Freelance writer, yogi, author of Cool Jew – Lisa Klug does not stop, except at Jewlicious Festival. We got in touch with the fiesty heebster who says, “Seriously, Jewlicious embodies the message of my book, Cool Jew: The Ultimate Guide for Every Member of the Tribe, which celebrates Jewish identity, culture and kitsch.”

We got in touch with Lisa about her new book. (And here is Lisa now looking adorable as she signs copies for fans.)

Where did the idea come from to create a book called “Cool Jew” in the format you created it in?

I wrote a feature article for the San Francisco Chronicle in December 2005 about how cool it is to be a Jew in San Francisco. Around that same time, I wrote another piece for Chanukah called “Gift the Gift of Kitsch” for the Forward. The two pieces shared a love of Jewish culture, pride in being Jewish, lots of schmaltz and what you could call a reverent irreverence based on a love of Jewish life. That’s when I came up with the idea of a Heebster Handbook, my book’s Hebrew name.

Cool Jew is edu-tainment. It bring readers a lot of laughs. It also offers a sense of pride and enjoyment in being Jewish and helps promote Jewish literacy… If Cool Jew leads readers to go out and explore their Jewish involvement in new ways, then this book will be a great success.

But anyway, about the festival…You get to taste Jewish culture, creativity, community, challah and more. And you come away with the validation that it is SO awesome to be Jew. (And it is, so nu, why haven’t you bought a ticket yet?!)

“Rest up because you’re not going to waste any time sleeping!”

Check out more on Lisa at www.CoolJewBook.com.

This year’s our list of writers and media folks includes:

Benjamin Cohen Author of My Jesus Year
Brad Greenberg Journalist, Jewish Journal LA
David Abitbol Jewlicious.com
Joel Moss Levinson Rising comedy filmmaker, contest winner
Joe Nussbaum Filmmaker
Ken Liberman Professor, Author of Yoga for Surfers
Lisa Klug Author, Cool Jew

Last year’s Jewlicious Festival was packed with online bloggers, magazine editors, filmmakers and authors! Not to mention amazing panel discussions talking about their work and thoughts on Jewish media. So who was there?

Jewish Book Award Winner and editor of the Modern Jewish Girl’s Guide to Guilt, Ruth Andrew Ellenson

New Voices Magazine Editor and Publisher, Josh Nathan-Kazis and Elizabeth Eve Alpern.

Publisher of Heeb Magazine, Joshua Neuman.

Blogger Extroadinaire, i.e. My Urban Kvetch, Esther Kustanowitz.

Author of The End of the Jews, Adam Mansbach.

Freelance journalist and Author of Cool Jew, Lisa Alcalay Klug

Founder of Jewlicious.com, David Abitbol

And the list doesn’t stop really. It was buzzing! Are you in the media or want to spend a weekend and all-night concert in the company of media types?! Then come out to Jewlicious Fest 5.0 and mingle with some interesting folk. Maybe even cover some of the festival while you’re there

Jewdyssee, a German music project integrating traditional Yiddish music (aka Yiddishe Mama) into club beats, is will be taking the stage at Jewlicious Festival. Before their departure to the US I had a chance to interview them about their music.

Here is what they had to say about why they rock.

Your music fills a niche not only in Germany, but internationally, as this genre of traditional Yiddish music with club is pretty innovative. How do you hope your audience will react from listening to your music?

We want the people to leave our performance completely sweating, emotionally uplifted, excited and exhilarated after dancing all night long! If, as well as loving the music, having been exposed to something they have never heard before and it has raised their curiosity as to what the songs were about, then this would be a great sense of accomplishment.

“Jewdyssee is not about making a political or religious statement,” says Maya and Eina of the group. “We just want to show that our culture not only has a tragic history, but that there is a great wealth of music and culture to be celebrated and that this culture is a current part of our lives that we want to express and share.

