BROOKLYN, NY — Matisyahu, born Matthew Paul Miller, is well known as a genre-busting Hasidic reggae artist who performs in tzitzit. But with his new EP, ”Shattered,” and current tour, he shows a new, bold eclecticism that demonstrates a simultaneous evolution in his music and religious attitudes. He’s taken true steps — away from Chabad in his religious observance, and away from more conventional reggae in his musical development — and has opted instead to define his own new path.
Matisyahu: I Don’t Belong To Any Hasidic Group
BROOKLYN, NY — Matisyahu, born Matthew Paul Miller, is well known as a genre-busting Hasidic reggae artist who performs in tzitzit. But with his new EP, ”Shattered,” and current tour, he shows a new, bold eclecticism that demonstrates a simultaneous evolution in his music and religious attitudes. He’s taken true steps — away from Chabad in his religious observance, and away from more conventional reggae in his musical development — and has opted instead to define his own new path.
Matisyahu’s identity as a practicing Jew evolved gradually over the years, with its origins far from the place where he now finds himself. Raised Reconstructionist, he went on the Alexander Muss High School in Israel study program as a teenager. This was less out of a love for learning, he says, than out of a desire to get out of high school for a few months.
“Like a lot of American kids, I was not really interested in Judaism and was around that age of starting to make self-discovery. A few things kind of came together for me,” he recalled. “I started listening to Bob Marley, and that informed some of my identity in terms of music and spirituality, and seeing a lot of Jewish references within reggae music was kind of a pull for me towards piquing my interest in Judaism.”
His time in Israel was marked less by spiritual epiphany than by being implicated in another student’s drinking exploits (he quickly defends himself as having been found guilty by association rather than action). As a result, he was restricted to staying on the campus for his first month in Israel. “Muss was cool in the style of the learning — the seminar classrooms and the teachers were cool,” Matisyahu said. “I was not studious, and never was really turned on intellectually until much later. By no means did I become religious. But I became more interested in Judaism, and identified more as a Jew.”
After he finished Muss, he returned to New York, where he subsequently dropped out of high school after the first day of his senior year and traveled around the country. A stint in a rehabilitation center in upstate New York followed, and he then went to Oregon on a wilderness expedition trip for teenagers. “It was not necessarily for drug rehabilitation, but that was part of the reason I was out there,” he explained.
In Oregon, he identified himself as “Matt, the Jewish rapper kid from New York.” “That became my identity,” he said. “I’d come in wearing an Israeli flag draped around my back, singing prayers I remembered from synagogue in the middle of a show. It was way before I was religious. I felt some strong Jewish spirituality, though I would never go to shul and didn’t keep any of the laws. It made no sense to me.” Unlike New York, in Oregon, he said, “I was suddenly the token Jew. This was now my search for my own identity, and part of Judaism feeling more important and relevant to me.”
He moved back to New York and, as he says, “started feeling a little depressed and stuck in my life.” At that point, he started developing his reggae, spending hours in his room, writing and practicing his style to the accompaniment of hip-hop tapes, whether underground or popular. “I’d buy instrumental tapes on Canal Street, then just practice along with them, singing and rapping.
“What I was doing, it wasn’t like you could go to school for it. I never learned how to play an instrument. At that point, I was not interested or aware of the benefits of vocal training, which is something that I now take extremely seriously. At the time, I just thought of it as a stylistic kind of thing. I was doing it totally on my own, and that’s what my life was spiritually, too. I was very much on my own with that, as well. It was my solitary journey. Once I became religious, it became more about community and searching out answers through other people.”
Around that same time, he says, he started to become more interested in Judaism, taking classes on Jewish spirituality at The New School. Matisyahu approached Eli Cohen, a rabbi at New York University, about learning.
“He mentioned that there was a boy in the hospital, a Russian boy who wanted to put on tefillin, and asked me if would I go do it,” he recalled. “I think he was referring to just one time, but I thought he meant regularly. So every week, I went from the West Village to put tefillin on this boy. I’d get a kosher bagel lunch, started saying the blessing. So my experience was kind of organic in that sense.
“I’d talk to teachers and ask them, where do I go? What rabbi can I talk to, and what shul can I see?”
He recounts that at the same time, he started praying, getting himself a siddur and tallit. “I started going up on the roof of school at sunset and praying in Hebrew, even though I didn’t understand it,” he said. “That was how I started going from spirituality into some aspect of religion.”
He learned of the Carlebach Shul, located on the Upper West Side, and started going there every Sabbath, as well as wearing a yarmulke and tzitzit. It was then that he met NYU’s Chabad rabbi, Dov Yonah Korn, someone to whom he could relate.
“When I came in contact with Rabbi Korn, I felt this strong connection to him,” not least of which was because of music, Matisyahu recalled. “He had been on the Dead tour, the Phish tour, came from a similar background as me, done hallucinogenics. He was dancing on Shemini Atzeres with the Torah in Washington Square Park with all these other people.
