Sat, Oct 24
|Address provided upon registration
Havdalah-at-Home
Please join us on Saturday, October 24th at the home of Francie & Jon Nobleman at 7:30 pm for an Havdalah service and special talk by Alexander Marcus. Topic: Diseases and Demons in the Talmud: Rabbinic Responses to a Dangerous World. Please bring a dairy or pareve snack everyone can share.
Time & Location
Oct 24, 2026, 7:30 p.m. – 9:30 p.m.
Address provided upon registration, Edmonton, AB, Canada
About the event
The address will be provided upon registration. Please bring a dairy or pareve snack everyone can share.
Rabbinic Responses to a Dangerous World
We will explore how the rabbis of the Talmud understood and responded to illness and injury in a world they perceived as saturated with invisible dangers. Drawing on Talmudic passages that link epidemics, sudden illnesses, and everyday ailments to demonic activity, we will examine how rabbinic texts diagnose not only bodily afflictions but also the supernatural and spiritual vulnerabilities that invite harm. In response, we will examine the strategies they develop for avoiding, resisting, and remedying imperceptible sources of harm. This talk is designed to be accessible to everyone, no prior knowledge is required.