We just want people to see that our Jewish culture is alive and strong. By giving the youth a voice, by bringing this music to new people, it is going to keep it alive.

Jewdysee will be playing the late slot at Jewlicious Festival’s Main Concert Stage, Saturday night, February 28th, 2009. For tickets and information visit JewliciousFestivals.com

Read the full interview on The Jew Spot here. While you’re at it, check out the music at www.Jewdyssee.com.

Meet Ken Liberman – Professor, Surfer, Yogi, Scholar of Tibetan Buddhism. What is a guy like that going to do at this year’s Jewlicious Festival (beside maybe a bit of crowd surfing)?

To find out, Jewlicious got in touch with Ken to ask about his interests and new book called “Yoga for Surfers,” and how that all ties into Reggae performances and Jews.

Thanks Ken for taking the time to answer some questions for us while surfing in Baja! (We’re not jealous at all). We want to know what brings you to the festival this year?

As a university professor, I enjoy bringing what insights I can to young people. Having grown up in Los Angeles (I graduated BHHS in 1966), I really identify with the young Jewish students that I have met who hang around my former student Yonah. In fact, I can say that I have always wanted to teach more Jewish students than I had the opportunity to teach at the University of Oregon. I love the dialectics that unfolds when I encounter curious students who are intellectually prepared.

Growing up as a Jewish adolescent in L.A. in the early ’60s, I had the mistaken idea that surfing was only for Protestants. I don’t know what gave me that idea, but it was totally wrong, but I did not discover that until I went to graduate school at UCSD in 1970.

Surfing is less of a spiritual resource than being in the wilderness, but it also has its strengths. I have taken on a lifelong task of introducing Jews to experiencing the wilderness. I have taken out more than a thousand people on long backpacking trips, many to the desert wilderness of San Diego and northern Baja, and I hope to offer some trips in future years to the Hillel at CSU Long Beach. The experience of the European ghetto still lingers in southern California Jewish life in the form of a degree of alienation to the natural world. As an urban Los Angeles Jew, I can tell you for sure that the full spiritual resources of the wild earth can be a resource even for a Jew.

It is interesting how you have integrated yoga to make your passion of surfing a more fulfilling experience. What is it that yoga can add to all our lives? And will you guide us a bit at this year’s Jewlicious Festival?

Of course, I would be happy to lead a session of yoga asana practice at Jewlicious, but more important is to convey how very broad yoga is. It has a vital ethical component, and it consists of a daily pursuit of a contentment that we bear within ourselves, that is already there, and which does not require that to run out to the malls to find.

There is the importance of understanding the immune system, the role that hormones play in our physical and mental health, the importance of stress-reduction, correct diet, and especially correct breathing. And then there are the more mundane benefits of better health, attractiveness, longevity, and the possibility of surfing like a fiend even in your seventies.

It is said that medicine is for sick people, and yoga is for healthy people. You choose to stay healthy in order not to become sick, and naturally this is mental as well as physical. The think about “asana” and “hatha yoga” is that people who are unable to calm the mind in the midst of modern stresses and 250 channels can use their body to calm the mind – and along with it the heart and the endocrine system.

I was really struck by the line in your book “We surf because we want our nerves to sing!” Can you tell us briefly how you discovered surfing and what it is about it that makes your body sing?

The line you cite, “We surf because we want our nerves to sing!” captures the source of the joy of surfing. It is mostly about nerves. Consider … why do kids spend so many hours trying to skate their skateboards on iron handrails? Because they are linking up their body’s nervous system with their brain and will. When the body falls into synch, as it were, it becomes the dance we humans were made for. The activity (surfing, skateboarding, basketball, polo-stick bouncing) is less important that the feeling of nervous integration. Well, that is what yoga is aimed at – it is much more about nerves than ligaments.

Aside from surfing, you also have a lot of knowledge on Buddhism and speak on Buddhist yoga traditions. Why do Jews tend to be so attracted to Buddhist practice and what does it offer? And are these components that cannot be found in Judaism?

