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.
Moses’ Prayer to Evade Death
Moses said to God: Master of the Universe! You know full well how much toil and pain I bore for the sake of Israel until they would believe in Your name, how much grief I suffered on their account! […
Aseneth’s Prayer of Confession
She then began her confession to the Lord God and gave thanks, praying for all those who were deemed acceptable by the Lord:
I have sinned, O Lord, I have sinned!I have committed many sins in your…
To Honor One’s Parents
[The sages] raised a dilemma before R. Ulla: “How far [must one go to fulfill the mitzvah of] honoring one’s father and mother?” [R. Ulla] said to them, “Go and see what one gentile did in Ashkelon…
Susanna
There was a man living in Babylon whose name was Joakim. He married the daughter of Hilkiah, named Susanna, a very beautiful woman and one who feared the Lord. Her parents were righteous, and had…
R. Safra and the
R. Abbahu would praise R. Safra to the heretics [by saying] that he is a great man. [Therefore,] they remitted [R. Safra’s obligation to pay] taxes for thirteen years. One day they found [R. Safra and…
Mishnah Eduyyot
1:4. Why are the opinions of Hillel and Shammai recorded [only] to be nullified? To teach successive generations that they should not be insistent in their opinions, for the fathers of the world were…
Yerushalmi Sanhedrin
Said R. Yoḥanan, “One who does not know how to derive that a reptile is pure and impure in one hundred ways, may not investigate [testimony] in merit [of the defendant].”
Rabbi said, “My master had a…
Genesis Rabbah on Theodicy
8:5. R. Simeon taught: At the time when the Holy One was about to create the first human, the ministering angels formed factions and parties [of divided opinions concerning humankind’s creation]. Some…
Rededication of the Temple
And now that the generals of Antiochus’ armies were defeated so many times, Judah assembled the people together and told them that after these many victories that God had given them, they should go up…
Herod’s Arrival in Rome and Appointment as King of Judaea
His ship came into serious distress off Pamphylia, and most of the cargo had to be jettisoned, after which it could just limp to safety in Rhodes, an island deeply traumatized by the war with Cassius…
Herod Agrippa I
Now when Agrippa arrived at Puteoli, he wrote a letter to Tiberius Caesar, who was then living in Capreae, informing him that he had come so far in…
Nero Appoints Vespasian to Suppress Revolt
News of the reverses in Judaea naturally came as a fearful shock to Nero, though he concealed it well. His public reaction was one of dismissive irritation, claiming as he did that what had happened…