Speaker Profile Joel Hecker

Professor Rabbi Joel Hecker has served as Professor of Jewish Mysticism at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College since 1996. Hecker received his PhD in Jewish Studies at New York University in 1996; semikhah and a Masters in Jewish Philosophy from Yeshiva University in 1990; and his H.B.A in English Literature from the University of Toronto in 1978. He is the author of The Zohar: Pritzker Edition, vols. 11-12 and Mystical Bodies, Mystical Meals: Eating and Embodiment in Medieval Jewish Mysticism, and of numerous articles in the fields of kabbalah. He is currently co-editing a book called Emotions and Kabbalah (forthcoming, Littman Library, 2023) and articles dealing with the uses of shame in Jewish mysticism.