There is surely no shortage of Jews in either Buddhism or yoga.

What does Buddhism offer to Judaism? I think every ethical teaching I came to appreciate in Buddhism I found only afterwards was in Judaism all along, only I was never able to get past the words to the operative meaning.

Learning spiritual practices in a fresh perspective causes you to look more carefully, but once you gain the lessons you will find them in spades in the Talmud, the Hagaddahs, and other Jewish sources. That is why I think my Buddhism has not at all undermined the quality of my Jewish practice.

Thank you, Ken. We definitely look forward to meeting you at this year’s Festival. Between you and the musicians and presenters, I’m sure nobody will leave with calm nerves.

Since we last spotted Matisyahu at Jewlicious Festival 4.0, humble, laid-back, etc., Matisyahu has become a sort of fashion icon. He was featured as the Kenneth Cole model on full-page spread advertisements in magazines and newspapers. Not to mention an actual commercial you can see on YouTube (if you haven’t already).

Matisyahu has been touring the country since mid-October, and was the Special Guest at a Jewlicious co-sponsored Shabbos Dinner in Vegas.

Pretty cool, huh? So now the question is, where will we spot Matisyahu next? And will he be wearing Kenneth Cole this time? Hmm… Stay tuned to see if Matisyahu will make a guest appearance this year too at Jewlicious Festival 5.0.

It’s true. Hip Hop Performer Y-Love, part of last year’s Jewlicious Festival, has collaborated with Erran Baron Cohen (Sasha Cohen’s) brother to produce a classic Hanukkah album that takes ancient holiday music and brings it to the 21st century incorporating Klezmer, hip hop, reggae and other genres. The album is sung in English, Hebrew, Yidding (where Y-Love comes in) and Ladino.

Don’t believe me? Read more about Erran’s album (who is also the musical composer for the Ali G show and Borat) here.

More than two-dozen programs have been submitted – deadline is Nov. 30th to be a presenter!

Want to be an integral part of Jewlicious Festival 5.0 this year?

Do you want YOUR program to be on the schedule!? Do you have a movie that you want others to view? Do you have a special talent that other people would enjoy learning?

No matter what you have to share with us, we’d love to hear from you.

Our student committee will be picking the best program proposals and putting them into this year’s festival. Incorporating student content and programming is something we are very excited about and we look forward to hearing your ideas!

DJ Eric Rosen

“My musical journey is an interesting story,” starts off Eric Rosen on our interview. “I gotta take it back to my parents folk dancing in the 70s.”

Cross-posted from My Jew Spot. Eric is performing for the third year in a row in at JF5 in 2009. He is also the Director of Marketing for JF.

These Israeli, Eastern European dances, Eric describes, took place in rooms with hard-wooden floors where people would dance in circles, within circles, within circles, all counter rotating and stomping their feet.

“You have all this rhythm going on that’s in tune with the music and becomes part of the music,” Eric says. “Some of my earliest memories were on my dad’s shoulders at these huge dance parties. So that was sort of my introduction to music.”

Today Eric is known as DJ Eric Rosen and The 12 Tribes, a name which came about when Eric incorporated live drum playing with his sets. You can see him perform at some of the most popular venues out on the West Coast including Orange County’s house club Focus, JConnectLA, not to mention Jewlicious Fest, which as business and marketing director for the festival, he contributed a large part to their sold-out success.

So how did Eric go from being on his father’s shoulders at Israeli dance parties to hottest DJ on the West Coast? Keep reading.

What was your introduction to DJ’ing?

I had one friend in High school whose older brother was a DJ. He was always playing these mixed tapes that were copies of copies of copies of mixed tapes DJs made in San Francisco. It’s as underground as it gets. Six generations of mixed tapes on an actual tape.

