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.
Warning against Imposed Regulations
Therefore do not let anyone condemn you in matters of food and drink or of observing festivals, new moons, or sabbaths. These are only a shadow of what is to come, but the substance belongs to…
The Zealots Install a New High Priest
In the end the people were reduced to such a state of abject fear, and the terrorists proceeded to such manic extremes, that they were actually able to take into their own hands the election of high…
Hasmoneans Send Emissaries to Rome
So Judah chose Eupolemus son of John son of Accos, and Jason son of Eleazar, and sent them to Rome to establish friendship and alliance, and to free themselves from the yoke; for they…
The Laws of Moses
Now before their first state of mourning had ended, another misfortune struck them as well; for some of those who had raised the previous rebellion, when they were traveling on the public road, about…
Scribes as Tax-Exempt Temple Administrators
I would also have the work about the Temple finished, and the porticoes, and if there be anything else that ought to be built. And as for the materials of wood, let them be brought down from Judaea…
The Qumran Community as Temple
[ . . . ] When these things exist in Israel the Community council shall be founded on truth, to be an everlasting plantation, a holy house for Israel and the foundation of the holy of hol…
Conflict within the Priesthood
Around this time, King Agrippa granted the high priesthood to Ismael, the son of Fabi. And then hostility and internal division were ignited between the chief priests, on one side, and the priests and…
The Priests as False Stewards
You, priests, take the keys of the sanctuary,
and cast them to the highest heaven,
and give them to the Lord and say,
“Guard your house yourself,
because, behold, we have been found to be false…
Water Facilities at the Synagogue
“[ . . . ] We have further decreed that those who are willing among the Jews, both men and women, may observe their sabbaths and perform their sacred rites in keeping with Jewish law; and they may…
Tobit’s Hymn of Thanksgiving
They kept blessing God and singing his praises, and they acknowledged God for these marvelous deeds of his, when an angel of God had appeared to them.
Then Tobit said:
“Bl…
Ben Sira’s Prayer for the Salvation of Israel
Have mercy upon us, O God of all,
and put all the nations in fear of you.
Lift up your hand against foreign nations
and let them see your might.
As you have used us to show your holiness to them…
Rabbi Tanḥuma’s Prayer for Rain
R. Tanḥuma proclaimed a fast [ . . . ] but rain did not fall. He said to the people, “My children! Be filled with compassion for one another, and the Holy One, praised be He, will be filled with…