“They were all not from religious backgrounds, and they’d all come from the counterculture — grown up in the suburbs, upper-middle class, gone out and left home, had their experiences on the road, and then ended up becoming religious. I looked at those guys and thought, this could be me also. I could make this transition.”
He found himself at a Simchat Torah farbrengn, or get-together, in Brooklyn at 770 Eastern Parkway, the home base of Chabad, and felt as though a light had been turned on. “They sing all of the songs from the different rebbe’im,” he recalled. “Those songs are very powerful. I felt like this sort of sadness, or yearning, or calling that I had been struggling with. That music kind of embodied that struggle I was having, and I felt that it was calling me or pulling me into it, sucking me in.
“I had felt very alone in this religious process; I didn’t have any friends doing it, and it was a very heavy decision to become religious.”
When Matisyahu’s family was having a hard time dealing with his newfound faith, he moved in with Korn, sleeping on his couch in his two-bedroom apartment with the rabbi, his wife and their children.
“I really admired that lifestyle — being married, having kids, being religious,” he said “It was zany, weird and fun. We’d do things like stay up all night saying tehilim (psalms), walk to the mikveh, drink half a bottle of vodka, sit around and eat cholent and salami. I thought, this is a fun way to be religious.”
By November 2001, Matisyahu was officially calling himself a Lubavitcher, a member of the Lubavitch movement. Korn’s mentorship had a tremendous influence on Matisyahu. “I was wearing a jacket and hat before I knew it,” he recalled. “And before I knew it, I was in [Brooklyn’s] Crown Heights and completely indoctrinated into the Chabad way of life.” He took up residence in Crown Heights in spring of 2002.
Korn was also one of the first people for whom Matisyahu performed. The rabbi encouraged him, allowing him to perform at the Union Square menorah lighting as well as at NYU’s Chabad House. When Matisyahu moved to Crown Heights, he stopped listening to popular music. “I was starting to learn Hasidus [the teaching of the Hasidim], and was living with the rabbi in the apartment with his kids,” he said. “At that point, I stopped and pulled myself out of popular culture, going to movies, talking to girls, watching TV.”
In 2004, after signing with JDub Records, he released his first album. He recorded a live album in 2005, as well as a second studio album, and became famous, performing to larger groups around the world. At the same time, his religious identity was changing.
“I’ve been through all these different phases in Chabad. Chabad has been a bit of a roller coaster for me. It was very pure in the sense that I totally divested myself from all of the confusion that I was living in. I wasn’t getting high, I wasn’t with women — I was waking up every morning and learning Torah all day. And so, in certain senses it was a pure process,” Matisyahu said.
“But there was a lot of alcoholism going on, in my experience, and a lot of borderline —” He interrupted himself. “I definitely lost myself, as well, in the process, in the sense that I somehow stopped thinking for myself. I became completely dependent on other people for my sense of what was right and wrong. I felt incapable of making my own decisions. I was borderline completely losing my mind.” And then, he said, he pulled himself out of Chabad.
It was during this period that he began working with the now Jerusalem-based therapist Ephraim Rosenstein, whom he now considers his personal friend and religious mentor.
“[Rosenstein] was able to help me come to some realizations that were really ground-breaking, and kept me from where I think I would have lost my mind in the state of being I was in at that time,” Matisyahu said. “After that happened, once my therapy came to a certain place, and I’d gotten pretty healthy, I wanted to continue with my spirituality. I guess the therapy to me was sort of getting to know myself as a valid means of spiritual growth. I wanted to take it from a personal to an intellectual kind of thing, so we started learning together. Instead of therapy, I was paying him to discuss ideas, basically.
“I’ve stopped identifying with any group of Judaism. I would now call myself an Orthodox Jew. I try to keep the tenets of halachic Judaism as strongly as possible, but I don’t identify with any one movement.”
He noted that he has not severed ties with the movement completely: “My kids go to a Lubavitch yeshiva and are named after rebbes. I have Lubavitch friends, and we stay with shlichim [emissaries] around the world. I feel I have some in-depth knowledge of Hasidus and Chabad philosophy, and close ties with Lubavitch. But I don’t feel the need to be any one thing.
“In Chabad, there was always the tendency to deify everything, whether it was the rebbes or the learning,” Matisyahu said. “[There was] this sense that you couldn’t ask questions about any of it, that if you didn’t accept it, you weren’t accepting the Torah. It was as if you weren’t religious, and that this was the one path and the true path and that anything outside of it, even if it was a different kind of Hasidim, was certainly looked down upon.” With Rosenstein, he said, Matisyahu relished a different mode of studying, which focused on placing teachings into historical and social contexts and then comparing them with other Hasidus and philosophies of Judaism.
“Shattered,” which comprises four songs, reflects this newly acquired intellectual and musical diversity. On the one hand, the tracks divert from his reggae stylings into new areas of electronica and rap; one of the tracks is with the electronic music duo The Crystal Method, famed for working with Fatboy Slim and with The Chemical Brothers. The EP’s first track, “Smash Lies,” dares listeners to challenge their musical assumptions about Matisyahu from the get-go, with banjo, synthesizers, rap and electronically modulated vocals. On the other hand, all the tracks reveal an attempt to convey messages of Jewish spirituality more deeply and subtly. Many of the lyrics were co-written by Rosenstein.
