Wiley on Get Out LB reports that it was good!
Last weekend proved to be yet another epic year for Jewlicious. For those who have never been or never heard, Jewlicious is a three-day festival at the Long Beach JCC that happens every February, bringing Jewish people together from all over the country for music, food and chutzpah! This is my fifth year. It’s possible that I will be a lifer.
Caroline Kessler in In The Moment provides the first of two reviews:
There were about 450 people at Shabbat dinner that night–nearly everyone joined in for Shalom Aleichem. At the head of our table was the infamous Matisyahu. As we were breaking and passing the challah, our table ran out. Our friend Marc yelled, “Hey Matis! Throw me a piece of challah!”
Miraculously, he did. There was an exuberance in the air that tonight, and I think a lot of it came from using our voices at a volume that we don’t normally practice. There were so many different kinds/types/labels of Jew there–and to see everyone raise their voices in the same song was something bordered on extraordinary. The next morning, (Saturday), there was a reggae-inspired Reform service. I missed it to attend Marcus Freed’s Shabbat Strength sequence–and there was music even in the heavy breath of everyone in the small exercise room, the stomping of our feet on the floor when Marcus said, “Just let your body play,” and there was music in our chanting of ’shalom.’
Over a week later, I still have something that my friend Bri taught me on the trip: kol ha’olam kulo, gesher tzar m’od, v’ha ikar lo l’fached klal, which translates to ‘the entire world is a narrow bridge, but the main thing is not to fear.’ I love the translation, but what I love even more is singing the song all the way to John Wayne Airport, all the way back to Pittsburgh.
EB
3/2/2010
Why are people always surprised that Matisyahu is a real person? Of COURSE he would toss you some challah! And he’d share the wine, too…maybe