Zieglitz’s Blessing is that rare mix: a religiously serious fiction filled with irreverent humor. From childhood, Rod Zieglitz questions the truthfulness of his Hebrew name, which means “God will show mercy.” Sometimes that name seems fitting. At other times, though, it strikes Zieglitz as a cruel joke. Only on his deathbed, grappling with the challenges he’s faced, does Zieglitz rightly understand the notion of God’s blessing for the first time. Touching readers in ways that will surprise them, Zieglitz’s Blessing is sure to stay with them long after they’ve finished it.
Rare is the writer who can embed the deepest questions of human existence into a tale as absorbing as Zieglitz’s Blessing. Drawing on his considerable wit and on his lifelong experiences as a rabbi, a hospital chaplain, and as an ethicist, Goldberg has produced a novel that is tragic, comic, and, finally, redeeming."
Todd Brewster, New York Times #1 best-selling co-author of The Century
Zieglitz’s Blessing follows a man’s life through love, loss, anger, and redemption. At times funny, often heart-wrenching, and consistently thought-provoking, Goldberg’s novel will touch you in ways that will surely surprise you and stay with you long after reading it.”
Randy Auerbach, Film Executive and Producer
Michael Goldberg’s new genre-bending novel is itself a blessing: an unorthodox rabbi’s quixotic search to heal the wounds he has suffered and inflicted since his bris. Though an entertaining send-up of biblical contradictions and rabbinical hypocrisy, Goldberg’s book also explores his sinner’s inherent decency, honor, and love of family. Zieglitz’s Blessing carves a memory not soon forgotten.”
Lou Gorfain, Emmy-Winning Writer and Director
Previous Works
Michael Goldberg is a nationally-acclaimed writer and speaker. He has held two university chairs in religious studies, worked with an international strategic management consulting firm, served as a professional ethicist with the Georgia Supreme Court as well as with various hospital ethics committees, and as an ordained rabbi, provided support to religiously-diverse patients and their families as an ICU and hospice chaplain.
Goldberg completed his undergraduate studies in philosophy at Yale and received his PhD in systematic theology and philosophy of religion from the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California.