Yom Kippur Guest Speaker Melila Hellner-Eshed on the Story of Jonah

With the guidance of guest speaker Melila Hellner-Eshed, we’ll read ourselves into the story of Jonah, joining him on his journey: running away, trying to escape, cutting himself off, and finally confronting teshuva and mercy. 

Melila Hellner-Eshed is a senior research fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem. She has taught for the past 25 years Jewish mysticism and Zohar at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, and serves on the faculty of the Institute of Jewish Spirituality. She teaches Jewish communities around the world. Her publications include A River Flows from Eden: The Language of Mystical Experience in the Zohar (Stanford University Press, 2009) and “Seekers of the Face — The Secrets of the Idra Rabba in the Zohar (Stanford 2022). Her new book co-written with Omri Shasha, On the Path of the Tree of Life – An Introduction to the Zohar (Brandeis forthcoming). Melila is active in the ‘Sulha’ — a reconciliation project that brings together Israelis and Palestinians, and will be donating her honorarium there.

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