Matisyahu was once a Chabad-Lubavitch ba'al teshuva known worldwide as a hasidic reggae singer. Today, Matisyahu is no longer completely frum, as he explains in this new interview.
Above: Matisyahu as a Chabad-Lubavitch ba'al teshuva, left; Matisyahu Purim 2015 City Winery, NYC, right
Ha'aretz has new profile of Mitisyahu, the formerly-frum reggae/ska/hip hop singer. Here's a brief excerpt:
…Today — though he no longer observes all religious customs — Matisyahu prays nearly every morning he is in L.A. On Shabbat, it’s with a Hasidic minyan. During the week it’s in a regular Orthodox synagogue.
“I put on my tefillin [phylacteries] but I don’t feel bound by any of the rules. So during my Shemoneh Esrei [the Amidah, lit. "standing prayer"] I don’t stand, I’ll walk around. I don’t use a siddur [prayer book]. I just want to be in a shul with other Jews, and it’s a holy place. It’s this incredible thing, this crazy idea that in the middle of L.A. the idea that there’s this room where all these Jews come and talk to this invisible being, you know, God. And everyone has their own idea of what God is and their own relationship to it. It’s such a trip to me, that shuls exist, that Jews exist.”…
Read it all here.