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.
Mordecai’s Prayer for Fortitude and Deliverance
Then Mordecai prayed to the Lord, calling to remembrance all the works of the Lord.
He said, “O Lord, Lord, you rule as King over all things, for the universe is in your…
Hannah’s Hymn of Thanksgiving
And Hannah placed the boy before Eli and said to him, “This is the desire I have desired, and this is the request I have asked” (1 Samuel 1:25–27). And Eli said to her, “You have not asked alone, but…
The Fox and the Fish
The sages taught: One time, [after the Bar Kokhba rebellion,] the evil empire [of Rome] decreed that Israel may not engage in [the study and practice of] Torah. Pappos ben Judah came and found R…
The Noahide Laws
8:4. Concerning the seven commandments that were prescribed to the children of Noah: Setting up courts of justice, [prohibitions against] idolatry, blasphemy, fornication, bloodshed, robbery, and…
Tosefta Bava Kamma
16. He who frightens his fellow to death is exempt under human law but liable under heavenly law.
If he shouted in his ear and deafened him, he is exempt.
I…
Bavli Sanhedrin
[If] his father wishes [to hold him liable to prosecution under Deuteronomy 21’s law of “a stubborn and rebellious son”—ed.] but his mother does not wish [that, or if] his father does not wish [to…
Lamentations Rabbah
R. Abba bar Kahana began: Who is the wise man who will understand this . . . (Jeremiah 9:11). R. Simeon ben Yoḥai taught: If you have seen towns…
Pompey Enters Jerusalem
Furious at this, Pompey kept Aristobulus in custody and advanced up to the city to review the possible means of assault. He could now see the strength of the walls which made them virtually…
Herod’s Response to Famine
Now on this very year, which was the thirteenth of Herod’s reign, the most severe calamities overtook the country, whether because of God’s harboring wrath or because such misery recurs naturally in…
The Sicarii
The countryside may thus have been swept clear, but a new breed of terrorists was growing like a cancer in Jerusalem, the so-called Sicarii who murdered people right in the middle of the city in broad…
Famine and Desertion
For all this emotional appeal by Josephus, the insurgents would not budge, and thought it far from safe to change their course. The people, though, took it as a spur to desertion. Some sold their…