Join us online for our monthly Third Shabbat Learning program. James Redfield, Assistant Professor of Biblical and Talmudic Literature at St. Louis University, will present “Purity vs Morality in Ancient Judaism.”

It seems intuitive that purity and morality would be related. We associate the good and the desirable with the pure, and the reverse with the impure. To some extent, this was also true for Jews in the biblical and talmudic periods. However, the purity system and the morality system were not identical. Sometimes, in fact, they were completely separate. We can learn much about the worldview of ancient Jews by investigating the complex relationship between these two systems of beliefs. Our discussion will examine examples from the priestly biblical corpus and the rabbinic literature.

For more information and to receive an invitation, contact Carol at stlshirhadash@gmail.com.