouldn’t it be enough to say that we are forbidden from kindling fire on Shabbat? Why is it necessary to have the designation "throughout your settlements?" After all, the Torah doesn't add words or letters unnecessarily.

A Rick Perry Hanukkah

Governor Rick Perry made it clear in his "Strong" campaign commercial that he believes kids can't celebrate Christmas in our country. Apparently, however, governors can celebrate Hanukkah each year in the Capitol building with members of the local Chabad Lubavitch.

Here's a video I uploaded to YouTube showing Rick Perry's dismay that kids can't celebrate Christmas followed by his Hanukkah dancing and menorah lighting:

Shlomo the Offensive Lineman

Today, there are several Jewish football players in the National Football League. Of course, my favorite is Josh Miller, the New England Patriots kicker. But that's only because he shares his name with my son Josh. There's also Jay Fielder (New York Jets), Lennie Friedman (Washington Redskins), Sage Rosenfels (Miami Dolphins), Mike Rosenthal (Minnesota Vikings), and Mike Seidman (Carolina Panthers). There is also Igor Olshansky of the San Diego Chargers, who attended San Francisco Chabad's Hebrew Academy. Like other Jewish pro athletes these guys are all over the map in terms of their level of commitment and observance to Judaism.

There is one Jewish pro football player who's Jewish identity is very strong. Former Dallas Cowboys offensive lineman Alan Veingrad was a religiously indifferent Jew when he was an active player, but today he is ultra-Orthodox and goes by the name "Shlomo." Several articles have been written about Shlomo Veingrad's transformation, but the most comprehensive is the recent Dallas Morning News article, "Ex-Cowboy finds faith after football."

Veingrad, who won a Super Bowl championship with the Cowboys in 1993, has his own website that focuses on his life in football and today as a frum Jew. He explains, "As a Dallas Cowboy and member of the Super Bowl championship team of 1992, I got to play for coach Jimmy Johnson and protect the now legendary quarterback Troy Aikman. Being Jewish left me open to a fair amount of good-natured ribbing and kidding, more the by-product of insensitivity than of malice. In the rough and tumble environment of an NFL team, a Jew is an outsider. But now, as I continue to discover even more the rich traditions of Yiddishkeit, I'm happy to be on the inside of Hashem's army."

You can also listen to a radio interview of Alan "Shlomo" Veingrad on "JM in the AM" from 2006.

Matisyahu's Super Famous but is it Halakhically Permissable?

I just read an interesting article about whether Matisyahu, the Chasidic reggae superstar, is violating Jewish law according to his Chabad Lubavitch community by performing in clubs and bars where activities occur that run contra to the code of morality held firmly by the ultra-Orthodox establishment.

Here's a clip of the article:

Matisyahu: Rabbi or Rebel?
By Levi Brackman

Matisyahu is now an international phenomenon; he is a reggae singer with a difference. Instead of dreadlocks he sports a trilby. His beard is predicated on the Kabbalists' theosophy instead of Rastafarian tradition and his clothing places him in an Ultra Orthodox Jewish enclave rather than a black ghetto. This week he released his latest CD entitled YOUTH and it seems that Matisyahu's tremendous success so far is about to reach unprecedented heights. Predictably, this man's singing antics are deeply controversial.

Many have asked the following questions. Is it correct for a Chassidic Jew to be singing in clubs and bars? Is Matisyahu using his talent to bring Godliness to the profoundly unGodly and thus sanctifying God's name or is he achieving the opposite?

Whereas this article is not meant to give a definitive answer to these questions it does, however, endeavor to explain what motivates a Chassidic Jew like Matisyahu to perform in a bar and club.

There is a fundamental difference between the Kabbalistic and the non-Kabbalistic views of Judaism. Up until the French Revolution in 1789, society was divided into three groups: the church, the aristocracy and the peasants. In the terminology of the post-modern French philosopher Jacques Derrida (1930-2004), the landowners and the church were the centre and the peasants were the periphery. The two did not mix. Education, money and power were restricted to the elite; the peasants enjoyed no such privileges. After the French Revolution, the periphery was also given some of the privileges that were previously the exclusive right of the centre. With this came the emancipation of the Jews. Although the landowners and the educated were still regarded as the centre, the difference now was that peasants had the possibility of entering this exclusive domain.

The post-modern era, according to Derrida, was a time of "deconstruction." All things were seen in pairs, one superior to the other: rich and poor, educated and ignorant, powerful and powerless, etc. The deconstructivist view is that rich is not necessarily superior to poor, in fact, being poor can be more advantageous. Seen from this perspective, poor is the new centre and rich is the periphery. Derrida goes one step further and says that hierarchy should not exist at all; rather, all boundaries between centre and periphery should be deconstructed.

Western society is a deconstructed civilization in many ways. Whereas in the past women were seen as inferior, today they are often regarded as superior to men. Similarly, modern human rights laws have ensured that the views of vulnerable minorities are respected and listened to.

Non-Kabbalistic Judaism, in general, does not deconstruct boundaries. According to this school of thought, the centre should be distinct from the periphery. Here we have the concept of 'enclave Judaism,' which clearly marks out the boundaries between the holy and the profane. The fact that this type of Judaism disagrees with Matisyahu's style of music and choice of audience is no surprise, for it regards the mixing of the centre with the periphery as an obvious desecration of God's name. [more]

By his own admission, Matisyahu is being guided by the Chabad School of Kabbalistic thought. Thus, as long as he adheres to Jewish law and does not get carried away with stardom and the narcissistic celebrity culture of modern-day America, his music may be considered, in my opinion, a sanctification of God's name.