Michael Lerner was born in 1943 and grew up in Newark, New Jersey. He received a B.A. from Columbia University, and in 1972, he earned a PhD in philosophy from University of California, Berkeley. In 1977, he received a PhD in Clinical/Social Psychology from the Wright Institute in Berkeley, CA. Lerner received non-seminary rabbinical ordination in 1995 through a beth din (rabbinical court) composed of three rabbis. In 1996, he founded Beyt Tikkun synagogue in Berkeley, California, and in 1986, he founded Tikkun magazine, a progressive Jewish interfaith magazine. In 2002, Lerner organized a group called the Tikkun Community among readers of Tikkun magazine, which has since become the Network of Spiritual Progressives.

 

Tikkun Magazine

Tikkun magazine is a quarterly, interfaith, Jewish left-progressive magazine published in Berkeley, CA that analyzes American and Israeli culture, politics, religion, and history in the English language. The magazine was founded in 1986 by Michael Lerner and Nan Fink Gefen. The magazine's title comes from Hebrew concept tikkun olam emphasizing both humanity's and God's co-responsibility "to heal, repair and transform the world." Since 2012, its publisher has been Duke University Press and continues to be published digitally at http://www.tikkun.org/nextgen/ 

The Michael Lerner collection contains a nearly complete set of Tikkun magazine from its inception through 2014, copies of Lerner's published books, and two Tikkun anthologies.