BONUS EPISODE: Shakespeare’s Hamlet opens with a seemingly straightforward question: “Who’s there?” Who’s there, indeed. The appearance of the ghost of his murdered father prompts Hamlet– and the play’s 16th-century audience– to grapple with a series of philosophical and theological questions relating to death and the afterlife. Does Purgatory exist? How does one avoid posthumous punishment? Can the deceased visit the world of the living? If so, how and why? What do the living owe the dead?

In this episode,  Dr. Susan Weissman, Chair of Judaic Studies and Associate Professor at Lander College for Women, a division of Touro College, shares her extensive research and expertise on death and the afterlife in medieval Europe. Through a detailed analysis of ghost tales in the Talmud and Sefer Hasidim, a religious-ethical work by an elitist group of medieval Jewish German Pietists, Weissman shows how many beliefs and rituals of the period reflected in Shakespeare’s Hamlet were cross-culturally shared by neighbors, Jews and Christians alike.

Corrections

1. In her concluding statements about the role of the dead in the Talmudic/Rabbinic period, Dr. Weissman speaks of the "living coming to aid or inform the dead" but meant to have said the "dead coming to aid or inform the living" (around 18:24).
2. Dr. Trapedo mistakenly says the Rabbinic/Talmudic literature was "centuries later" instead of "centuries earlier" (around 23:08).
3. Dr. Weissman speaks of the violence inflicted upon knights by their very own spurs "cutting into their soles," but being that there are no written words visible, listeners might hear it as "cutting into their souls," which would be inaccurate. Dr. Weissman intended the soles of their feet since these tortures were inflicted on bodies, not disembodied souls. (around 25:45).
4. Dr. Weissman says "we have responsas," but intended "responsa" as the word is already plural.
   
   
   

Hosted by Straus Center Resident Scholar Dr. Shaina Trapedo

Produced by Uri Westrich and Sam Gelman

Outro by Straus Scholar Ayelet Brown

Learn more about the Straus Center

Like the Straus Center on Facebook

Follow the Straus Center on Twitter

Follow the Straus Center on Instagram

Connect with the Straus Center on LinkedIn