The P.O.D. album has been out since Tuesday. Of course like the music freak I am, I bought it Tuesday afternoon on my way home from work. The two songs with Matisyahu on it are really good. This isn’t just a 20 second interlude guest rap. He is pretty much singing or doing backup crowing the entire lengths of these songs. He has a great solo part on Strength of My Life, which actually sounds like it could easily be a song from Matisyahu’s album. This made me very excited for a professionally produced Matisyahu album. I really am anticipating the Youth release.

Here is a new article from MTV.com discussing this interesting union of sorts.

For one of those elements, the band brought in reggae rapper Matisyahu to lend his unique flavor to “Roots in Stereo” and “Strength of My Life.”

“If anybody knows P.O.D., they know that we are huge reggae fans,” Wuv said. “And he was someone that we were listening to, and not only that but we thought that it would be cool, more on a personal level. He is a Hasidic Jew, and everybody knows that we are a spiritual band, and we just thought that collaborating with him and the way that he believed and the way that he conducted himself would be something special. [...] Perhaps it was the influence of Matisyahu, but Testify finds P.O.D. as spiritual as ever before with their lyrics. [...] One of the album’s central themes is finding encouragement and inspiration in dark times, a topic the first single, “Goodbye for Now,” tackles head-on.”

I believe this is the verbal comparison to getting the Schick kicked out you.

Alan Dershowitz strikes back at Marvin Schicks nasty rant.

“Marvin Schick’s mother was a wonderful woman who baked great challahs, but Marvin didn’t learn anything from her about the Jewish prohibition against lashon hara. Everything he says about me in his “privately sponsored” opinion piece is totally wrong (“Where is Chabad Heading To?” Jan. 6).

If I had “written nastily about religious Jews,” I don’t think Yeshiva University would have given me an honorary doctorate. Nor would Bar Ilan University. Nor would I have been invited to speak to numerous Orthodox synagogues and organizations. These institutions recognize that I have devoted much of my professional life to defending the rights of Orthodox Jews at Harvard and all over the world. I have argued for the right of Orthodox Jews to put up eruvs.

I have opposed holding classes and graduations on Jewish holidays, even those observed exclusively or primarily by Orthodox Jews. Virtually my entire family is Orthodox, as are many of my oldest friends. Moreover, only a self-righteous Jew would imply that only Orthodox Jews are religious. I attend a Conservative synagogue where my daughter was bat mitzvahed. It is a religious institution conducting religious events. I’m sure there are some haredim who do not regard Marvin Schick as sufficiently religious.

I will contribute $1,000 to Marvin Schick’s favorite charity — probably those who pay for him to have a column that no one else will regularly publish — if he can provide any documentation that I have “exalted marrying out.” Schick just made it up as he has the rest of his attack on me. It is precisely this kind of internecine personal attack that weakens the Jewish community at a time when it is under so much external assault.

Marvin, learn from your mother. She was a tolerant and wonderful woman who would never accept your kind of intra-Jewish bigotry and sinat chinam.”

(copied from TJW)

(HT A Town Crier)

I get 200+ unique visitors a day, and the best we can do is 10 comments?

Humor me ….

What color is your toothbrush?

(I have a reason I’m asking …. come on …it takes 2.4 seconds to answer this question ….)

Oh and go check out the Jewish Connection.
I made some slight changes to the look. Best Design 2006 … here I come!!

Matisyahu has sold out the Hammerstein Ballroom. Very impressive, so now they’ve added a second show. Here are some other impressive numbers ….

(Cross Posted on The Jewish Connection)

Every morning when I wake up I try my hardest to remember to say Modeh Ani. It’s something that I do forget to do quite often. I try to remember, but sometimes I forget. It’s one of the things I work on. It might seem like a small thing and in some ways it is. But I really think it means a lot. Sometimes in being frum we are reminded that we are obligated to do the mitzvos. It becomes something that we are supposed to do. That we have to do. Something that we must do, and not something that we want to do. The lessons in these smaller things are sometimes the greatest lessons in life that we can learn.

Modeh Ani is in it’s simplest form, thanking Hashem for returning our neshoma to us each morning. We thank Hashem for waking up. How simplistic no? Just for waking up. Our day didnt even start. Nothing has happened yet. We are in essence thanking him for a day that has yet to unfold. In fact it’s possible that we could have a bad day. (I had a bad day again … She said I would not understand …. sorry .. got lost in a good song …) So yes, it’s possible that we may have a bad day. So it seems odd that we are thanking Hashem for a day that hasnt unfoled yet.

Of course it’s entirely possible that I’m reading into this wrong and we are thanking him for the overall picture. For the time we’ve had so far. Either way, the lesson thats eaisly learnt here is that no matter the time of refeence. It’s important to be thankful in general. I would like to think we are thanking Him for a day that has yet to unfold because in that way the lesson I take from saying Modeh Ani is that much stronger.

Like I said before, i think that in the smaller mitzvos that we do, lay the biggest lessons for us. Lessons that are not always deep devar torahs or answers to deep rooted questions of chasidic phlisophy or jewish life. Sometimes it’s the simple lessons of life and daily conduct that we learn from these “small” gems.

Like many mitzvos that we do, even the “bigger” ones, I feel that even though we are obligated to do them. They are sometimes practicly speaking - good for us. Like thanking Hashem. It’s good to remember to be thankful. To take stock in our lives. To be happy with our lot and have a positive outlook on our day. Sometimes our “obligation” to do these mitzvos force us to do something so simple that we really should be doing it anyway.

PostScript: I really like this song. It’s from this album.