“I took classic Jewish works and stories and things that are really universal. I found them within Judaism, but any spirituality or religion around the world would identify with the themes,” Matisyahu said. “I tried to take in certain situations, like current events that I felt fall in line with those themes. The lyrics are an outgrowth of the philosophy, but manifest themselves in a more current format.”
One song, “So Hi So Lo,” stems from a famous story of Nachman of Bratslav. “This was his most famous story about two kids who get lost in the wilderness and have to make it through,” he said. “That became the theme, in a lot of ways, for the record and especially for this one song, that theme of being children in the forest.
“It’s central to Judaism — the exile, galut, is compared to being lost in darkness, dream, forest, wilderness. There’s a sense that the people are still traveling through that in their own ways, in terms of spirituality.”
The story took on another dimension on another track, as he became more aware of refugee camps in Sudan and Ghana and of child soldiers in Africa. “I had heard a story about some child soldiers that had escaped from a group and traveled 1,000 miles across the desert to safety,” he said. The song connects the story to another legend of Nachman of Bratslav.
Matisyahu’s music and religious attitudes reflect a new openness to the external world. The performer now listens to Icelandic band Sigur Rós, as well as to reggae star Sizzla. Yet his relationship to popular music now is different from what it was prior to his Crown Heights musical hiatus.
“Before I came into religion, I completely depended on music to be the glue that would bring my experiences together,” he said. “Walking down the street and not listening to music, everything felt disjointed and chaotic. When I was listening to music, it all came together. That was what music was for me. It’s what gave me my inner sense of hope and of unification of my own dreams, of what I wanted to do with my life and of overcoming the whole world.
“After I became religious, I didn’t feel the need for that anymore, the need for music to make that happen,” he said. “If things were chaotic and disjointed, I wanted to feel that, not to use music as a false glue. It was almost like getting high. It felt like I was cheating the reality, conning myself into this place. So I never again returned to listening to music in that same way.”
He struggles, he says, with balancing the secular and religious worlds, trying not to notice, for example, women at his shows who are dressed immodestly, yet not being able to wholly connect to his audience as a result.
“I find it somewhat strange how American society completely physicalizes and sexualizes women, and then the women are the ones who take that on, and those women are supposedly part of the feminist revolution and want to be seen as something beyond sexual objects,” Matisyahu said. “But the reality is that sexuality is a very powerful thing. Men or women, whatever, you see someone who’s sexy.”
He is quick to note that he doesn’t condemn people who take a different approach to modesty: “I’m not like, ‘how dare they come to my show like that!’ People are who they are. I put myself out there; they can come dressed how they want and do whatever they want while they’re there. But for myself, it’s kind of funny. I feel some sort of block. Sometimes I want to be totally open, want to take everybody in, make that connection with the audience. If I see a pretty girl, dressed sexy, I’m almost afraid to look at them. I feel like they’re going to think I’m looking at them in a sexual way.
“I wasn’t raised religious — I’m from the whole American culture. When I started putting on a yarmulke, I said, I represent much more. I represent these things, and I cannot be a hypocrite. Normally if you’re religious, you don’t look at women. But in my situation, I’m supposed to be open and loving. And so it stays in the forefront of what I’m dealing with, and how to balance it all.”
In response to my question of what “much more” meant, he said: “I think what I represent to a lot of people is sort of like someone who is a regular guy, a normal guy. A lot of people — young, Jewish, non-Jewish, whatever — are going though similar experiences of trying to figure things out. I think a lot of people see themselves in me, either in a certain genuineness or humility maybe. I don’t see myself as this big star; I see myself as a kid who is still trying to figure it all out and put it together.”
Exemplifying one of his many supreme balancing acts, one of our conversations transpired over cell phone as Matisyahu was driving an RV through the Toronto night, answering my questions with grace over the yells of a hysterical toddler while simultaneously trying to follow the GPS directions to his wife’s grandmother’s house.
Before we hung up, I asked if the GPS was working.
“I guess I’m not as far away as I thought I was,” he responded.
happy
im really happy. now can we turn the page.
anonymous
Maybe we should take seriously his comment about Lubavitchers driinking too much.
