jaymichaelson.net

Jay Michaelson is an award-winning journalist, meditation teacher, podcast host, and author of ten books.

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    • The Secret that is not a Secret:Ten Heretical Tales
      The Heresy of Jacob Frank:From Jewish Messianism to Esoteric Myth
      Enlightenment by Trial and ErrorTen years on the Slippery Slopes of Jewish Spirtuality, Postmodern Buddhism, and Other Mystical Heresies
      The Gate of TearsSadness and the Spiritual Path
      Evolving DharmaMeditation, Buddhism, and the Next Generation of Enlightenment
      Redefining Religious LibertyThe Covert Campaign Against Civil Rights
      God vs Gay?The Religious Case for Equality
      Everything is GodThe Radical Path of Nondual Judaism
      Another Word for SkyPoems
      God in your BodyKabbalah, Mindfulness, and Embodied Spiritual Practice
      isHeretical Jewish Blessings and Poems
      AnthologiesAnthologies featuring Jay Michaelson
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The Supreme Court Nomination of Judge Merrick Garland |Charlie Rose Show

Sunday, April 3rd, 2016 | Multimedia, Law/Politics/Religion

A discussion about President Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland the Supreme Court. Charlie is joined by Jan Crawford of CBS News, Adam Liptak of the New York Times, and Jay Michaelson of The Daily Beast [click here to watch].


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Recent Articles

  • Toy Guns that Spark and Flesh-colored Christs that Glow in the Dark

    Sep 18th, 2026 in Both/And

  • The cancellation of Macklemore: A Yom Kippur reflection

    Sep 15th, 2026 in Forward

  • I’m Having a Gay Star Trek Day

    Sep 8th, 2026 in Both/And

  • Reflections on Obvious Stupidity

    Sep 1st, 2026 in Both/And

  • Jesse Watters Knows He’s Lying

    Aug 27th, 2026 in Both/And

  • more...

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Academic @ emory @harvard
Journalist jaymichaelson.substack.com & @jdforward
Writer Speaker Rabbi Dad
jaymichaelson.net

Like a lot of progressives, I’ve been frustrated t Like a lot of progressives, I’ve been frustrated that seemingly existential issues — democracy, authoritarianism — are not the drivers of the upcoming election. But this post is about what economic voters get fundamentally right, and why there might be cause for a sliver of hope. 

Online now at jaymichaelson.substack.com
What a pleasure to write about #AnneCarson and her What a pleasure to write about #AnneCarson and her amazing poetry of presence and mystery.

In @jdforward -- forward.com 

In the beginning there were days set aside for various tasks.
On the day He was to create justice
God got involved in making a dragonfly
and lost track of time.

It was about two inches long
with turquoise dots all down its back like Lauren Bacall.
Congratulations to the brilliant Anne Carson on wi Congratulations to the brilliant Anne Carson on winning the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Carson writes so vitally and originally about things that are easy to write badly about: God, desire, gender, meaning. Her prose is poetry and her poetry is prose and both are so wisely chosen and carefully constructed. She is an inspiration to poets, critics, and theologians alike.

This is an excerpt from the long poem "The Truth About God."

#AnneCarson
Read more at jaymichaelson.substack.com Read more at jaymichaelson.substack.com
#byungchulhan #byungchulhan
Digger now appears to be joining the ranks of the Digger now appears to be joining the ranks of the flops made about climate change.

Yet the failure of the film proves its core point: that it’s impossible to tell the story of global climate disruption. No one wants to hear about it anymore; the actual story is complicated, involving countless players and complicated science; and often, it’s not even a story. 

Read more at jaymichaelson.substack.com
As a rabbi, I feel like I have traditional beliefs As a rabbi, I feel like I have traditional beliefs projected onto me, and I sometimes wish I could wear a badge letting people know that I don’t hold them. As one of my core teachers, Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, used to say to skeptics and agnostics: I don’t believe in the same God you don’t believe in. Or scripture, or pseudo-history, or ethnocentrism.

But I do “believe” in some kind of God. I experience moments of proximity to Being-Consciousness-Bliss (sat-chit-ananda), both in profound peak experiences and in everyday moments of being. I know the experience of the sacred, though it’s hard to put into words, and I love it. I orient my life around and toward it. Sometimes there are peak experiences of mysticism and ego death, other times there are the fireworks of entities and synchronicities, and sometimes ‘only’ the ineffable presence of awareness or the quiet breeze of the sacred in the midst of ordinary life. I also experience a sense of rightness when I see or express compassion, justice, love, truth, and empathy, and a sense of wrongness when I witness cruelty, destruction, hate, ignorance, lies, and the causing of suffering.

Read more at jaymichaelson.substack.com
#mysticism #underhill #heresy #mysticism #underhill #heresy
From my vantage point as a rabbi/journalist/psyche From my vantage point as a rabbi/journalist/psychedelics scholar/meditation teacher, it seems obvious that we are headed for a collective crisis even more massive than the ones we have already experienced. In a sense, AI is to white-collar work what globalization, de-unionization, and technology was to blue-collar work. Twenty years ago, it was the factories that were closing. Now, it’s the law offices cutting back on hiring. What is supposed to happen next?

