Twice Blest: Exploring Shakespeare and the Hebrew Bible Yeshiva University Straus Center for Torah and Western Thought

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


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).
Dr. Trapedo mistakenly says the Rabbinic/Talmudic literature was "centuries later" instead of "centuries earlier" (around 23:08).
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).
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

Shakespeare’s portrayal of Shylock as a cruel and vengeful Jew in the early 16th century gave rise to some of the most enduring racial stereotypes. He also gave Shylock depth and sympathetic qualities. In one of the most stirring speeches in all of Shakespeare, Shylock underscores his humanity, famously asking, “hath not a Jew eyes?” Yet the conclusion of that monologue requires further examination as it ends with the Jew’s assertion that he learned revenge from his Christian neighbors. Is there a basis for this claim? What is the Jewish understanding of revenge and retributive punishment? How do we reconcile the divine prohibition against revenge in the Hebrew Bible with its description of God as vengeful? And of what relevance is the long-suffering biblical Jacob, whose life is discussed by the characters in this play? 

In this episode, Rabbi Dr. Dov Lerner offers a master class on biblical exegesis, the relationship between interpretation, law, and justice, and what we can learn from Jewish tradition about how to end the cycle of vengeance.

Twice Blest was recently selected as one of the top 20 Shakespeare podcasts by Feedspot. 

Audio Credits:

The Merchant of Venice: Arkangel Shakespeare

The Merchant of Venice (2004)



Mentioned in This Episode: 

The Jews as They Are by C.K. Salaman

The Beginning of Wisdom by Leon R. Kass

The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins

Violence and the Sacred by René Girard

Theater of Envy: William Shakespeare by René Girard

The Warrior’s Honor: Ethnic War and Modern Conscious by Michael Ignatieff



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

If, as we’re told in the Hebrew Bible, "God saw all that He had made, and behold it was very good" (Genesis 1:31), how are we to understand physical imperfection? As "mistakes" by the divine? Manifestations of malfeasance? Or misinterpretations of creation? 

In this episode, Dr. Jeffrey R. Wilson explains the discourses of theology, physiognomy, and monstrosity that influenced Shakespeare’s representation of Richard III’s misshapen body and behavior, as well as the ongoing implications of relating internal essence and external appearance.



Audio Credits:

Richard III, dir. Jane Howell, 1983

Henry VI, Part 3, Arkangel audio, 2005

Richard III, dir. Richard Loncraine, 1995



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

Does religion dictate politics or does politics dictate religion? Is success achieved through strategy or spirituality? Should the king bear moral responsibility for his soldiers’ behavior in battle? Shakespeare shot to fame in the 1590s by tackling the critical questions of his day in dramas depicting the inner lives of medieval English monarchs. But he couldn’t have done it without drawing on the Hebrew Bible. In this episode, Professor Paul Cantor takes us on a deep dive into Henry V, unpacking the influence of early Israelite leaders, including Moses, Joshua, and David, on Shakespeare’s compelling and complex representation of the Tudor dynasty.



Audio Credits:

Henry V, The Hollow Crown series, dir. Thea Sharrock (2012)

Henry V, Arkangel Shakespeare audiobook (2014)

Henry V, dir. Kenneth Branaugh (1989)



Mentioned in This Episode:

Shakespeare and the Bible by Steven Marx

Rabbi Sacks, Covenant and Conversation



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

Few literary characters have loomed as large and felt as "real" as Shakespeare’s Shylock. Though, as early 20th-century British Jewish historian Cecil Roth reminds us, he is a "sheer figment of Shakespeare’s imagination." Or was he? In this episode, Dr. Chaya Sima Koenigsberg illuminates Shakespeare’s (in)famous portrait of Shylock with her research on medieval Ashkenaz Jewry and the lives of the Rokeach and his wife, Dulce. She also sheds new light on the presence of Hebrew bible figures Jacob and Leah and the underexamined presence of prayer in the play.



Audio Credits

Paterson Joseph as Shylock, “You call me misbeliever” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vSR6W8_uBU

Upstart Crow, “The Apparel Proclaims the Man” (Series 1, Episode 3)

The Merchant of Venice, dir. Jonathan Munby, Shakespeare’s Globe (2015)

The Merchant of Venice, dir. John Sichel (1973)

The Merchant of Venice, Arkangel Shakespeare Collection, 2005)

Laura Carmichael as Portia, “The quality of mercy” https://youtu.be/wmmBT_4dmI0

Mentioned in this episode

Rokeach, Rabbi Elezar of Worms

James Shapiro’s Shakespeare and the Jews

Janet Adelman’s Blood Relations: Christian and Jew in The Merchant of Venice

Michelle Ephraim’s Reading the Jewish Woman on the Elizabethan Stage

Sara Coodin’s Is Shylock Jewish? Citing Scripture and the Moral Agency of Shakespeare’s Jews

The Bible on Shakespearean Stage: Cultures of Interpretation in Reformation England, eds. Thomas Fulton and Kristen Poole



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

What is the relationship between values and action? How does one move forward when “time is out of joint”? In this episode, Yeshiva University President Rabbi Dr. Ari Berman draws from his experiences as an educator, father, and academic leader to discuss the themes and human experiences central to Shakespeare’s Hamlet that complement and contrast similar stories from Torah tradition.



Audio Credits: 

Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, BBC Radio, 2018

Hamlet, dir. Gregory Doran (2010)



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