We kept playing this one mixed tape over and over again. And I hated house music. I was a metal head. I was like what is this garbage? This is horrible. There is no soul to this music. But something during that trip, all of a sudden, I was listening to this music in a way I haven’t heard it before. All the resistance to this music not sounding good was gone. And I was really feeling this. This was really weird. House music is really cool.

So fast forward, me and my friend both get jobs at record stores. The rave scene was blowing up at that point. So we started collecting records, we got turntables, we’re working in record stores, and we found ourselves in this epicenter of this massive subculture which was electronic dance music.

I wound up becoming a record buyer for the store that I was working at which allowed me to really get to know the music and get really well versed in what was cutting edge music wise.

Most DJs get stuck in a genre or a time and place and mode, but from the very beginning because of the way I was introduced to the house music, and because of my music background [yes, Eric plays guitar, piano and drums too] it was always about keeping it fresh. It was always about bringing as many live elements into the music.

Do you go on stage with a set playlist or do you go along with the crowd’s energy and change it up based on what you feel the crowd needs?

You have a framework for what you want to do, for what you know is going to work, for where you want to take things, but then you can improvise. You can add on as you go. And that has to do with the environment.

I’m always cognitive of what the room feels like and what’s going on with everyone there.

Let’s talk about the relationship between your Jewish identity and your music. If your music influences your spiritual growth in any way, or if your Judaism influences your music?

The answer is unqualifiedly yes. It all comes down to the unity. Music tells the story of the unique experience.

The CDs I have online on waxdj I’ve put together over the past eleven years of my life and I always tell people these mixes are the soundtrack of my life. The music I put together really reflects what I was going through at that time.

When the Jewish journey really started, my relationship with the music got so much deeper. It got so much deeper. It was like the floor just opened up and the sky opened up. Everything got really serious. Music is really spiritual. It’s a universal language that everyone can understand.

When I started investigating my sense of self as a Jew and my responsibilities as a Jew, and what it meant to have a soul, everything that came along with being an active member of the Jewish people, the music continued to reflect that. And so because of that, the relationship deepened with the music in a way that it’s almost hard to put into words.

I’m really interested in your personal journey of becoming more observant, if you would like to talk about that.

During my adolescents, I never had a framework for spiritual interpretation of my experiences. So I had all this energy and no place to put it.

When I got into college, I got into Buddhism. I was really into learning about that. I was chanting a lot. I was like this is really interesting. This stuff works. This was my first spiritual practice. That got me going in the direction of taking a lot of experiential growth and transformational growth seminars.

I started taking classes in Chabad in 2003. I started reading this book by Joseph Telushkin “Jewish Literacy.” It’s sort of the definitive guide to everything having to do with Judaism from the starting of time. It sparked something in me.

My friend I was learning with grew up religious. We started having these Shabbat dinners. There was a swell in both of us that started rising. We had this friendship that was turning into a spiritual journey together. After that, we ended up going to Israel together on an Aish HaTorah trip. That was really when it started. Everything before then was sort of the prologue of what was about to happen.

I find myself in Jerusalem. And I find myself in Yeshiva in Aish. And I had known I would be there for two months, but I didn’t know exactly what I would do after the trip ended in three weeks. I figured I’d travel. I’d learn. But the first class I was in, it hit me like a ton of bricks, like a freight train. I was like this is what I’m doing for the rest of my summer.

I was just overwhelmed with this feeling of you have been so blessed, that you don’t even know it and you have to embrace and engage every feeling that awaits you here. And so, at that point, the light came on, the engine turned over, I don’t know what happened but the lion was released. It was like surfing on a spiritual tidal wave for the rest of the trip.

Where are you now in your observance?

I keep Shabbat to the best of my ability. I keep Kosher to the best of my ability. I LOVE learning Torah. Tefillin is definitely an active part of my life. I don’t daven three times a day but I’m talking to G-d from the moment I wake up to the moment I go to sleep.

Has your level of observance been parallel with the music you choose to play on any conscious level?

