Jay Michaelson, PhD, JD

Rabbi Dr. Jay Michaelson is a fellow at Harvard Law School’s project on Psychedelic Use, Law, and Spiritual Experience, and will be a visiting professor at Harvard Law School in 2025. He holds a Ph.D. in Jewish Thought from Hebrew University, a J.D. from Yale Law School, and nondenominational rabbinic ordination.

Dr. Michaelson’s scholarly work focuses on mysticism, law, and religion. His book The Heresy of Jacob Frank: From Jewish Messianism to Esoteric Myth won the 2023 National Jewish Book Award for scholarship, and his work been anthologized in volumes including Queer Religion, Imagining the Jewish God, and Jews and the Law. Prior to joining ECPS, Dr. Michaelson was an affiliated assistant professor at Chicago Theological Seminary, a fellow of the Center for LGBTQ Studies in Religion, and a visiting fellow at Brown University.  

Dr. Michaelson’s work on psychedelics includes the seminal 2008 article “Ayahuasca and Kabbalah,” participation in the first-ever Jewish Psychedelic Summit, and a recent Harvard Divinity School panel on “Are Psychedelics Theologically Significant for Judaism?” Dr. Michaelson is particularly interested in the plurality of forms of mystical experience, and emerging forms of contemplative and spiritual practice.

Outside the academy, Dr. Michaelson works as a journalist, teacher, and rabbi. He is a frequent commentator on CNN and a contributor to Rolling Stone, The Forward, and other publications, and worked for ten years as an LGBTQ activist.  Dr. Michaelson is also the author of nine books, including Everything is God: The Radical Path of Nondual Judaism and God vs. Gay? The Religious Case for Equality; a Lambda Literary Award finalist.  He lives outside of New York City.

Education

• 1989-93 - Columbia University, B.A. in English magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa
• 1994-97 - Yale Law School, J.D. Senior Editor, Yale Law Journal.
• 2000-01 - Hebrew University, M.A. in Comparative Religion
• 2009-10 - Sarah Lawrence College, M.F.A. in Writing
• 2003-13 - Hebrew University, Ph.D. in Jewish Thought

Academic Positions

• 2023 - American Jewish University, Public Fellow
• 2020-23 - Center for LGBTQ Studies in Religion, Visiting Fellow
• 2014-23 - Chicago Theological Seminary, Affiliated Assistant Professor
• 2013-14 - Brown University, Visiting Scholar
• 2012 - Harvard Divinity School, Field Education Supervisor
• 2007-08 - Boston University Law School, Visiting Assistant Professor
• 2004-05 - City College of New York, Adjunct Professor

Scholarly Publications

1. "Pleromas, Prophecies, and Psychedelics: Varieties of Visionary Judaism," Jewish Museum Vienna exhibition catalog (forthcoming, 2025)
2. Buddhism and Judaism. Oxford Handbook of American Buddhism (forthcoming, Oxford University Press, 2024)
3. The Eruption of Eros in Jewish Messianic Heresies. Jewish Museum of Berlin, exhibition catalog
4. The Heresy of Jacob Frank: From Jewish Messianism to Esoteric Myth, Oxford University Press, 2022.
5. "Exodus" in The Queer Bible Commentary (SCM Press, 2022)
6. Queering Martin Buber: Harry Hay’s Erotic Dialogical, Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies 36.3 (2018), 31-59.
7. Conceptualizing Jewish Antinomianism in the Teachings of Jacob Frank, Modern Judaism Volume 37, Issue 3, 1 October 2017, pp. 338–362.
8. The Repersonalization of God:  Monism and Theological Polymorphism in Zoharic and Hasidic Imagination, in Imagining the Jewish God (Rowman & Littlefield, 2016)
9. Homosexuality in Modern Judaism, in The Encyclopedia of the Bible and its Reception, Barry Walfish, ed. (De Gruyter, 2016)
10. Queer Theology and Social Transformation: Twenty Years after Jesus Acted Up, Theology and Sexuality, Theology & Sexuality, Vol. 21, No. 3, 2015
11. Hating the Law for Christian Reasons: The Religious Roots of American Antinomianism, in Jews and the Law, Marc Galanter & Ari Mermelstein, eds. (2015)
12. Evolving Dharma: Meditation, Buddhism, and the Next Generation of Enlightenment (North Atlantic, 2013)
13. Gay Men’s Interpretation of the Bible, in The Encyclopedia of the Bible and its Reception, Barry Walfish, ed. (De Gruyter, 2013)
14. Redefining Religious Liberty: The Covert Campaign Against Civil Rights (Political ResearchAssociates, 2013) 
15. The Jhanas, in Exploring the Edge Realms of Consciousness (North Atlantic, 2012)
16. Kabbalah and Queer Theology: Resources and Reservations, Theology and Sexuality, Volume 18, Number 1 (2012)
17. God vs. Gay? The Religious Case for Equality (Beacon, 2011)
18. Queering Kabbalistic Gender Dimorphism, in Queer Religion, Donald Boisvert and Jay Johnson, eds. (Praeger, 2011)
19. Everything is God: The Radical Path of Nondual Judaism (Shambhala, 2009)
20. Chaos, Law, and God: The Religious Meanings of Homosexuality in Michigan Journal of Gender & Law (2008)
21. In Defense of the Pound of Flesh: Legalism, Multiculturalism, and the Letter of the Law,"6 J. L. Society 98 (2005)
22. On Listening to the Kulturkampf, or, How America overruled Bowers v. Hardwick, Even though Romer v. Evans Didn’t, 49 Duke L.J. 1559 (2000)
23. Geoengineering: A Climate Change Manhattan Project, 17 Stanford Envtl Law Journal 73 (1998)
24. Rethinking Regulatory Reform: Toxics, Politics, Ethics, 105 Yale L.J. 1891 (1996)

Awards and Honors

• 2023 - National Jewish Book Award for scholarship
• 2023 - New York Society of Professional Journalists Award for opinion writing
• 2017 - Gilberto Castaneda Lecture, Chicago Theological Seminary
• 2017 - National Association of LGBT Journalists Award for feature writing
• 2014 – John Boswell Lecture, Center for LGBTQ & Gender Studies
• 2014 - New York Society of Professional Journalists Award for opinion writing
• 2011 - Finalist, Lambda Literary Award
• 2010 - Forward 50 list of fifty most influential American Jews
• 1997-98 - Weinig Traveling Fellowship, Hebrew University
• 1997 - Olin Fellowship in Law, Economics, and Public Policy, Yale Law School
• 1997 - Ambrose Gherini Prize for best article on international law, Yale Law School
• 1996 - Israel Peres Prize, Yale Law Journal
• 1992 - James C. Caraley Prize for student activism, Columbia University

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