From that same vantage point, it seems equally obvious that, as a society, there will need to be significant reorientation toward non-economic forms of value. Of course, these exist already: people find meaning in family, religion, culture, creativity, sports, hobbies, and a thousand other interests. It’s not like we’re starting from scratch. But consider how many people in your life (present company included) also derive meaning from work, and what will happen when that is taken away.

Religion, in its broadest possible sense, will almost certainly grow in response. Already, we’ve seen some of this in conservative quarters — converts to Catholicism like JD Vance and Peter Thiel, for example, or even the broad religiosity of Joe Rogan. But Capital-R Religion’s price of admission may be too high for many people: belief in God, conservative ideas about gender and sexuality, and all the myths and stories that seem preposterous if taken literally.

But there is also what I’ve called lower-case-r religion: forms of communal, ethical, and spiritual cohesion that are less about God, dogma, and obligation and more about the sacred in everyday life, rituals that bring us together, and practices that help us to grow ethically and spiritually.

In other words, what a lot of liberal Judaism, at its best, is already about.

Read more at forward.com
One of the reasons right-wing politics has been so One of the reasons right-wing politics has been so disproportionately successful is that it offers a religion-like system of beliefs, meaning, and community. What progressive alternatives are there? How can progressives fill the "religion-sized hole" in American life without recourse to regressive forms and structures?

I joined @dancoke on his podcast "Religion on the Mind" to talk about how spirituality does and doesn't fill that hole for many people, and whether progressive religion will ever scale to be politically relevant.

Search up "Religion on the Mind" wherever you get your podcasts, or check out the link in bio.
#ursulaleguin #ursulaleguin
As cheesy as it sounds, for a while I found it har As cheesy as it sounds, for a while I found it hard to dance while *gestures wildly at all this* was going on. Then I figured something out. So I wrote about it in my Substack, jaymichaelson.substack.com .
For some time now, right-wing Zionists and left-wi For some time now, right-wing Zionists and left-wing Anti-Zionists have been mirror images of one another, both insisting on a one-state solution for Israelis and Palestinians. To be sure, the visions are different: one is of a Jewish-dominated ethnostate with a permanently subjugated non-Jewish minority, the latter either a utopian democratic fantasy or a violent, forced reversal of 1948.

As different as they are in some respects, though, both visions are delusions.

Read more at forward.com
Full moon is in a couple of days, and with it my f Full moon is in a couple of days, and with it my favorite Jewish holiday, Sukkot. Here's #wallacestevens with a waxing-moon reflection.
This was a hard "hit" to do. I had around thirty s This was a hard "hit" to do. I had around thirty seconds to both (a) communicate that many American Jews really are afraid of antisemitism right now while also (b) rejecting the claim that Macklemore's statement was antisemitic. Let me know how I did...

Although it is just one relatively minor incident, the Macklemore/Sheeran controversy is a kind of Rorschach test, revealing how people can sincerely perceive the same thing in totally different ways. That doesn't make everyone equally right or wrong -- I believe Kraft was wrong -- but it could help us better understand the "other side."
Two weeks ago, podcaster and philosopher Sean Illi Two weeks ago, podcaster and philosopher Sean Illing wrote a provocative piece describing politics as “The Dumbest Possible Religion.” 

I was inspired to respond at some length, and to answer two of his questions: first, where I get my “alternatives to shallowness,” and second, whether politics is indeed “the dumbest possible religion.”

My response is up now at jaymichaelson.substack.com
This is one of the most important sentences ever w This is one of the most important sentences ever written about how to understand religion.

#gershomscholem
In the Jewish calendar, this week is dedicated to In the Jewish calendar, this week is dedicated to reflection, introspection, and review of one’s thoughts and actions. 

It is in that spirit that I am reflecting on the decision of billionaire Robert Kraft to ban the rapper @macklemore from performing at his stadium because of a statement he made onstage in support of Palestine — a decision which in turn caused superstar Ed Sheeran to boot Macklemore from his latest tour.

To be sure, this is hardly the most important chapter of the Israel/Palestine story. But it is a valuable prism on how we see differently, hear differently, and talk past one another on moral, political and ultimately spiritual matters of importance. And that has much to do with the themes of the Days of Awe.

Online now at forward.com and the link in bio.
Except a brief idealistic period in my 20s, I've b Except a brief idealistic period in my 20s, I've been an incrementalist for almost my entire adult life. A progressive, not a radical. A pragmatist, not an absolutist. #karlpopper articulates that well. For better or for worse.
@danharris and @msnownews have launched a new show @danharris and @msnownews have launched a new show (on the new MSNow app/website) called "This Week in Sanity" -- it's about, basically, how to survive the news and how to stay engaged without burning out. Anyone need that? I sure do.
I was honored to be Dan's first guest on the show -- since it's an app exclusive I can't post a reel here yet, but check it out at the new ms.now website or app.
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