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.
Me‘il tsedakah (Robe of Righteousness)
Regarding that which is written: a man’s gift [makes room for him] (Proverbs 18:16), this means that the gift itself, which one personally gives to the poor, will make room for him. When you provide…
Regulation: On Preaching
Regarding this recent occurrence of some men going and walking around the Galilee and Judea [the region of Lithuania] and preaching in public without the permission or authorization of the local rabbi…
Letter to His Bride
Most magnificent and honored bride, my lady I gaze upon you:
Since I left Piacenza, I can honestly say that I am far away from my life. Oh, how can I live, and how can I hold up my limbs when I am so…
Paraḥ mateh Aharon (The Staff of Aaron Had Sprouted)
The rich and honorable Moshe haCohen, resident of the city Castoria may God protect it, says as follows: he has been given a bad wife, and that during their marital life…
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…
Shevut Ya‘akov (The Captivity of Jacob)
Question 5: What blessing should one recite over coffee and tea, and is there any problem with drinking them on Passover?
Response: I will answer the questions in order. Regarding the blessing, it has…
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…
Medicina de la lengua (Medicine of the Tongue)
The aforementioned lights are sufficient to flee from gossip and to shut one’s ears to the gossipmonger and to the talebearer because they are enemies to be greatly feared, which are found in a…
Miqveh Israel, esto es Esperança de Israel (The Hope of Israel)
In the 18th of the Month of Elul: the 5404 year from the Worlds creation, and according to common compute, in 1644. Aaron Levi, otherwise called Antonius Montezinus c…
On Sabbatean Kabbalah
This is the secret of the teaching of the sages: “When the Holy One, blessed be He, created the world with the attribute of justice, and the world could not subsist—and so too with the attribute of…
Letter on Touring the Land of Israel
I went to the grave of the Tanna Ila, a man from the village of Yavneh who is mentioned in the tractates Berakhot and Avot, and afterwards we went to the grave of the pious Tanna R. Judah bar Ila‘i…
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…