Sample Sources
The sources below are those contained in our three curated collections—covering themes of Passover, Gender Roles, and Holocaust Resistance. They represent a fraction of the thousands of sources that will be available when the full site launches in 2024.
Be’er sheva (Well of the Oath)
One must know that man possesses a greater virtue than the beast, because a beast also has in it the breath of life and likewise has the intelligence to eat and drink, and the desire to lie with the…
Prayer of Thanksgiving after the Portuguese Attack on Recife
And Isaac offered this prayer and supplication before the Lord:
Master of the worlds and Lord of lords, possessed of infinite wisdom and endless understanding, who emanates through His beings which…
Tosafot Yom Tov (The Additions of Yom Tov)
“Moses received the Torah from Sinai” [m. Avot 1:1]:
R. [Ovadiah] from Bartenura has explained this to mean “from the One revealed at Sinai.” And there, when God revealed Himself at Sinai, Moses…
Israelite and Judahite Exiles Named in Assyrian and Babylonian Texts
Israelites in Assyrian Exile (last third of eighth century BCE):
Ahiyau, an “archer,” Nineveh
Hoshea, a slave, Nineveh (680 BCE)
Neriyau, “chief of accounts,” Gozan
Paqaha (Pekah), an estate manager…
Donors to YHW and Other Deities, from Elephantine
On the 3rd of Phamenoth, year 5. This is (= these are) the names of the Jewish garrison who gave silver to YHW the God, each person silver, [2] shekels—
Meshull[em]eth daughter of Gemar[ia]h son of…
Synagogue in K’ai-fêng (Kaifeng, China)
Jews first settled in Kaifeng, the capital of Henan province in central China, before 1127. According to scholars, they had come from India or Persia, spoke Persian, and worked as cotton dyers and…
Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur
The purpose of the Kol Nidrei proclamation is to forgive those—and tragically there have been many of them—who throughout history have, under threat of torture or death, been forced to renounce the…
Lamentation for Those Who Perished in the Abriyah Earthquake
The Kinah [Lament] in Honor of Those Who Died in the Earthquake
Wail O [professional female] mourners for the suffering of our death.
The earth trembled with the earthquakes. We lost young and old…
Regulations: On the Education of Bar Mitzvah Boys
The Messrs. Parnassim of T: T: [Talmud Torah—Ed.] having disclosed to the gentlemen of the Mahamad [board of governors—Ed.] and councillors the liberty which the students…
The Exploits of Moses
I shall begin by praising the True One
who in six days created the whole entire world
and on the seventh day He ceased work and rested.
Give thanks unto the Lord for He is good, for His…
Midrash ḥemdat yamim
During the seventeenth century, Shalem Shabazī wrote deeply spiritual, kabbalistic poetry that couched his subject— the love of God—in the erotic language of Arabic (and Hebrew) love poetry. His poems…
Higayon be-kinor (Melody of the Lyre)
The Argument of the Sermon: The sermon in its main argument will open…