Rabbi Sheldon Lewis was educated at the University Of Chicago and the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York City where he was ordained as a rabbi. He was a student of Professor Abraham Joshua Heschel and has been active in civil and human rights causes, especially the movement to free Soviet Jewry. For 33 years, he was rabbi of congregation Kol Emeth in Palo Alto. He is now rabbi emeritus. He has had an abiding interest in reconciliation efforts in the Middle East as a supporter of the Open House in Ramle, the Al Amal School near Bethlehem, and Rabbis For Human Rights. He is currently at work on a book on peaceful conflict resolution within Jewish sources entitled: The Torah Of Reconciliation. He studied Kabbalah at Yeshivat HaChayim V’HaShalom, a kabbalah yeshiva in Jerusalem. Kabbalah and Hasidut remain great sources of inspiration for him.