The Secret That Is Not a Secret

Ten Heretical Tales

By: Jay Michaelson

Narrated by: Jay Michaelson

A provocative collection of interconnected tales, bridging the worlds of mysticism and heresy, faith and desire—from the award-winning author of Everything is God and The Heresy of Jacob Frank.

The Secret That Is Not a Secret: Ten Heretical Tales invites you into a hidden world of faith, desire, transgression, and revelation. The inhabitants of its interlocking stories are pious and rebellious, mystical and queer, from a Hasidic woman tormented by her husband’s long beard to a closeted gay man repenting of his sins in the mikva. The first book of fiction by Rabbi Dr. Jay Michaelson, winner of the National Jewish Book Award, The Secret That Is Not a Secret is a remarkable work of mystical fiction.

A glossary to accompany the audiobook of The Secret That Is Not a Secret can be found here: www.ayinpress.org/glossary-for-the-secret-that-is-not-a-secret/

©2023 Jay Michaelson (P)2023 Ayin Press

Critic reviews

“The Secret Is Not a Secret tells ten heretical tales of desire, framed in the ten luminous emanations, where the lines separating truth and heresy are blurred and inverted. Jay Michaelson has given us a work that sparkles with light while living in the shadows of the darkness that accompanies all light. It is a gift to all of us who struggle with the sacred while dwelling in spaces where the sacred refuses go.”—Shaul Magid, Professor of Jewish Studies at Dartmouth College, and author of Piety and Rebellion: Essays in Hasidism and The Necessity of Exile

“This newest addition to the well Queer Yiddishkeit warms my heart and mind. Rabbi Michaelson's ten short stories are like a collaboration between queerness, Kabbalah, mysticism, rebellion, and a deeply Queer Judaism. This book might be fiction, but its awe-inspiring messages are real.”—Rabbi Abby C. Stein, author of Becoming Eve: My Journey from Ultra-Orthadox Rabbi to Transgender Woman

“Sacred and profane, erudite and engaging, queer and questioning, Jay Michaelson’s The Secret That Is Not a Secret challenges Jewish traditions and imagines its own sort of transcendence. These remarkable stories cleave to God, the flesh, and what it means to live in a world full of hidden secrets.”—Jonathan Papernick, author of The Ascent of Eli Israel, I Am My Beloveds, and Gallery of the Disappeared Men

great read even if you are not jewish!

found the stories insightful. I did not need to consult then linked jewish/yiddish dictionary to understand the stories. Looking for another book by author to listen to