In an interview this afternoon on WNYC’s Soundcheck, Matisyahu elaborated on his decision to shave his beard, which he announced yesterday with a photo of his newly shorn face that he released on Twitter.
He had started growing the beard when he first became religious, about ten years ago. The decision not to shave, Matis said, was based on a teaching from Kabbalah that the beard is a manifestation of the 13 divine attributes of mercy. He feared that were he to shave the beard, he would no longer be privy to those blessings of mercy, a belief that, thanks to various "revelations" over the past few weeks, he now finds to be "ludicrous."
What happened was — I recently realized you know that God’s mercy can’t be — How can that possibly be connected to me shaving or not? And I began, over the last few weeks, I went through a pretty major transformation, probably bigger than any in my life, due to several things, but a lot of revelations and a lot of realizations started coming clear to me, and I realized just like these fears that I have, the idea that God’s mercy is connected to whether I shave or not is ludicrous. And I just need to trust myself, and that if I’m deserving of God’s mercy, I’ll get it regardless.
Other than that, Matis reveals little else in the interview. He mumbled something about his "evolution" a few times, noted that he grew dreadlocks when he was a teenager into Bob Marley, and talked about how hectic his life is around the holidays. He disclosed that his family has moved to California from Brooklyn, and that his wife and kids still haven’t seen him cleanshaven.
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Towards the end, Soundcheck host John Schaefer began to ask a question, apparently inspired by comments coming in through the show’s website, to the effect that Matisyahu is living some sort of contradictory life. The singer cut in quickly.
I’d like to say one thing about contradictions — I don’t mean to cut you off — but the whole thing is contradictions. And that’s what I’ve realized, is that everything has multiple sides to it, you know? We’re so quick to go, to make things black and white and to put things in their box. You know what I mean? But everything is this mixture, and that’s what this world is, is this blend of different things.
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