TRANSLATION:
“[MR. ROSENSTEIN SAYS] I’ve been through all these different phases in Chabad. Chabad has been a [HUGE] bit of a roller coaster for me [AND FOR ALL CHABADNICKS, IN MR. ROSENSTEIN’S BIASED OPINION]…
“But [AS MR. ROSENSTEIN REPEATEDLY DRILLED INTO MY HEAD WHETHER IT’S TRUE OR NOT] there was a lot of alcoholism going on, in my experience, and a lot of borderline —” He interrupted himself. “[MR. ROSENSTEIN CONVINCED ME THAT] I definitely lost myself, as well, in the process, in the sense that I somehow stopped thinking for myself [BECAUSE, AS MASTER ROSENSTEIN CORRECTLY POINTED OUT 1,000 TIMES, CHABAD IS A CULT]. I became completely dependent on other [MEANING, CHABAD] people for my sense of what was right and wrong [EXCEPT MR. ROSENSTEIN, WHO IS NEVER WRONG]. [MASTER ROSENSTEIN ANGRILY INSISTED I] I felt incapable of making my own decisions. I was borderline completely losing my mind.” And then, he said, he [MASTER ROSENSTEIN] pulled [PUSHED] himself out of Chabad [AND INTO HIS OWN CULT].
It was during this period that he began working with the now Jerusalem-based therapist [CHABAD-HATING PUPPETEER] Ephraim Rosenstein, whom he now considers his personal friend and religious mentor [AND REBBE MELECH HAMOSHIACH SHLITA WHO IS NEVER WRONG].
“[Rosenstein] was able to help me come to [FORCE UPON ME] some realizations that [HE INSISTED] were really ground-breaking, and kept me from where I think [TALKED ME INTO BELIEVING THAT] I would have lost my mind in the state of being I was in at that time,” Matisyahu said. “After that happened, once my therapy came to a certain place, and I’d gotten pretty healthy [AFTER HE BRAINWASHED ME THAT I WAS MENTALLY ILL LIKE THE REST OF CHABAD], I wanted to continue with my spirituality. I guess the therapy to me was sort of getting to know myself as a valid means of spiritual growth. I wanted to take it from a personal to an intellectual kind of thing, so we started learning together. Instead of therapy, I was paying him to discuss ideas, basically.
“[MASTER ROSENSTEIN HAS MANIPULATED ME INTO] I’ve stopped identifying with any group of Judaism [EXCEPT ROSENSTEINISM]. I would now call myself an Orthodox Jew. I try to keep the tenets of halachic Judaism as strongly as possible, but [MASTER ROSENSTEIN HAS WARNED ME] I don’t identify with any one movement.”
He noted that he has not severed ties with the movement completely [ONLY ALMOST COMPLETELY–MASTER ROSENSTEIN WANTS ME TO HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH THAT CRAZY CULT]: “My kids go to a Lubavitch yeshiva [ONLY BECAUSE THERE’S NO OTHER SCHOOL IN THE NABE] and are named after rebbes [TOO BAD I DIDN’T KNOW MASTER ROSENSTEIN BEFORE THEIR BRISIN]. I have [NO] Lubavitch friends, and we stay with shlichim [emissaries] around the world [FOR 5 MINUTES WHEN WE NEED THE RESTROOM]. I feel I have some in-depth knowledge of Hasidus and Chabad philosophy, and close ties with Lubavitch [AND HOW DANGEROUS THEY ARE, AS MASTER ROSENSTEIN ALWAYS SAYS]. But [MASTER ROSENSTEIN ALWAYS REMINDS ME THAT] I don’t feel the need to be any one thing [EVEN IF I ACTUALLY DO FEEL THE NEED TO BE ONE THING, WHICH IS CHABAD. OR AT LEAST USED TO].
“In Chabad [AS ALMIGHTY MASTER ROSENSTEIN DICTATES], there was always the tendency to deify everything, whether it was the rebbes or the learning,” Matisyahu said. “[There was] this sense that you couldn’t ask questions about any of it, that if you didn’t accept it, you weren’t accepting the Torah. [LIKE EVERY OTHER HASHKAFAH, A FACT MASTER ROSENSTEIN IGNORES]. It was as if you weren’t religious, and that this was the one path and the true path and that anything outside of it, even if it was a different kind of Hasidim, was certainly looked down upon.” [LIKE EVERY OTHER HASHKAFAH] With [ALMIGHTY MASTER] Rosenstein, he said, Matisyahu relished a different mode of [NON-CHABAD] studying, which focused on placing teachings into historical and social contexts [BASHING CHABAD] and then comparing them with other Hasidus and philosophies of Judaism [BASHING CHABAD].
That’s really what happened.
Matisyahu wasn’t brainwashed before. He is now.
mm
wow. thats interesting. some pot head is saying that chabad drinks.
Wake up!!!
I’m afraid his kids are going to be mixed up! You can’t be one thing yet school them in another way. This is one way that kids fall off….
Moishe
We are all Jews and are free to think what we want to think and to have our own opinions.
Mendy
Stop criticizing him.He’s free to have his own opinions!
lubab
chabadniks are alcoholics and breslovs are on drugs… beautiful. i am happy you finaly found your place.
NOT a Matisyahu love..but loves Truth
Techie…please change that emotionally charged title. He did NOT say that “chabadniks are alcholics”….he said the HE dealt with that.
