Born in Chicago, Rabbi Landes studied in Chicago with Rabbi M.B. Sacks, the Menachem Tzion; in Israel with Reb Aryeh Levin, Zvi Yehuda Kook, and the Chief Rabbi R. Avrum Shapiro; in New York, Landes studied with Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik; and in Los Angeles with Din R. Shmuel Katz (on whose rabbinical court he served).
Landes was a founding Faculty member of The Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles (Director of Education) and of Yeshiva of Los Angeles (The Van Lennop Chair of Social Ethics).   He is also an Adjunct Associate Professor of Law at Loyola Law School.  Landes taught for the Wexner Foundation for over 20 years.  Landes served as  Director of Pardes in Jerusalem between 1995 and 2016, and came to inaugurate Limmud Bay Area in 2011.
In a very public affirmation of a new post-denominational model of halachic egalitarianism, Rabbi Landes ordained a diverse group of 21 men and women as rabbis in 2016.