House is sexy music, but it’s not so primal. Mixed dancing, I don’t have a problem with.

I would say the biggest thing in terms of observance and spirituality with regards to music has been the kind of music that I play. I gave up heavy metal basically for the following reasons: The energy of house music is much more positive, more uplifting and much more about love and connection and soul and about the things that everyone is really after in this life. Metal is just so negative, negative energy, just angry, pissed-off, upset, immature.

There is definitely darker, angrier dance music. I have become more sensitive to the type of music that I play. Instead of just playing a track and saying this sounds good, if a track sounds really, really nice, what is the spiritual instance of it? What is the spiritual message?

A lot of people, I’ve gotten feedback and more and more in the second half of my DJ career, say that you just have a gift for music. I know I am able to take a room full of people who are there to dance and are there because they want to hear house music, and able to bring light out of the room. It’s definitely a parallel relationship with the spiritual journey with Judaism.

As a musician and as a performer, when you’re resonating on a certain spiritual level, you can take people there.

Do you see yourself DJ’ing down the road?

It’s just too much fun to stop doing. It’s not my occupation, it’s my passion. I’m the one in the driver’s seat with where this goes and how long I keep doing it and I don’t have to answer to anyone, except maybe the future Mrs. Rosen.

Music is always going to be a part of my life. Music is life. That’s the reason we sing Torah. Why do we sing Torah on shabbos? Because G-d sang the world into existence so everything is a song. It’s all music.

Doesn’t Eric say the most beautiful things?? Can’t make it out to Cali to check out DJ Eric live? Check him out on Waxdj and then friend request him on Myspace.

And if you really wanna hear Eric’s thoughts on Torah, check him out on the Aish 15 minute trailer BluePrint.

Rabbi Yonah, Festival Directo

What is Jewlicious Fest? It is a three day, non-stop event with musicians, films, food, and the best part, Jews! In its fourth year, this festival just keeps on pushing the pride. Matisyahu will attend as a presenter, hanging out with wife Tahlia Miller who will showcase her new film, “Can’t Touch This.” Performers Y-Love, Chana Rothman, beatboxing Yuri Lane, Moshav and The Jew Spot’s very own, Kosha Dillz, will rock the stage. The list doesn’t stop really. Not to mention, GQ Rabbi Niles Goldstein will be there!

But the coolest one there is the guy who started it all – Rabbi Yonah. With a passion to unite Jews across all denominations, beliefs and class, Yonah and his wife Rachel began their big Mitzvah in Poland where they launched the International Warsaw Book Festival now in its 10^th year! Yonah says it was a great medium to foster Jewish identity, build community, and provide a focal point for Jewish inspiration.

So why stop there? After moving to LA, Rabbi Yonah and Rachel have created that same community, only this time for us young, American Jews who are without a doubt in need of an opened, united and exciting Jewish community.

I was lucky enough to grab a few minutes with Rabbi Yonah to get the real deal on what’s going on over in Sunny Long Beach California. Here’s what he has to say…

What is the idea behind Jewlicious Fest?

The festival is a celebration of Jewnity. We bring people in from every part of the Jewish world.

There’s no weekend quite like it anywhere. We don’t have a political or religious agenda. We have a much broader mandate. A much, much broader umbrella of people who come in.

This year, we are expecting more than 700 people to attend. An expected 10 states will be represented, 50 colleges and Universities represented last year, and appearances from international guests.

Why do so many people come out for this festival??

People come to have a good time. To be with friends. To make friends. People come to learn. To be entertained.

We have had people come and meet their soulmates. We have had one wedding this year and one engagement this year from people that came last year. It’s not the only thing people should come for, but it is a positive. You could meet your soulmate here.

One of the highlights from the previous years was when Matisyahu came to the second festival with his family. People talked about it forever. Hanging out with him, hearing him talk — it gave people the opportunity to have a personal interaction. This year, we’re very grateful he is coming back to offer his thoughts and participation.

What have been the reactions??

