Michael Fishbane

Michael A. Fishbane (born 1943) is an American scholar of Judaism and rabbinic literature. Formerly at Brandeis University, he is currently the Nathan Cummings Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Jewish Studies at the Divinity School, University of Chicago.

Fishbane joined the University of Chicago in 1990, following approximately twenty-five years as a student and faculty member at Brandeis University.

Fishbane also undertook a project funded by the Templeton Foundation to compile a collection of Hasidic spiritual practices drawn from sermons, homilies, and disciples' records, with the aim of documenting both the physical and contemplative disciplines cultivated within Hasidic thought over the preceding two and a half centuries. 1994: National Jewish Book Award in the Jewish Thought category for The Kiss of God: Spiritual and Mystical Death in Judaism