Shabbis Wit Matis

Matisyahu doing Havdalah. Photo compliments of Levi - as always ;)

Well that was fun :).

Thursday afternoon, Levi and I drove to the airport to pick up Matisyahu. He was spending Shabbos at the Tenenbaums, because the Rebbetzins cooking is spoken of in awed and hushed whispers by the entire music industry (and most of the film industry too :)).

What you dont believe me??? Well, he did also need to stay somewhere close to the Irvine Ampitheater so that he could make it to his concert on Motzaei Shabbos on time, thats true. Ok, fine. So he had more than one reason for coming ;).

So we chilled with him all the way from LAX to Levis house. Hes a nice guy, a little quiet, but nice. Hes got his Jewish values straight, ill give him that. All those people worried about Matis frying out can take a deep breath and relax. In his own words:

"I became frum to escape all that. In the life I lived, sex, drugs, all that stuff, none of it was considered bad. I'm not tempted by that stuff, because I saw it all. I dont ever want to go back."

Go Matis :)

On Shabbos he pretty much kept to himself. He did come down to our teen minyan though to daaven Musaf. Those kids had to pick their jaws up off the floor when he walked through the door ;). Levi wished he had a camera to capture some of their expressions - he says it would have almost been worth breaking Shabbos ;). (Note for the humor impaired - hes kidding)

Afterwards, the kids had a Q&A session with him. Then it was up for the traditional COI (Chabad of Irvine) kiddush. The rest of the day passed uneventfully, and straight after Maariv and Havdalah, a car was waiting to take Matisyahu to the "KROQ Weenie Roast," where he performed to the cheers of hundreds (I'm assuming, I wasnt there :)).

So to wrap it up - it was fun, he was cool, and I cant wait to make it to his next concert...after Sefirah ;)

Excelsior!