Revelation in Strange Clothes: Heresy as Deferred Prophecy

Revelation in Strange Clothes: Heresy as Deferred Prophecy

This article reframes heresy within Orthodox Judaism not as pathology to be eradicated but as a necessary byproduct of authentic theological creativity—a form of "deferred prophecy" that challenges established boundaries while potentially revealing divine truth. Through analysis of the 18th-century Jonathan Eybeschütz controversy alongside six major Orthodox thinkers (Reb Zadok HaKohen, the Netziv, Soloveitchik, Halivni, Lichtenstein, and Magid), this study demonstrates how shifting boundaries of Orthodox thought reflect evolving understandings of divine revelation. The integration of the author's therapeutic and theological writings reveals how contemporary Orthodox thought has developed "therapeutic orthodoxy"—a methodological approach that operates deliberately at the boundaries between orthodoxy and heresy through practical application of religious concepts to healing practice. This approach, described as "post-modern, post-Orthodox, and post-Hasidic," maintains essential religious commitment while radically expanding the boundaries of acceptable religious discourse through therapeutic integration of kabbalistic and halakhic concepts with medical practice.

The Sacred Shadow

The Sacred Shadow

The transformation of healing from a sacred art to biomedical science has paralleled the secularization of Western society, yet the mechanisms by which medical orthodoxy maintains dominance bear striking resemblance to those employed by religious institutions throughout history.

This paper examines the thesis that medical heresy represents merely a secularized form of religious heresy, with state and professional institutions employing similar punitive mechanisms to those historically used by ecclesiastical authorities.

We conducted a comparative historical analysis of control mechanisms employed by religious institutions (particularly during the Inquisition period) and contemporary medical establishments, utilizing Brian Martin's framework for understanding dissent and heresy in medicine, integrated with original research on healing practices and theological perspectives.

Our analysis reveals systematic parallels between religious and medical orthodoxy enforcement, including: definitional control over truth claims, institutional training and credentialing systems, economic sanctions and career restrictions, legal prosecution mechanisms, social marginalization techniques, and ideological hegemony maintenance. These mechanisms operate to suppress alternative healing modalities in ways that mirror historical suppression of religious dissent.

Medical heresy functions as secularized religious heresy, with state licensing authorities and professional organizations wielding powers analogous to those once exercised by ecclesiastical courts. This analysis has profound implications for understanding healthcare freedom, practitioner autonomy, and patient choice in healing modalities.

From Maze to Cave: Ramchal’s Moral Labyrinth

From Maze to Cave: Ramchal’s Moral Labyrinth

The metaphor of the maze (labyrinth) used by Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto (Ramchal) in the introduction to Mesillat Yesharim is one of the most striking allegories in the entire work. It appears not in the main body of the book, but in the Author’s Introduction (Hakdamah), where the Ramchal reflects on why so many people, even scholars, fail to pursue genuine spiritual and moral growth.

Dreaming Kingship: Meta-Parable and Divine Desire

Dreaming Kingship: Meta-Parable and Divine Desire

This article examines the theological and philosophical implications of the phrase "K'she'ala b'machshavah Ono Emloch" (When it rose in thought: I shall rule) in the writings of Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi (the Alter Rebbe), founder of Chabad Hasidism. Building on recent scholarship in Hasidic thought and integrating insights from literary theory and phenomenology, this study proposes that the Alter Rebbe's understanding of divine kingship represents a radical ontology of divine desire expressed through what I term "meta-parable."

Drawing primarily on Likkutei Torah on Shir HaShirim and incorporating comparative analysis with Rabbi Tzadok HaKohen of Lublin's Tzidkat HaTzadik, and the Degel Machaneh Ephraim, this essay argues that kingship itself constitutes the primordial divine parable (mashal hakadmoni)—a foundational narrative structure through which God experiences selfhood through sovereignty. This framework repositions creation not as divine emanation but as divine imagination, transforming the cosmos into a medium for divine self-discovery through narrative. The study contributes to contemporary scholarship on Hasidic theology, mystical hermeneutics, and the intersection of literary theory with Jewish mysticism.

From Parable to Pedagogy

From Parable to Pedagogy

This paper explores the function and theological depth of meshalim (parables) in Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi's Tanya and their subsequent expansion in his discourses in Likkutei Torah and Torah Ohr. The analysis demonstrates how the Alter Rebbe employs metaphoric language to mediate complex mystical ideas, providing cognitive and emotional accessibility for the reader. The study traces several core meshalim from Tanya and analyzes how they are re-contextualized and theologically deepened in later writings, revealing a multi-layered Hasidic pedagogy that integrates philosophy, Kabbalah, and psychological introspection.

