Jay Michaelson

Piousness in Judaism, although complex and debated through centuries, geographies, and diverging religious movements, might be fairly summarized as the striving to follow both outer norms of Jewish law and to live a Godly inner life in one's heart. However, earning eternal reward or punishment based on behavior and piety in one's life is generally considered the wrong motivation. Faithfulness to Torah and God's commandments provide their own reward. Characters in Jay Michaelson's short story show more collection The Secret That Is Not a Secret, mostly Jewish Orthodox or Hassidim living in modern New York City or Israel, are sinners and heretics by conservative standards, rasha'im in Hebrew: a housewife plotting secretly to remove her husband's disgusting but holy beard, men having divine gay sex in a ritual mikvah bath, a watchman during nightshifts meditating on forbidden mysticisms to bring furniture to consciousness, a teenage girl finding emotional liberation exposing her body while lost alone in the desert. Ten transgressive stories, each reflecting the underlying theme of the ten emanations of God depicted in the Kabbalah. None of the characters, concepts, or behaviors in Michaelson's stories are irreligious. These are not secular Jews or atheist defying religious practice, they are people who cleave to God; studiers of texts, ancient laws, and folklore in spiritual quests to return to Hashem in day-to-day life. They seek spiritual oneness with opposites, repair of the scattered and broken divine universal sparks, and transcendence to the mystical while also more and more becoming faithful to themselves in the material world: queer, selfish, jealous, mentally ill, rebellious, secretive, horny, sexualized, rasha–all parts of the one divine reality. The spiritual, the material, and sexual are inseparable. In one of Michaelson's stories, a closeted gay man, a pious Chabad, gets a secretive blow job in Central Park. The other man, also raised Chabad, debates, between mouth osculations, that, "Everything is god... no place is devoid of him.... You might think what [we're] doing now is evil but... there's no difference between the side of light and of shadow.... The divine sparks reside even in the most fallen of places." show less

A slim but passionate book designed to counter religious objections to same-sex equality. Michaelson is generally engaging, and couches his arguments in ways that are thoughtful and considerate of differing views but firmly defend the rights of the GLBT community. I just heard him talk at my shul, where he gave an excellent speech on meditation and Judaism, and have concluded that his book would be even better if his subject matter (like his d'var today) was more focused, but I understand show more the desire to counter all the anti-gay rationales out there. Fortunately the book does list other resources, including one of the books in my TBR pile, the updated version of Rabbi Steven Greenberg's "Wrestling with God and Men: Homosexuality in the Jewish Tradition." show less

A good book for Jews (and other seekers) needing to get out of their heads and be more present in the world. Michaelson's text, in engaging and clear prose, provides simple but effective techniques to bring mindfulness and gratitude into your daily acts, in ways that honor the body and its connection to the soul. And even though the book's grounded in Jewish tradition, Michaelson doesn't say "You must do X" but gives people permission to figure out what works best for them and even create show more new rituals if needed. The book did lose me in its more theoretical discussions of Kabbalah, but that doesn't detract from its more basic and important lessons. show less