Hershel
It should be a lesson for us Lubavitchers that although we are mekarev everyone with Ahavas Yisroel, we shouldn’t embrace such people as one of us totally so soon after they join us. The rule of “kabdehu vechashdehu” [respect him and suspect him] MUST apply to such individuals, especially because they are not like a typical mekurav baal teshuva, rather they are out there in the public eye, speaking to the media all the time, giving the impression that they are full fledged Lubavitchers.
The chutzpah of this fellow! He lived in Crown Heights for a few years (maybe still does, I don’t know), but he knows well and good that although unfortunately it is true that there are people with drinking problems in our community (just like in every other community, just that by us for some reason it is more tolerated), that are many more Baale Batim and Bochurim who adhere to the Rebbe’s gezeira on mashke. For him to paint Chabad as a whole as shikurim is poshut an outrage.
Watch my words: Meshugaim like this, today a pot head, tomorrow a Chabadnik, the next day a Karliner then a Breslever, are messed up people who will always find fault with their surroundings, instead of realizing that the shmutz is stuck to their own nose. If he leaves the derech hatorah vehamitzva c”v altogether one day, I wouldn’t be surprised.
Let him be
Itis possible that there IS a lot of drinking that goes on in Chabad- just go to a farbrengen and how about the teen boys?So lets not be in complete denial here. As far as his ideas-so what?He still remains frum and I think he has never rejected Chabad and never called it a cult. He is allowed to think as he pleases.It does not make him poison. I think rejecting him and pushing him away bec he is an independent thinker is also not right.Let him do his own thing.He dresses like a frum Jew in his concerts and is a kiddush Hashem.Obviously he had drug probs in his past and therefore is sensitive to any “drinking” issue. So let him be.
chutzpah
ungrateful!! after spending years on a shliach’s coach, whom i can imagine did not have much themselves, he turns on lubavitch, blames chabad for some issues he is having (feeling he has lost himself, that if he has problems with things he’s not religious – this is just insecure) and feels the need to speak of it publicly!!
hakaras hatov is a basic jewish value…
My Opinon
I feel the only reason why he become “frum” through Chabad was to use Chabad to become famous. Since Chabad is all over the world and we know how kind Chabad is to help out people. It was a way for him to get his name out and once his name become famous and made his millions. Then didn’t need Chabad anymore…….
roses
I understand where you’re coming from, but I still think the negative comments about using Chabad are unfair. Clearly, he was vEry troubled and did need a therapist. You can’t be observant, an oved Hashem a Chassid, an anything, if your head is messed up. He fit into Chabad in his own way. He probably really was on the brink of losing his mind, not because of Chabad, but while he was in Chabad. The alcoholism has been admitted as a problem by C.H.ers themselves. Of course, that pulled him – he got “chassidic points” for doing what he always did, when he needed rehab. He is not identifying with any other group. Let’s be friendly, not angry. We shouldn’t demand gratefulness from people whom we’ve helped, though those people should, indeed be gratefuly. That’s their obligation. Don’t give up on him.
Lala
http://www.youtube.com/watc…
Nuff said
just a Jew
coming next:
I’m not religious at all, I was just born a Jew.
I’m a Jew and thats just fine etc… bla bla bla
map quest
thats what you call a lost soul.
give this guy a map!
Jew Lover
Why are you all getting so riled up?? Let him live and do what he feels is right even if you think he is mistaken! LAY OFF!! Love another Jew applies especially if you feel a reason to criticise.
Re: Lala
While all us lubavithcers are getting drunk look at him… toasted beyond toast. SAD.
http://www.youtube.com/watc…
problem
the problem is that he has a very wrong understanding of what chabad stands for and is advertising his wrong infirmation and that is very sad
Milhouse
Chabad is not some kind of cult that insists everyone must join it. So long as Matisyahu remains a shomer torah umitzvos, Chabad will regard him as a success story. Chabad cares about every Jew, and has what to offer every Jew, but not every Jew’s place is there. Some people’s shoresh haneshama pulls them elsewhere, and so long as they’re not kefuyei tovah, so long as they don’t start attacking Chabad and spitting into the well from which they drank, they should follow their neshama and find their place, wherever it is. There are many valid paths within yiddishkeit, nahara nahara upashteih. For a person to stay where he feels he doesn’t belong, just because he doesn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings, would not be right. I wish him good luck, may Hashem guide him to his correct place, and so long as he inspires yidden to come closer to Hashem and to do more mitzvos he will be doing the Rebbe’s shlichus, no matter what he calls himself.
enough already!
He’s so boring. Every other week he’s getting himself written about & it’s always a variation on the same old garbage. CD sales must be down…oy! Why all these sites even bother repeating this stuff is beyond me. You guys see the word “Chabad” & you’re all over it like white on rice. He’s not Chabad…he says so! Don’t give him any publicity, he’s a has-been & he’s a fraud.
Nochum
i don’t know why people make this into a bigger deal than this is, my family is hardcore lubavitch and i decided to branch myself out in my early 20’s to other sects of chassidus. my problem with “belonging” to a sect meant you can only study and learn what their rebbe says. and you cant deny that. other than the rebbe or the baal hatanya how many other rebbe pics do you have in your house? ill be zero. im a follower of all rebbe i learn chabad, breslov, klausenberg, etc etc……you can only do what you feel is right in your heart otherwise its not worth doing.
