Learning Library

Elul and the Yamim HaNoraim encourage us to review our deeds and to seek repair and forgiveness (teshuva), both in our human relationships and in our relationship with God. A less commonly explored angle is the imaginings of the tradition about God’s teshuva — “כגו דלעילא כן לתתא” what happens above, so too below, and possibly visa versa. In this session we will consider sources that explore God’s remorse at the beautiful world God wanted to create also holds cruelty and pain. Might the breaking of the first tablets and the rewriting by human hand make space for imperfection and working within it, both for God and us, to create a better world.

Dr. Ruth Calderon is one of Israel’s leading figures spearheading efforts to revive Hebrew Culture and a pluralistic Israeli-Jewish identity. She co-established ELUL, the first beit midrash in which secular and religious women and men studied and taught together. In 1996 in Tel Aviv, she founded in ALMA, a Jewish liberal arts program for advanced learning and is the author of “A Bride for One Night” (2001), a personal homiletic reading of Talmudic legends, and “Talmudic Alpha Beta” (2014). From 2013-2015, Ruth was a Knesset Member from the Yesh Atid Party, where she was Deputy Speaker, member of the education and state control committees, and Chairperson of the Lobby for Jewish Renewal. Ruth is a longtime, beloved faculty for the Wexner Foundation and holds a Master of Arts and Ph.D. in Talmud from The Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Find Dr. Calderon’s source sheet here.