Lives Wasted and Well-Lived: David Wolpe on The Death of Ivan Ilyich
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Welcome to Econ Talk, Conversations for the Curious, part of the Library of Economics and Liberty. I'm your host, Russ Roberts of Shalem College in Jerusalem, and Stanford University's Hoover Institution. Go to econalk.org where you can subscribe, comment on this episode, and find links and other information related to today's conversation. You'll also find our archives with every episode we've done going back to 2006. Our email address is mail at econalk.org. We'd love to hear from you. Today is September sixteenth, twenty twenty six, and my guest is author and Rabbi David Wolpe. He is the Max Webb Emeritus Rabbi at Sinai Temple in Los Angeles. And he's currently scholar in residence for the Mimonides Fund. Our topic for today
Is Tolstoy's short story you could call it a novella? The death of even Gilgitch. David, welcome to Econ Talk. Thank you. Very happy to be here.
Now you can't spoil this book because the title kinda gives it away. Uh it opens with Ivan's funeral, uh he's gonna die. And like many great books, um, the plot's not so compelling. There's nothing dramatic about it. A man has uh somewhat seemingly normal life, he gets sick and he dies.
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