‘What an inspiring, fantastic and fun weekend!’

I think most people are surprised how comfortable the atmosphere is. And how much there is to do. And everyone is surprised by the amount and quality of the food.

The performers also believe in what we’re doing and they become part of the entire movement that we have here. Many of the performers call us asking to perform at Jewlicious.

What should people do once they read this and realize this is how they want to spend Shabbos on February 29?

Go to Jewliciousfestival.com, click on tickets, and hope there are tickets left!

For lodging, people have the option to camp out at the JCC for free. Or there are hotels nearby.

[And no worries mom and dad, there will be security present.]

Thanks Rabbi Yonah, Rachel, GoodGirlsPR, Eric Rosen for inspiring me to fly out, and the hundreds of volunteers making this event possible. It is truly an event of the imagination coming true. Can’t wait to get out there!

Matisyahu in 2008

One of the highlights of Jewlicious Festival 4.0 — Matisyahu put down his notes, and decided to sing. His passionate performance is on YouTube, and was among the most inspiring hours in Jewish Music in this Millenium. This article originally appeared in The JewSpot.org [-Ed.]

As a roomful of people crowded into a room Sunday afternoon at Jewlicious to hear Matisyahu speak on spirituality, they were pleasantly surprised as Adam Weinberg tuned his guitar for Matisyahu to start off an acoustic surprise. And just when we thought we were so lucky to be graced with a private one-song session with Matisyahu, he humbly says, ‘So I’m supposed to talk about spirituality, but I’m not so good at that…so I’m gonna sing a couple more songs.’ The crowd exploded as Matisyahu continued to perform intertwining his personal story between his music.

When it came time to perform King Without a Crown, the song that made the world listen, Matisyahu shared that while learning in a Yeshiva during his own search for G-d, he found himself in a studio where this song poured out of him in only 5 or 10 minutes. And we still felt the emotion behind the lyrics as his voice penetrated through his soul and his beatboxing woke the rest of ours up. What’s this feeling?/My love will rip a hole in the ceiling/Givin’ myself to you from the essence of my being/Sing to my G-d all these songs of love and healing/Want Mashiach now so it’s time we start revealing.

‘When there’s music, life feels like music,’ Matisyahu said to the audience, opening up the crowd to a Q&A.

What inspired you to become religious and what was the process?

First and foremost, my yearning to learn about G-d; my desire to be connected with G-d.

When I first became religious, I had a mentor – a Chabad rabbi – who I was very close with. I started learning Chabad chasidism. I felt that was very relevant at that time.

Connecting myself to Chabad was a method of pushing myself over the edge. And then once I did that, I felt there was a certain time to return to myself – a return to myself in terms of not being bound in one way, one path, but opened to all paths.

How do you stay pure in the industry?

The answer is I’m still trying to figure that out. It’s hard to stay focused on G-d and stay in that place of yearning.

People in general hear the word prayer and think it’s a scary word.

Well prayer is basically boring. So I just try to make it exciting as much as possible.

When I first starting praying in the Hasidic way, the concept of prayer was you should try to intellectually grasp as much as you can. And then express yourself toward G-d. Trying to understand and grasp and having feeling towards G-d.

Then there are times for just screaming at G-d. And that’s kind of what I like to do every morning. I found a minyan at 8:45 am which is not too early where the people there scream at G-d and that’s a lot of fun.

If I try to pray and I pray quietly, I just get pissed off that G-d is so silent. And so I just try to yell at G-d. Sometimes in a nice way.

I was davening [praying] where the people were saying the Shema. When you say the Shema, it’s like you are giving your life to G-d. People in concentration camps have said Shema Israel before they died and that was their last moment.

Jews have not killed others in the name of G-d but have themselves died in the name of G-d and that is a very deep thing – to die because you’re Jewish.

