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August 12, 2020

Living with the Unknown: Sota, ‘Egla ‘Arufa, and the Berakhot uQlalot

Dr. Devora Steinmetz

Dr. Devora Steinmetz

Devora Steinmetz serves on the faculty of the Hebrew College Rabbinical School and the Mandel Leadership Institute. 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. She has served on the faculty of Drisha, the Jewish Theological Seminary, Yeshivat Hadar, and Havruta: a Beit Midrash at Hebrew University.

Click here to access podcasts recorded by Devora Steinmetz.

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What made the sages include the Egla Arufa ritual in Masechet Sota instead of a section of the Talmud focused on criminal law and civil society?  This class with Dr. Devora Steinmetz analyzes some of the other rituals discussed in Masechet Sota, particularly the recitation of the berakhot uqlalot (blessings and curses) of Deuteronomy 27, in order to unearth the literary and thematic connections between them and to discover what they can teach us about individual and communal responsibility.

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