What if you did everything right and discovered on your deathbed that you've wasted your life? Rabbi and author David Wolpe talks about Tolstoy's The Death of Ivan Ilyich with EconTalk's Russ Roberts. Weaving Rabbi Wolpe’s own brushes with mortality and his years at the bedsides of the dying into Tolstoy's masterpiece, they talk about the lies we tell ourselves about death, our longing for honesty and human touch at the end, and the way that death forces us to take a clear-eyed look at life. They conclude by offering advice on how we can avoid Ivan’s regrets.
Listen to the episode here.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Named The Most Influential Rabbi in America by Newsweek and one of the 50 Most Influential Jews in the World by The Jerusalem Post, and twice named one of the 500 Most Influential People in Los Angeles by the Los Angeles Business Journal, David Wolpe is a scholar-in-residence of the Maimonides Fund and the Max Webb Emeritus Rabbi of Sinai Temple. Rabbi Wolpe has taught at Harvard, the Jewish Theological Seminary, the American Jewish University, Hunter College, and UCLA.
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