Rabbi Jay Michaelson is a contributing columnist for the Forward and for Rolling Stone. He is the author of 10 books, and won the 2023 New York Society for Professional Journalists award for opinion writing.
Jay MichaelsonContributing Columnist
By Jay Michaelson
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Culture One Who Speaks Does Not Know
The Best American Spiritual Writing 2008 Edited by Philip Zaleski Houghton Mifflin, 256 pages, $14. Bad spiritual writing is easy. Good spiritual writing is hard. And often for the same reasons. First, to write about spirituality is necessarily to attempt to bridge the gap between private and public. Spiritual experiences, especially as distinct from religious…
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Culture Coming Out: It’s the Jewish Thing to Do At Hanukkah
This month marks the occasions of Christmas and Hanukkah — and the two-year anniversary of the decision by the Conservative movement’s Committee on Jewish Law and Standards that homosexuality does not violate Jewish law. Although these three events may not seem related at first, I think that each one informs the other in meaningful ways….
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Culture Poets of the Desert and the Sea
The Bad Wife Handbook By Rachel Zucker Wesleyan University Press, 114 pages, $22.95. Practice By Dan Bellm Sixteen Rivers Press, 80 pages, $15. Reviewing books in tandem has a lot to do with timing. Sometimes, two volumes appear with almost identical themes — a natural pairing. Other times, certain books suggest an immediate contrast, again…
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Culture Answers in the Seekers’ Language
For the Love of God and People: A Philosophy of Jewish Law By Elliot Dorff Jewish Publication Society, 296 pages, $35. Why care about Jewish observance? Growing up some years back in the world of Conservative Judaism, I rarely heard an answer to the question. The few explanations that were provided usually presupposed a belief…
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Culture God of Judgment, God of Love
As the season of repentance approaches, our Jay Michaelson offers some thoughts on the meaning of judgment, forgiveness and love, and how to think of the Infinite to whom the new year’s prayers will be directed. Every year at this time, for at least the past decade, I have struggled with the theology of atonement,…
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Culture What Are the Jewish Issues?
‘We need Christians on Capitol Hill, Jews on Capitol Hill and Muslims on Capitol Hill talking about the estate tax. When you’ve got an estate tax debate that proposes a trillion dollars being taken out of social programs to go to a handful of folks who don’t need and weren’t even asking for it, you…
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Culture In Defense of the Western Wall
This week, we observe the 17th of Tammuz, beginning the season that commemorates the destruction of the Temple and culminates on the Ninth of Av, which this year will be observed August 10. For many of us, however, the Temple and its remaining Western Wall (the kotel) often evoke more ambivalence than they do wistful…
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Culture Kabbalah: Ten Years After Madonna
Kabbalah is so… last decade. I still remember the flush of excitement, confusion, appreciation and concern that I felt in 1998 when I first read that Madonna was going to The Kabbalah Centre, and that her new tour design featured kabbalistic imagery. Then came Demi and Ashton and Britney and Roseanne, and a whole decade…
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