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.
Bet Yosef (The House of Joseph): Introduction
Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, who created His world for the purpose of mankind, and, from all the different sorts of men, chose for Himself a nation as a special treasure—namely…
Path Jumping
For contracting the path [magically speeding one’s travel—Ed.]: take a kosher parchment and write on it in purity and cleanliness. This requires great intention [kavanah] in the names: “In the name…
Colophon: Solomon Ibn Gabirol’s Mivḥar ha-peninim
And the work was finished on the eve of Sabbath, in
the month of Shebat, in the year 307, in the great
city of Venice which is under the rule of
the Signoria, may God increase their
glory, and in the…
Ta‘ame sukkah (Discourse on Sukkot): Account of His Printing Problems
And in it they will find a commentary appropriate to everyone and in it many precious midrashim, sharp pilpulim, light and weighty, Sinai and uprooter of mountains (Berakhot 64a, that is both breadth…
Mateh Dan (The Tribe of Dan)
My friends desired me to record the discussions I have had with those who reject the authority of the Oral Law; and, in compliance with their desire, I have gathered all that I found bearing on that…
A fountain surges from my verse’s house
A fountain surges from my verse’s house.
Its flowing waters quench the thirst of men—
A fountain from the rock of perfect rhyme,
With waters cold to please the yearning man—
A flow unending…
A woman beautiful in every way
A woman beautiful in every way
I give you—pedigreed, with every skill—
And all you want to know is what’s the dowry!
That’s not the way to think; that’s faulty judgment.
If you’d appraise her…
Of a Repentant Sinner
Already (Lord) with humility,
fearing my perdition,
in a sea of contrition
I seek port in Thy pity.
Against Thy immense goodness
I sinned. My sorrow warns me,
that of the error of Thy offending
my…
Responsum: On Reciting the Shema‘ in the Presence of Bareheaded Women
‘Arukh ha-shulḥan, oraḥ ḥayim § 75:7And now come and let us shout out against the licentiousness of our generation, on account of our many sins. For it has now been many years that the daughters of…
Responsum: On Civil Marriage
I set the Lord before me always. Karcag [Hungary], eve of the holy Sabbath, the week of [the reading of] Koraḥ, 5659 [June, 1899]. Abundant blessings and rejoicings to my dear friend, the eminent…
Responsum: On Civil Marriage
Question: Whether in those marriages contracted under civil marriage law—without betrothal according to the rite of Moses and Israel—the woman can leave without a get [Jewish religious writ of divorce…
A Zionist Manifesto
To the Jewish People: The second of November, 1917, is an important milestone on the road to our national future; it marks the end of an epoch, and it opens out the beginning of a new era. The Jewish…