Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, a friend of Michael Jackson, takes a warts-and-all look at the late popstar in this Beliefnet piece.

Moneyquote: “He threw away his life. He had lived recklessly and orphaned his children. He had medicated away the afflictions of the soul as if they were ailments of the body until his body could no longer tolerate the abuse. He had squandered all of G-d’s blessings. But he touched me nonetheless. He made me softer and gentler. He was highly imperfect and was perhaps guilty of serious, terrible sins for which there might not be any forgiveness. But G-d, was he tortured. And that is no excuse. Because you dare not visit your pain on an innocent party. But did that cancel out the good he tried to inspire in others?”