What did the ancient rabbis believe happened to a person after death — and how did those beliefs shape the rituals we know today? The Talmudic period facilitated the development of many of the Jewish mourning practices we recognize — including sitting shiva and customs surrounding the body. This class explores how these customs arose in response to rabbinic conceptions of death, the afterlife, and the animated status of corpses. We’ll examine how rabbinic mourning practices reflected a theology in which both the soul of the deceased and the mourner undergo overlapping journeys, each gradually transitioning between life and death. Through Talmudic texts, midrash, and modern scholarship, students will trace how these rituals made tangible the belief that the dead retained sentience, affect, and agency — and how the living temporarily entered their liminal world before being ritually restored to life.

Sarah Zemelman is a student at Harvard Divinity School, pursuing a Master of Theological Studies degree with a focus in Judaism. Her undergraduate thesis, “Living and Dying Beyond Death: The Animacy of the Rabbinic Dead,” earned Highest Honors at Swarthmore College. Sarah has worked as a Jewish educator and community builder in a variety of roles, including Social Chair of Bryn Mawr College’s Hillel Chapter, Hebrew school teacher, and fellow with San Francisco Jewish Family & Children’s Services’ Next Chapter Program. She is excited to join Lehrhaus as a class host and teacher.