Throughout the generations, the Thirteen Attributes of Mercy have been known to bring salvation and forgiveness to the Jewish people. As we invoke them on Yom Kippur for that very reason, explore new ways that we might understand their meaning with a teaching from Devora Steinmetz and a powerful episode of On Being with Krista Tippett.
Dr. Devora Steinmetz: The Thirteen Middot
Dr. Devora Steinmetz serves on the faculty of Drisha Institute in the United States and Israel and on the leadership team of Drisha’s new yeshiva in Israel. She is the founder of Beit Rabban, a Jewish day school profiled in Daniel Pekarsky’s Vision at Work: The Theory and Practice of Beit Rabban. She is the author of scholarly articles on Talmud, Midrash, and Bible as well as of two books: From Father to Son: Kinship, Conflict, and Continuity in Genesis, and Punishment and Freedom: The Rabbinic Construction of Criminal Law. Dr. Steinmetz also serves on the faculty of the Mandel Institute for Nonprofit Leadership.
On Being Podcast: On Grace – Serene Jones
Serene Jones describes theology as the place and story you think of when you ask yourself about the meaning of your life, the world, and the possibility of God. For her, that place is a “dusty piece of land” on the plains of Oklahoma where she grew up. “I go there to find my story—my theology. I go there to be born again; to be made whole; to unite with what I was, what I am, and what I will become.” In her work as a public theologian, Jones explores theology as a clarifying lens on the present—from grace to repentance to the importance of moving from grieving to mourning.
