About Jay Michaelson

Jay Michaelson is a professor, writer, journalist, and rabbi.

Dr. Michaelson is a field scholar at the Emory Center for Psychedelics and Spirituality and a visiting researcher at Harvard Law School. His work focuses on the intersections of law, religion, and spiritual practice, especially in the area of psychedelics; he was the co-convenor of the 2025 Psychedelics & Monotheistic Traditions conference at Harvard.  Jay’s 2022 book, The Heresy of Jacob Frank: From Jewish Messianism to Esoteric Myth, won the National Jewish Book Award for scholarship. He holds a JD from Yale, a PhD in Jewish Thought from Hebrew University, and nondenominational rabbinic ordination.  Dr. Michaelson’s academic CV is here.

Jay is also the other of ten other books, including The Secret That Is Not A Secret: Ten Heretical Tales,  The Gate of Tears: Sadness and the Spiritual Path , God vs. Gay? The Religious Case for Equality, Everything is God: The Radical Path of Nondual Judaism and God in Your Body. 

As a journalist, Jay has written over  1500 articles for publications including Rolling Stone, the Forward, The Daily Beast, and his weekly newsletter, Both/And with Jay Michaelson. Jay broke the story of Supreme Court kingmaker Leonard Leo, wrote the first long-form analysis of the weaponization of religious liberty, and has twice won the New York Society of Professional Journalists award for opinion writing.

Rabbi Michaelson has been teaching contemplative practice for twenty five years and is authorized to teach in a Theravadan Buddhist lineage. He has co-led silent meditation retreats, taught meditation at Delta Airlines and Apple, performed a Bar Mitzvah at Burning Man, hosted a podcast for Ten Percent Happier meditation app, and been a keynote speaker or scholar in residence at hundreds of companies, conferences, universities, and religious institutions.

Prior to all this, Jay worked as an LGBTQ activist for ten years, started and scaled three nonprofits, and clerked for Judge Merrick Garland of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.  You may have noticed this is a rather long bio; if you’re looking for a short one for a media appearance or event, please contact Jay’s team.