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Lori Zoloth

Laurie Zoloth is the Margaret E. Burton Professor of Religion and Ethics at the University of Chicago Divinity School and a leading bioethicist and Jewish studies scholar.

Nov 5, 2026

23:36
And so there's a whole set of structures of both spirituality in terms of kind of thinking of your own death, thinking of hope for your own afterlife and reunion with the dead, but also concrete practices of care, of masses, of almsgiving, of remembrance that developed in prayer, that developed in the Christian ritual and was structured much of Western grieving throughout the medieval and early modern periods.
24:05
So for Jewish practices, there is some of that.
24:08
There's some of that story, obviously, there would be.
24:10
But there's very determined rules around this, around the dead, around death.
24:17
And they're based on three imperatives.
24:19
One is you cannot be a pagan.
24:22
You want to separate yourself off from pagan practices, critically important, drives much of the ritual activity.

19 MINS LATER

Cassandra SeverMODERATOR
43:15
One

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