Between Divine Judgment and Divine Absence

Between Divine Judgment and Divine Absence

This paper examines the theological rupture caused by the Holocaust through the dialectical lens of Midas HaDin (divine judgment) and Midas HaRachamim (divine mercy). Drawing on mystical traditions of divine presence and absence, it explores how the Holocaust challenges both traditional religious frameworks of meaning and Enlightenment narratives of human progress. The concept of "NOT-God"—a space where divine absence is palpably felt—is developed as a theological framework for understanding catastrophic suffering without resorting to facile explanations or complete abandonment of tradition. The paper analyzes the role of embodied ritual practices, particularly the Kaddish, as transformative responses to suffering that neither resolve theological questions nor surrender to nihilism. Through comparative analysis with major post-Holocaust theologians including Rubenstein, Berkovits, Fackenheim, Levinas, Greenberg, Raphael, Cohen, Lichtenstein, Schneerson, Sacks, and Soloveitchik, the paper articulates a distinctive theological approach that maintains the tension between rupture and continuity, between divine judgment and divine mercy, and between the failure of traditional theological categories and the ongoing search for meaning in their aftermath.

Language and Meaning in Sacred Texts

Language and Meaning in Sacred Texts

This article examines the complex interplay between language, meaning, and divine revelation in Jewish textual traditions through comparative analysis of diverse interpretative frameworks: the intellectual approach of Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin, the hermeneutics of religious passion and restraint developed by the Netziv (Rabbi Naftali Zvi Yehuda Berlin), the contemporary philosophical perspectives of Elliot Wolfson, and the cross-cultural insights of Slavoj Žižek, Moshe Idel, Allan Nadler, and Simone Weil. By exploring the tensions between transcendence and immanence, nomian structure and religious enthusiasm, and the limits of religious language, this study illuminates how interpretive traditions navigate the paradoxical nature of divine revelation through textual engagement. Special attention is given to how theological meaning emerges not merely in the text itself but in the dialectic between immanence and transcendence, textual law and mystical yearning.

Scholarly Perspectives on Sifra Detzniuta

Scholarly Perspectives on Sifra Detzniuta

A review of the Sifra Detzniuta may initially appear distant from modern clinical concerns. However, its sophisticated understanding of divine presence and absence offers profound insights for contemporary healing relationships. Both the ancient kabbalists and modern healthcare practitioners grapple with similar fundamental questions: How does one become genuinely present to another without overwhelming them? How can absence sometimes manifest as the highest form of presence? What facilitates transformation in the space between two beings? This addendum explores how the Sifra Detzniuta's theological framework—with its paradoxical understanding of divine withdrawal, intermediary realms, and balanced opposites—can enrich our conception of the healer-patient relationship.

Epistemology Versus Ontology in Therapeutic Practice

Epistemology Versus Ontology in Therapeutic Practice

This paper examines how the philosophical tension between epistemology and ontology shapes the discourse on pantheism versus transcendence in Jewish mystical thought. By analyzing the works of contemporary scholars including Elliot Wolfson, Jonathan Garb, Amos Funkenstein, Rachel Elior, Ada Rapoport- Albert, Immanuel Etkes, Moshe Idel, and Eli Rubin, this study positions their interpretations within broader philosophical frameworks established by Kant and Hegel. The paper argues that Jewish mystical approaches to divine immanence and transcendence represent a unique philosophical contribution that navigates between Kantian epistemological limitations and Hegelian dialectical ontology.

Overcoming Doubt

Overcoming Doubt

This article examines the struggle in surrendering to the divine when confronted with doubt, internal resistance, or overwhelming urges in Jewish religious and mystical traditions. Through a review of classical and contemporary Jewish theological sources—including Hasidic teachings—this paper identifies key frameworks for understanding the spiritual struggle a healthcare giver faces in the therapeutic space, confronting the anguish and suffering of his or her patient or client and practical methodologies for maintaining faith during periods of such religious doubt. This claims that Jewish approaches to spiritual surrender are neither passive resignation nor blind obedience, but rather transformative practices that integrate psychological insight with religious devotion.

