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" Change is an internal thing. Different things happen or transform, and music and art is a documentation of that. "
Matisyahu
Music
Things Happen
Art
Related Quotes:
" 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. "
Matisyahu
Moment
Remember
Walking
" Every record I do is a learning process for how I want to do the next one. "
Matisyahu
Process
Want
Next
" When I first started reading about the kabbalists, I would hear about them being seen in strange places. It would turn out that they were doing some kind of spiritual work to elevate the sparks. In my life and career, I've had the opportunity to find myself where I could make some spiritual moves, to do some work that is spiritually important. "
Matisyahu
Life
Myself
Reading
" 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. "
Matisyahu
Powerful
Going
Hear
" The idea that God's mercy is connected to whether or not I shave is ludicrous, and I need to just trust myself, and that, you know, if I'm deserving of God's mercy, I'll get it, regardless of, you know, my beard. "
Matisyahu
God
Know
Beard
" In 2004, when I started recording my first CD, I was coming right out of yeshiva. So I had spent two years completely immersed in the Hasidic culture, disconnected completely from the secular world - movies, music, people. "
Matisyahu
People
Movies
Culture
" When people feel a certain religion claims to have all the answers, that's what turns them off. "
Matisyahu
Religion
Answers
Feel
" Music is my first love and the thing that I feel extremely connected to. I feel like I still have a long way to go within that in terms of being able to perform and write songs. But, yeah, I really hope 'The Possession' opens doors for me to do more acting, because I really enjoyed it. "
Matisyahu
Acting
Hope
Music
" I feel there's a lot of anti-Israel sentiment in the world and a lot of ignorance about what Israel is and does. But it's not for me to speak on Israel's behalf. "
Matisyahu
Feel
Ignorance
World
" I do what I love, thank God. I get to make music and get inspiration through Judaism. I can see why people might be surprised, because it's not been done before. It's certainly not typical. People are always trying to wrap head their around it. But it's probably simpler than everyone thinks. "
Matisyahu
Music
God
Love
" I think that listening to music or creating music is a spiritual undertaking, so the process of creating music, you know, involves listening. It involves sensitivity, it involves humility, you know, and then also it's something which is higher than words. "
Matisyahu
Humility
Music
Spiritual
" I think when you're a fan of music - at least the way I've been a fan to artists that have really touched me - you're with them for the long haul. They might do things that you don't understand or agree with, but I think I've always tried to hold my judgment and give them the space to do what they need to do. "
Matisyahu
Me
Space
Long
" Judaism is my life. Everything I do is through the lens of Torah. "
Matisyahu
Life
Lens
Everything
" Whenever I approach a record, I don't really have a science to it. I approach every record differently. First record was in a home studio. Second record was a live record. Third record was made while I was on tour. Fourth record was made over the course of, like, two years in David Kahn's basement. "
Matisyahu
Science
Two
Live
" I felt a real strong connection and still do with Hanukkah. So it started out by doing concerts on Hanukkah, the Festival of Lights tour, and then, yeah, let's make some Hanukkah songs. Let me make a Hanukkah song that kids can listen to, party to and get the spirituality of it, because it is not just about dreidels and having fun. "
Matisyahu
Strong
Having Fun
Doing
" 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. "
Matisyahu
Music
Place
Speak
" I was into acting as a kid. There was a time when I was 18 that I played the boy in a production of 'Equus' in Oregon, and I thought that was going to be my life. "
Matisyahu
Thought
My Life
Life
" I think my music has always been a mixture, depending on whom I'm working with - what band, what musicians, what producer. "
Matisyahu
Always
Band
Think
" There was a time when I was fighting with the decision as to whether or not a Hasidic man could go out and have a music career in the world and be involved in pop culture. For me, I was able to bring those two things together for quite some time. "
Matisyahu
Together
Culture
Man
" When I started wearing a yarmulke, I wanted to stand out or take the form of whatever was inspiring me. But now I think there's something to not working it, to keeping it on the inside, and it just being kind of like a secret. "
Matisyahu
Now
Me
Kind
" When I'm meditating on an idea, I try to let the idea completely saturate me to the point where I feel like I'm covering myself in it or totally immersing myself in it, so that everywhere I'm looking, everywhere I'm going, it's through the lens of that idea. And that's sort of what I do with the music - I try to lose myself in it. "
Matisyahu
Me
Looking
Music
" Vocal rest is awesome. It is like any kind of fast. Firstly, it is a purification of speech. It made me realize how not careful I am with the things I say. It also makes you find new ways of communication and new methods to connect with people. "
Matisyahu
I Am
Rest
Communication
" I always had a love of music, from the time I was a little kid, dressing up and singing along with Michael Jackson songs. "
Matisyahu
Kid
Singing
Time
" The No. 1 best-selling Christmas album of all time is from Kenneth Bruce Gorelick, the Jewish smooth-jazz legend Kenny G. American Jews have always produced a lot of holiday music, just not Hanukkah music. "
Matisyahu
Holiday
American
Time
" I still believe there is a lot of truth in Orthodox Judaism, but not the whole truth. Each person has his truth that he has to discover. You don't necessarily have to mold yourself to another idea of who you are. "
Matisyahu
Person
You
Yourself
" 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. "
Matisyahu
Tree
Light
World
" We're so quick to go to make things black and white, and to put things in their box. But everything is this mixture - and that's what this world is - is this blend of different things. "
Matisyahu
White
Black And White
Black
" 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. "
Matisyahu
Everything
College
Acting
" When I first started, everything happened at once. I became religious, my musical career took off, I got married, I had kids, and all that happened within the course of a year. I had an excitement about this newly found faith, and so I was writing about that in a very evident kind of way. "
Matisyahu
Way
Faith
Career
" I don't partake, really, of any of the typical rock-star-lifestyle things you could think of. I try to be responsible when I'm out on the road. I take it pretty seriously, what I'm doing, as something that's good for the world, and my family, and everyone. "
Matisyahu
World
Think
Road