Rabbi Natan Margalit was raised in Honolulu, Hawaii. As a young adult he lived for twelve years in Israel and received rabbinic ordination at The Jerusalem Seminary in 1990. He earned a Ph.D. in Talmud from UC Berkeley in 2001. Natan has taught at Bard College, the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, and the Rabbinical School of Hebrew College.  He is a member of the Va’ad (steering committee and core faculty) of the Aleph Ordination Program, and serves as chair of their Rabbinic Texts department. He is also the Director of the AOP’s Earth-Based Judaism Program.  Natan is Founder of Organic Torah, fostering holistic thinking about Judaism, environment and society, which is a program of Aleph: Alliance for Jewish Renewal. He lives with his wife, two sons and their dog, Pele (named for the Hebrew word for wonder, and also the Hawaiian goddess, not the soccer player) in Newton, Mass.