Shimon
Please don’t be such hypocrites. Three years ago 80% of Crown Heights worshiped the ground Matisyahu walked. Unless they’ve been deleted, look at old CH.info posts about Matisyahu and look at the comments. And now I get to say “I told you so.” So many people were listening to his music. And I told everyone anytime the topic came up, “I didn’t like that kind of music when my neighbors blasted it, and I still don’t like it now.” And anyone who says “Lubavitch” doesn’t have a drinking problem is in SERIOUS denial. Whatever his problems are, a lot of guys in my class (at least 30%) started get drunk on Thursday nights starting age 16.
Fed up but still satisfied
I was born chabad, grew up lubavitch, still am lubavitch. But after reading this and thinking about it I’m a little unsure of why I am chabad? Rather, I’m a bit confused as to why I didn’t do what it sounds like this guy did – go learn other torah instead of “sticking my head in the sand” and only learning Chabad.
You people are sick! Accepting all the outsiders with totally open arms but for an insider with questions or doubts, no one’s around. For and insider looking other places – apikorsis! Other non-chabad groups/sects have wonderful mihagim and beautiful torah to learn. Chabad does as well but are closed to hearing anything other than chabad torah. No wonder so many CHers are heading off and levels of tznius are going down and respect for elders is being lost etc etc. Skip alcholism – that’s a side point.
No one is here with the same “open-minded” “open arms” as with non-frum/lubab people.
Chabad is wonderful and amazing and fantastic. There is much to learn from lubavitchers. However there is lots that needs to be fixed and I think that instead of bashing this guy – do what chabad is known for and give him the benefit of the doubt that he is learning torah from all sects and becoming extremely knowledgeable and well rounded in his learning.
good luck to all lubab’s out there. and for those that are having difficulty in the mitzvah of V’ahavta L’reyacha Kamocha and Dan L’chaf Z’chus, please work on yourselves and maybe get some help from others. But it’s important!
On Second Thought
First of all, I must commend this website for being bold and honest enough to print this article. It is obvious from the various comments posted that this is a very challenging and controversial article to Chabakniks.
Before everybody gets so made at Matisyahu lets contemplate what’s written here.
1. Let’s not fool ourselves. Matisyahu was not condemned by Chabad all these years when he was identifying himself as a Chabadnik. On the contrary, most took pride in him and felt he was creating a Kiddush Hashem. (OK, many parents hated his style of music, but what parent ever loved the next generation’s taste of music.) So let’s not all of a sudden attack him just because he left the ranks.
2. He claims that “But there was a lot of alcoholism going on, in my experience, and a lot of borderline —” OK, I’m not certain what he means by “borderline” and his “a lot of alcoholism” may be slightly exaggerated, but please, let’s be honest. When’s the last time you went to a Misnagid simcha where people were getting drunk besides for Purim?! Who hasn’t had a “couple” of shots on Simchas Torah even though there is no where in Halacha that “requires” drinking on Simchas Torah?! How many of you can honestly say that you never once came back from a farbrengn just slightly tipsy? There is no denying that alcohol plays a greater role in Yiddishkeit amongst the Chassidim than amongst the Misnagdim and all the more so in Chabad circles. We can argue back and forth for days whether a change is needed, but let’s not deny the reality – “too many people get drunk and it doesn’t matter that they are not following the Rebbe’s gezeira, they are still causing a Chillul Hashem and making Chabad look bad”!
3. He says, “[There was] this sense that you couldn’t ask questions about any of it, that if you didn’t accept it, you weren’t accepting the Torah. It was as if you weren’t religious, and that this was the one path and the true path and that anything outside of it, even if it was a different kind of Hasidim, was certainly looked down upon.”
This seriously needs to be considered. OK, you may not be behaving this way, nor your friends, but are you going to seriously tell me that you’ve never met someone who feels that if you don’t agree 100% with the teaching of the Tanya and the Rebbe that you’re not fully on the Derech? You’ve never ever met someone that feels that every should become Lubavitch?
So you’ll tell me that it is the miyut. Perhaps, but it is a significant miyut and it is no better than a Litvak that holds that there is only one mitzva in the Torah (Limud HaTorah) and that anyone that doesn’t agree is off the derech and inferior. We all know that not all (and honestly not even most) hold that way, but it is a trief belief that needs to be uprooted. So too here. We need to abolish this ”holier that thou“ attitude that many are holding.
So what if he rejects Lubavitch?! Did he say that he hates us? Did he pull his kids out and say that Lubavitch is trief? He’s decided that it is not for him. Hashem started Klal Yisroel with 12 shevatim each with its own approach to D’vekus in Hashem. I think Hashem did that purposely to teach us from the get go that there is more than one ”right” approach.
