Melila Hellner-Eshed, Ph.D., is a Research Fellow of the Kogod Research Center at Shalom Hartman Institute, where she founded and co-directs the Rabbinic Students Seminar, a interdenominational program for rabbinic students spending a year in Israel. She has been a professor of Jewish mysticism and Zohar in the Department of Jewish Studies at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem for over two decades. She received her degree from Hebrew University under the tutelage of Professor Yehuda Liebes.