Author

I remember the moment when it hit me. I was walking down Amsterdam Avenue on the Upper West Side, and it felt like I was literally walking out of a jail cell that I had been in. At that moment, I realized I could shave if I wanted. It was up to me and no one else.

From Matisyahu

I always knew I was different and that people had opinions about me. I guess I learned as best as I can to shield out a lot and live my life from within.

From Matisyahu

When there's light shining on a tree, that tree takes on different meaning. If there's no light at all it just looks dead. If you look at light as godly meaning, the world comes alive in a certain way.

From Matisyahu

Music has always been such an amazing tool for me to access self and emotion.

From Matisyahu

As a kid, I was really into performing. I would do choruses, I would do musicals, whatever it was. And then, as a teenager, I got into an acting class at SUNY Purchase for gifted kids, and that really turned me on to material beyond musicals, Sam Shepard, and Christopher Durang plays.

From Matisyahu

I did some acting in college. But then everything stopped when I was a junior, in the fall of 2001, when I started becoming religious. Once I became a full-on Hasidic, I stopped everything. I stopped music. I stopped acting.

From Matisyahu

The place that I'm trying to come from and where I'm trying to make music from is when I feel like I'm able to somehow, like, transcend it all and just speak right to God.

From Matisyahu

I kind of think that music in general is a sacred thing, and that's what music has kind of always been for me.

From Matisyahu

There's something really powerful when I, for example, hear Bob Marley's 'Exodus' - we know where we're going. We know where we're from.

From Matisyahu

Is it possible Hanukkah doesn't inspire folksy songs? Plot lines may be a part. The Christmas story has a lot of material to work with. There's Jesus and his birth, the wise men, their gifts and tons of frankincense.

From Matisyahu

Matisyahu

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