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.
Facing Reality: Lessons from Jeremiah, the Destruction of the Second Temple, and Bar Kochba’s Rebellion
Is the Jewish existence so hollow and frail that it took hundreds of thousands of human victims in order to consolidate it, as the claim that the Bar Kochba rebellion ensured our continuity would seem…
Against the Apocalypse: Responses to Catastrophe in Modern Jewish Culture
Gathering the sources was a modern way of closing ranks, of reaffirming the essential unity of Jewish experience as one vale of tears through space and time. The harder the times, the more desperately…
The Sunset of the Titans
The spring of 1998 was kind to the Jezreel Valley. The rain, which was heavy and late, colored the slopes of the Gilboa with bright green and spread carpets of wildflowers on them—red, purple, and…
Egypt’s Defeat and Conversion
The “Egypt” Pronouncement.
Mounted on a swift cloud,
The Lord will come to Egypt;
Egypt’s idols shall tremble before Him,
And the heart of the Egyptians shall sink within them.
“I will incite…
Rejoice with Jerusalem
Rejoice with Jerusalem and be glad for her,
All you who love her!
Join in her jubilation,
All you who mourned over her—
That you may suck from her breast
Consolation to the full,
That you may…
The Religious and Moral Significance of the Redemption of Israel
Reform Judaism is the second historical distortion of the Jewish religion. For the service of God through Torah and Mitzvoth as the end of religion, the Reform movement substitutes an end the Jewish…
Seeing beyond the Surface
I want to tell you a good story that I heard on the first day of Succos. Someone told me he heard it from his father, a Hasid, and just forgive me, because I have to throw a lot of names at you, but…
A Call for Repentance
Return, O Israel, to the Lord your God,
For you have fallen because of your sin.
Take words with you
And return to the Lord.
Say to Him:
“Forgive all guilt
And accept what is good;
Instead of bulls…
The Concealed Alternative
What is the testimony that proves my guilt? The punishment itself. Although Naomi says that she must have been guilty, it’s as if she doesn’t really know what she is guilty of. It’s only when things…
Condemning the Overbearing City
Ah, sullied, polluted,
Overbearing city!
She has been disobedient,
Has learned no lesson;
She has not trusted in the Lord,
Has not drawn near to her God.
The officials within her
Are roaring lions…
Today’s Ruth
In the book of Ruth we read an extraordinary expression of love between two women, spoken by a daughter-in-law to her mother-in-law. The text has often been read as a reflection of Judaism’s position…