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 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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News Where the Light Gets In
Here is the essence of Jewish outdoor education, based on the five summers I spent teaching it at camp: You’re sure you can’t do it, and then you do it. One of the most memorable afternoons I ever spent was at the bottom of a huge rock face in rural Connecticut, coaching a smart, skinny…
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Culture Behind a Veil of Words
Concealment and Revelation: Esotericism in Jewish Thought and Its Philosophical Implications By Moshe Halbertal Translated by Jackie Feldman Princeton University Press, 212 pages, $29.95. A few years ago I was sitting on an airplane, and a woman next to me was reading “The Da Vinci Code.” At some point we got to talking, and I…
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Opinion Getting Serious About Love
In a recent sermon, up-and-coming rabbi David Ingber complained, “You never hear about love in Jewish newspapers.” Part of the reason for this is, of course, that love is rarely newsworthy; crisis is just better press. But it is true, in the Jewish world, that religiously, intellectually and culturally, love isn’t serious. Some of this…
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Culture Peoplehood: There’s No There There
“We’re here to help each other get through this thing, whatever it is.” — Kurt Vonnegut In the old days, presumably, it was simple: All Jews belonged to klal yisrael, largely because they didn’t have any choice, and we all knew that we were in this thing together. Some were pious, some quite wicked; some…
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