Everything Is God: The Radical Path of Nondual Judaism » (Original)

Jay Michaelson is a scholar and activist who has written extensively on spirituality, Judaism, sexuality, and law. He is the author of God in Your Body and the founding editor of the award-winning publication Zeek: A Jewish Journal of Thought and Culture. He is a columnist for The Forward, the Huffington Post, and Tikkun. He holds a JD from Yale University and is completing his PhD in Jewish thought at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

This exploration of the radical, yet ancient, idea that everything and everyone is God will transform how you understand your life and the nature of religion itself. While God is conventionally viewed as an entity separate from us, there are some Jews—Kabbalists, Hasidim, and their modern-day heirs—who assert that God is not separate from us at all. In this nondual view, everyone and everything manifests God. For centuries a closely guarded secret of Kabbalah, nondual Judaism is a radical reorientation of religious life that is increasingly influencing mainstream Judaism today.

Writer and scholar Jay Michaelson presents a wide-ranging and compelling explanation of nondual Judaism: what it is, its traditional and contemporary sources, its historical roots and philosophical significance, how it compares to nondual Buddhism and Hinduism, and how it is lived in practice. He explains what this mystical nondual view means in our daily ego-centered lives, for our communities, and for the future of Judaism.

1 Perspectives : ten paths to everywhere 17

2 Sources : the roots of the orchard 43

3 God : the god beyond God 91

4 Torah : Judaism as a nondual devotional path 113

5 Israel : community, history, and nondual Messianism 129

6 Mind : seeking and stopping seeking 149

7 Heart : prayer and acts of love 173

8 Body : the dwelling place of the infinite 189

9 Ethics : the problem of evil and improving on God 205

10 Enlightenment : knowing and not knowing 217

Acknowledgments 225

Notes 227

Glossary 249

Bibliography 255

Table of Biblical and traditional religious sources 265

Index 269