Let’s stop defending ourselves and start looking into the maalos of other frum Jews. In doing so we’ll bring the Geulah faster.
john
it would appear that people dont have teachers to guide them through learning
The Real Story
The real story here is not about Matisyahu – it’s about Ephrahim Rosenstein. He hangs around Crown Heights giving “Therapy”. Imagine someone from our community who is in distress going to him and having to hear the types of things he says about the Rebbe and about Lubavitch. Imagine a Lubavitcher teenager going to him… How is it that parents and educators from CH did not know that the Lekuti Torah and Tanya in his office were just props!?! (Google his name along with Chabad, Rebbe, Lubavitch)
ckusg
why are yall so upset matisyahu doesnt call himself lubavitch?? he doesnt have to call himself what you want him too. many lubavs only learn what the rebbe said which is nice but, there are many other holy people out there that have ineresting things to learn from them too like rabbi nachman etc… just because now he has the long payis everone thinks he doesnt respect lubavitch. well get ur heads on straight! you can learn all different things and still respect the ones that you arent learning that moment! everyone whos upset he doesnt call himself lubavitch is probably because ur not a true lubav yourself. so go start working on it!
Shlomo
HELLO—He is a frum Yid on a journey. If he is shomer mitzvos do we care if he calls himself a litvak, chabad, breslov,or anything else. what happed to the mantra of a Jew is a Jew is a Jew. We should love him. Perhaps he is a spiritual infant as are many balai tshuvah, he is going through growing pains. Many teens reject the hands that feed them and then as they grow and mature they realize how good that had was. many balai tshuvah have this experience. Is there also so accountability to his mashpia (if he had(s) one. maybe chabad wasn;t the right path in the first place and he just bumbed into the wrong rabbi. Had he met Akiva Tat maybe he be a huge snag. Perhaps he is a victim of circumstance. I don’t know. BUt just be glad he is shomer mitzvos thats what the Aibister and the Rebbe really care about. Not a label.
Avumie
matisyahu is a pot smokin hippie. in five years nobody will know who he is and he will completely go off the path!
annoyed
Matisyahu obviously is still busy finding his path. There are many others like that in the world which is fine. I only find it unfair that he speaks negatively about Chabad after having made use of Chabad so many times. I think it is well known that he has stayed by different shluchim all over the world while on tour. Does a millionaire like him ever leave a donation after making use of shluchim’s services? My experience is that it doesn’t enter his mind to do that. And then he has the nerve to openly speak against Chabad!
FeivelC
-“When’s the last time you went to a Misnagid simcha where people were getting drunk besides for Purim?!”
… Every yeshivishe wedding Ive ever been too…
Not a PRIVATE Matter
You are missing the point.
This is not about a particular Yid’s journey to find his path. Let him figure out what he wants in life. That is his business.
But he is BROADCASTING HIS (MISTAKEN) NOTIONS TO THE WORLD! THAT IS IRRESPONSIBLE AND REPREHENSIBLE! HE IS TAKING IT UPON HIMSELF TO SPEW HIS MISCONCEPTIONS AND HALF-TRUTHS ABOUT CHABAD–AT WHOSE EXPENSE?
And it’s almost impossible for him to ever rectify this.
disenchanted
Putting down another person, especially a Jew is not what this website is for. Lets discuss more important matters. All of you who are disgraced by the claims that some Lubavitchers have alchohol problems- open your eyes. We encourage our children to go to schools which promote drinking. We send our husbands to get wasted at Farbrangens, and expect that nothing should come of it? Alchoholism is a widely spread disease in Lubavitch and should be addressed. I think it is time for people to start paying attention to their families problems before critisizing another person’s life style.
Roses
The community and other frum communities tend to be entranced with ba’alei teshuvah with dubious pasts (so far no problem) who continue what they have been doing, but now within a different framework. That,too, is often positive.
But we iconize those who can do what Matityahu can – rap, perform, show biz. We run after and often put on a pedestal the person whose background is different from most of us, and who can and does behave differently. When was the last time that a Lubavitcher or other frum Jews ran to hear a performer without rap or long hair? The exotic pulls us, and then, when trouble pops up, as it often does, we’re angry. At whom?
ever heard of the bal shem tov?!
omg!!
u guys are nuts!
isnt this exactly what chassidus is all about
finding whats best for you?!
WTVR!
It doesnt matter, chabad or not, many teenage boys start drinking at 16 anyway! So in that case, alcohol and chabad is not the issue. maybe is something to fix, but he will definately find alchohol abuse where ever he goes.
and besides, if he’s finding problems with chabad, he will be sure to find problems in other groups as well.
case closed!
WTVR!
It doesnt matter, chabad or not, many teenage boys start drinking at 16 anyway! So in that case, alcohol and chabad is not the issue. maybe is something to fix, but he will definately find alchohol abuse where ever he goes.
and besides, if he’s finding problems with chabad, he will be sure to find problems in other groups as well.
case closed!
Shmuli
My understanding is that instead of being brainwashed by Chabad, he was reprogrammed by Rosenstein.
