Jay Michaelson

How is nonduality expressed in the Jewish mystical tradition? Nondual Judaism, as explicated by medieval Kabbalists, Eastern European Hasidim, and modern day cosmopolitan mystics, is at once similar to and different from nondual teachings of Vedanta, Buddhism, and other Asian traditions. In this intensive workshop, we will explore the texts and practices of nondual Judaism, with original sources (many never translated before), animated discussion, and contemplative practice.

In particular, we will explore "God" as expressed in nondual Judaism: as both the Ein Sof, infinite Brahma, filling and surrounding all worlds, and YHVH/Elohim, the God of the Sefirot, the personal God, purusha, accessible in anthropomorphic form. Indeed, it is a strange phenomenon that religious traditions which most embrace nonduality at the same time embrace polytheism -- in Hinduism, for example -- or in the case of Judaism, what might be called theological polymorphism. One might expect a radically iconoclastic emphasis on nothingness in nondual mystical traditions. Yet instead, one usually finds, together with nonduality, an integral return to theological forms, whether in the devotion of Ramakrishna to Kali, or the theological re-personalization found in classical Kabbalah.

Jay Michaelson

Jay has both an academic background and a personal commitment to spiritual practice. He holds a J.D. from Yale Law School, an M.A. in Religious Studies from Hebrew University, and a B.A. Magna Cum Laude from Columbia, and is currently completing a Ph.D. in Jewish Thought at Hebrew University. In 2008-09, he spent five months on silent meditation retreat in the Theravadan Buddhist tradition, in America and Nepal, and has sat one-, two-, and six-week retreats in that tradition for seven years. In the Jewish tradition, Jay has learned and taught Kabbalah since 1993, completed the Elat Chayyim Jewish Meditation Advanced Training program, spent two years at the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies, and has been a practicing halachic Jew for three decades. www.jaymichaelson.net