So the one thing that I have found when people say, ‘Shema Israel’ [singing it without any passion] it makes me really pissed off. These guys [at the minyan] shout ‘Shema’ like there’s a fire squad in the room and they’re shouting their last breath like they’re about to die. That’s the way I like to start off my mornings.

Now that you’re touring, do you recommend being Shomer Shabbos?

‘Shomer Shabbos.’ What movie is that from? Matisyahu asked.

‘The Big Lebowski’ the audience shouted. ‘I don’t roll on Shabbos,’ one kid screamed.

‘Nice,’ Matisyahu continued.

To me, being Shomer Shabbos came before anything. It wasn’t that I was a struggling musician and then faced with a challenge to keep Shabbos. At that point, I was already set in my mind. It was no option for me. I was Jewish and I had to keep Shabbos. For me that was primary.

If the music was going to happen, it was going to happen because G-d was going to let it happen. No matter how much I struggle and try, of course it was going to happen because G-d was letting it happen.

Why is there an interest in your music in the non-Jewish community?

I think it’s not just Jewish people who have a desire to connect to G-d.

Author of Cool Jew Lisa Klug asked, beside Chabad, where else do you find your inspiration both spiritually and with your music?

My main inspiration lately is not trying to fill the gap of the hole in my heart, but just letting it be.

Don’t run from it. Use your art to fulfill it, whatever your form of art is. Whether it’s painting or whether it’s the work that you do. Whether its creating shabbatons or if you’re a business man, don’t run from that place. Just accept it.

What do you think of the law of not being allowed to hear women sing, Ko Isha?

This is a law I don’t understand, but I try to keep it to a certain degree. For me, every time I have heard a woman sing, I never found it to be sexual. When you maybe see a women dancing in spandex on MTV while singing, that’s a different story.

Personally, I still listen to female singers but I somehow feel that the Torah is true. That’s one of the places where I don’t have all the answers.

You’ve said that you wanted to break through – and then you went to Crown Heights, put on a black coat, grew the beard and suddenly said to yourself, that’s a good gimmick. There are rappers about the blacks, about the Hispanics, why not the religious Jew? Is that what you were thinking?

It’s possible that’s what was going on in my subconscious. I wasn’t aware of that.

Rapper Kosha Dillz asked, what are your thoughts while you’re on stage singing?

I just think about the words. Sometimes it’s really good to look out and see who is there and be part of it all. Sometimes it just about the prayer and focusing on the words that I sing. Sometimes I’m afraid if I open my eyes I’ll get distracted from what I’m trying to say.

The truth is it doesn’t make much sense (to close my eyes to not get distracted) because this is G-d [as he puts out his hands out to the audience in front of him].

Do the songs ever get jaded or feel out of the element?

There have been times I’ve been stuck. Correspond with what’s going on in my life. If I’m not giving much, if I’m not living my life in which I’m feeling much, then the songs don’t feel like much.

Where do you see yourself five years from now??

I want to be… [Jokingly]

I want to be still in love with my wife. And you know, maybe have another couple of kids. And still be doing the same thing.

How awesome is it that you get paid and make a living doing your passion, right?

It’s fucken awesome.

Advice on dating?

Um, my advice on dating is find someone that you like. If you don’t really like the person, don’t marry them. If you like them – like all their stuff – even the stuff other people don’t like about them, then you’re meant for each other.

What is your belief of the Mashiach?

The idea of Mashiach, and it says this in the Torah, is that every person has a spark of Mashiach in them and that’s the place in a person where there is no cynicism, skepticism or doubt, or darkness. If a person works their whole life trying to get to that place of acceptance and love in their heart, then they are doing their part in bringing the Mashiach.

Is there an overlap with being Jewish and being a musician?

Being Jewish and being able to express myself through music, there is definitely a connection.

Matisyahu concluded the Q&A with one last song, only to stop short because he had to pee. Gotta love him.

Check out his performance from Jewlicious on YouTube and stay tuned for more interviews from the amazing people who were at the festival.

Much Love <3