Elliot R. Wolfson (born November 23, 1956) is a scholar of Jewish studies, comparative mysticism, and the philosophy of religion.
Wolfson is the Marsha and Jay Glazer Endowed Chair in Jewish Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
He is also considered to be "the leading scholarly interpreter" of the late Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, influential former leader of the Lubavitch Hasidic dynasty.
[2] He has also published three volumes of poetry (drawn from the collection of poems he has amassed for decades called Preparations for Death) and he has had a gallery show of his paintings.
Wolfson won two National Jewish Book Awards in the Scholarship category, in 1995 for Through a Speculum That Shines and in 2005 for Language, Eros, Being: Kabbalistic Hermeneutics and Poetic Imagination.