The Dialectical Divine

The Dialectical Divine

This article explores how the concept of tzimtzum illuminates the struggle between these seemingly contradictory aspects of the divine—the objective, transcendental "Higher Power" versus the subjective, personal "My-Higher Power"—and how this tension manifests in contemporary religious experience and the implications for the 12 step program of recovery from addiction.

Questioning Divine Absence

Questioning Divine Absence

This article examines the theological implications of divine absence and human questioning in Exodus 17:7, focusing on the interpretive frameworks provided by Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg, Nahum Sarna, Shani Tzoref, and recent contributions to the theology of divine absence. The biblical episode at Massah and Meribah (Ex 17) represents a critical moment of theological crisis in Israel's wilderness experience, encapsulated in the question, "Is the Lord among us or not?"

Applying Hermeneutics to the Therapeutic Interaction

Applying Hermeneutics to the Therapeutic Interaction

This paper examines the fundamental tension between two paradigms of textual engagement: the incarnational model, where language itself embodies and is saturated with divine presence, and the referential model, where text functions as signifier pointing toward transcendent truths beyond itself. Drawing on Kabbalistic, Hasidic, psychoanalytic, and postmodern frameworks, we explore how these competing understandings shape religious experience and textual interpretation.

The Duality of Divine Presence

The Duality of Divine Presence

This paper examines the complex theological concept of the dark side of the Schechina (Divine Presence) as presented in contemporary Jewish mystical thought and its relationship to post-Holocaust theological discourse. Through close analysis of primary texts that explore the feminine divine in Jewish tradition—from rabbinic literature through medieval Kabbalah to Hasidic texts—and engaging with Christian and Jewish post-Holocaust theological perspectives, this study investigates how modern theological discourse has reimagined the relationship between human suffering and divine pathos.

Shekhinah Consciousness III

Shekhinah Consciousness III: Divine Feminine as Theological and Political Paradigm for Human Suffering

This follow up essay explores the concept of Shekhinah consciousness as a theological and political paradigm that has emerged in contemporary Jewish thought. Drawing on the mystico-political theology of Rabbi Menachem Froman, the neo-Hasidic interpretations of Shaul Magid, and the mystical hermeneutics of Eitan Fishbane, I argue that Shekhinah consciousness represents a radical reorientation of Jewish theology and practice toward receptivity, presence, and relationality.

Rashi as Theologian of Protest

Rashi as Theologian of Protest

This essay was written following my dvar torah at seudah shlishit Shushan Purim 2025 on the Yahrzeit of my father and father in law of blessed memories.
Both would not have approved of my thesis.

The Absent Father and Theology

The Absent Father and Theology

This paper moves to the psychological imagining of the Divine or the absent Father (la nom du Pere) and explores the absent father in the works of Sigmund Freud, Jacques Lacan, and contemporary philosopher Rav Shagar (Shimon Gershon Rosenberg).

It examines how these thinkers understand paternal absence and its implications for identity formation, desire, and the divine. By drawing on psychoanalytic theory and mystical interpretations, the paper highlights the psychological and theological dimensions of paternal absence, arguing that the interstices between these perspectives offer a profound framework for understanding human subjectivity and spiritual experience. The convergence of these approaches reveals how absence itself can function as a constitutive force in both psychological development and religious consciousness.

Mirrors and Veils

Mirrors and Veils

This paper explores the theological concept of divine concealment across diverse mystical traditions, examining how the metaphors of mirrors and veils articulate the paradoxical hiding and revealing of the divine. Drawing from Kabbalistic notions of tzimtzum, Rebbe Nachman's "double concealment," Meister Eckhart's hidden Godhead, Simone Weil's theology of absence, and Henry Corbin's imaginal realm, we argue that divine hiddenness functions not as abandonment but as a profound mode of relationship. The study demonstrates how these traditions converge in understanding concealment as the necessary condition for authentic spiritual encounter, where the experience of divine absence itself becomes revelatory.

The Personality of The Divine

The Personality of The Divine

AI and Spirituality: The Disturbing Implications

AI and Spirituality: The Disturbing Implications

In mystical traditions the sense of the immanent gives rise to religious experience even ecstasy whereas in orthodox faiths the infinite distance of the divine in its transcendence produces fear and awe. The total availability and ubiquity of AI on the one hand and the massive data bank that allows its reach everywhere electronic data is uploaded to the cloud, has this same ironic contrast seen in the struggle to reach the divine yet paradoxically never quite access it.