Dr. Rabbi Shai Held is President, Dean, and Chair in Jewish Thought at the Hadar Institute. He holds a Ph.D in Religion from Harvard University and Rabbinic Ordination from the Jewish Theological Seminary. He is the author of Abraham Joshua Heschel: The Call of Transcendence (Indiana University Press, 2013), and his two volume collection of divrei Torah called The Heart of Torah (JPS 2017). In 2011, Held was a recipient of the Covenant Award for excellence in Jewish education.