Gary Gerson is Rabbi Emeritus of Chicago’s Oak Park Temple, and now serves the congregation via a chair created and endowed in his honor on his retirement. Holding a bachelor’s degree magna cum laude, master’s degrees in religion and psychology, rabbinic ordination, a doctorate in ministry, and certification as a family therapist from the Philadelphia Child Guidance Clinic, he has a life-long interest in mysticism, and leads an ongoing study group in the foundational works of Kabbalah. A Fulbright recipient and Graduate Fellow at the Hebrew University, he has taught at the University of Pennsylvania and Temple University.