Nehirim: GLBT Jewish Culture and Spirituality
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Jay Michaelson is the author of Everything is God: The Radical Path of Nondual Judaism, plus 2 other books and 200 articles. A columnist for the Forward, Huffington Post & Tikkun, Jay was named to the 2009 “Forward 50” list of Very Important Jews. He is executive director of Nehirim, a national nonprofit for GLBT Jews and allies. In 2008-09, he spent five months on silent meditation retreat.
How and Why to Meditate
Ritual & Prayer
Most of us have a general sense that meditation brings about states of calm or clarity. But can we experience those states if our lives are busy? What is the "point" of meditation? This is a no-nonsense introduction to the practical techniques and purposes of meditation, suitable both for yogis and for people who say they can't meditate/hate meditating/aren't that kind of person at all.
Making Prayer Real 1
A Panel Discussion
Aryeh Ben David, Ayeka: Bringing God back to the Conversation,
Mike Comins, TorahTrek,
Jay Michaelson, Nehirim: GLBT Jewish Culture and Spirituality
Mike Comins interviewed 51 soulful Jews for his new book, "Making Prayer Real: Leading Jewish Spiritual Voices on Why Prayer is Difficult and What to Do about It," including Jay Michaelson and Aryeh Ben David. They will lead a discussion on the spiritual dynamics of prayer: what it is intended to do, how it works, why it’s difficult, and why it can be so easy and rewarding.
To Sin is Holy
The Anti-Torah of Jacob Frank
Text & Thought
The antinomian heretic Jacob Frank (1726-1791) was a fascinating and startling Jewish (and Christian, and, briefly, Muslim) thinker and/or cult leader who believed that the total transgression of all basic norms was necessary to actualize the messanic redemption. Think Sabbetai Sevi but with more sex and heresy. In this class we'll apply a very traditional format -- hevruta, texts, etc. -- to very radical texts, including some of Frank's remarkable legends and tales.
Uncle Shabtai's Neo-Kabbalistic Poetry
Arts & Performance
P. Diddy in "Fiddler on the Roof." Checking out yeshiva bochurs during Simchas Torah. Erotic harmonies of Lecha Dodi. These and many more antinomian verses will be declaimed, shouted, and sung to musical accompaniment and general merriment by Jay Michaelson, author of Another Word for Sky: Poems.