Being a Lubavitcher, I would like to point out four things.
1. I do not deify the Rebbe’s. Those who deify the Rebbe’s do not understand Chassidus. The job of a Chassidic Rebbe is to bring G-d into this world, not to be G-d. This is the same whether it is a Chabad Rebbe or another Rebbe. (Although I will say that the Chabad Rebbe has greater ‘connections’).
2. I do ask questions and at times find answers. I do not find an answer to every question. If I cease to be Chabad, I still won’t find an answer to every question.
3. I do not look down at other Chassidim. To look down at other Chassidim is not the way of Chabad, although it may be a tendency of some Chabadniks who do not understand our philosophy.
4. Generally speaking, I only drink at farbreingens. As I am under 40 the limit is 4 small cups. As Mattisyahu is under 40 he has the same limit. So, who is getting drunk???
To end off, he obviously does not know the ways of Chabad and therefore never was Chabad.
To Crownheights.info:
On behalf of other Lubavitchers we would appreciate it if you only printed Chabad news. This is not Chabad news.
MATIS THE LUB JEW
MATISYAHU IS A LIBAVITCHER IN HIS HEART I BELIEVE.
HE JUST WANTS TO SEE THE REBBE!
chitas
Matisiyahu is going through a normal phase of development that is common to many BT’s. After leaving the BT childhood when the BT has to be coddled, the BT then needs to establish his own identity. This can take many different forms. It can be a healthy journey that leads to the BT levelling out and finding their equilibrium.
Chen
All entertainers have life issues; you just can’t let that get in the way…
Michael Jordan – gambling problems
Tome Cruise – Scientology??
Ike Turner – he is from the slapaho tribe
Richard Gere – something to do with a gerbil and aver min ha chai sh’lo kedarko
Uncle moishe- i know we will here something one day
I’m not sure i can make the move to Y-Love just yet!
Hypocritical Bunch of People
Don’t worry, Lubavitch will not write him off as long as he has money to give. Pot smoker, alcoholic or whatever, Matisyahu will be loved until he stops giving money.
Yes, Chabad has just as many issues as any other human organization. We need to stop acting like we are better than anyone in this world and just live to bring Moshiach!
Zahava
To “On second thought”
I couldn’t have expressed it better.I agree with you 100%.
amg
i think in lubavitch we have to put our foot down.
1. not every BT that knows how to play a couple of songs on a guitar needs to put out a CD.
2. you cant be a lubavitch figure (spokesperson) until you’ve been in the system for a good amount of years.
3. we dont need to justify anyone who has spoken bad about us.
UH, YEA???
GUYS!!!!!!!! DONT GET SO WORKED UP! YES, MAYBE YOU WANT HIM TO BE LUBAVITCH B/C HE’S BIG OUT THERE, BUT YOU KNOW WHAT??? NOT EERY JEW HAS A LUBAVITCHER NESHAMA! ITS WHAT KIND OF NESHAMA YOU HAVE!
IF THE PERSONS MEANT TO BE LUBAVITCH, SO BE IT! IF NOT, WE STILL LOVE THEM! THEIR JEWISH! ANYWAYS, ITDOESNT MATTER, HE’S A GOOD GUY! LOOK AT THE GOOD IN HIM!
On second thought
amg – You bring out some good points.
The truth is that we (and I mean any Jew) need to make gevulot. The problem with many youth today (even frum kids) is that the lines are not clearly defined any more. It’s a free for all.
There is so much internal strife and it all is due to not having clear guide lines. Everybody says what they feel like and few actually research the issues to see if their view is valid. We have the source (The Torah), but we don’t resource it enough.
We also have to be man enough to except criticism. Too many of you are over sensitive. You so strongly desire to be right that you’re afraid of criticism and lash out at the very slightest remarks.
If I would ask you “Is your opponent perfect?” you would most defiantly say “NO!”. So if he can have flaws and make mistakes why can’t we? Perhaps in some ways they are right. The RAMBAM says to take the middle road. Maybe we are just slightly too much to the right and need to adjust left a little. At the very least we should consider their criticism, even if in the end we feel they are mistaken. That at least is better than becoming hotheads and lashing out.
I will leave for your imagination what we look like in their mind’s eye when we lash out against them.
Ironic
The real irony here is that 90% of the comments here give exactly the reason why he left. The pettiness,defensiveness, insecurity, the judgemental attitude, the elitism displayed by the readers of this website is exactly what bothered him, as it bothers so many more less public figures. Is this the ahavas yiroel chabad touts?
Till someone joins we accept him unconditionally, and yet, once he is “in”, we have a zero tolerance policy. How hypocritical. no wonder we are defsive and insecure. Live and let live.
I think the commenters here did a better job than matisyahu himself on what is wrong with chabad.
shmuel
Matisyahu, the only thing we feel for you is love and concern. Yehi Ratzon that this bird find it’s nest.
Happy Chanukah
shmuel leibenstein
so much strong opinion in the comments.
love the music matisyahu!