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.
Neglect of Circumcision
I am now telling you that the Israelites will prove false to this ordinance. They will not circumcise their sons in accord with this entire law because they will leave some of the flesh of their…
Grounds for the Ordeal
How does he warn her? If he says to her in front of two [witnesses], “Do not speak with that man” and she spoke with him, she is still permitted to her husband and permitted to eat terumah. If she…
The Soul’s Holding Pattern
Then I went to another place, and he showed me on the west side a great and high mountain of hard rock and inside it four beautiful corners; it had [in it] a deep, wide, and smooth (thing) which was…
Jesus as Messiah
In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judaea, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, asking, “Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we…
Righteous Souls under God’s Throne of Glory
It was taught [in a baraita]: R. Eliezer says: The souls of the righteous are stored beneath the throne of glory, as it is said: And the soul of my master shall be bound in the bundle of life (1…
Precautions after Bloodletting
Aramaic
Rav and Samuel both say: One who did this thing [bloodletting] should tarry a while and afterward get up. As a master said: [Hebrew] In five matters, one is nearer to death than to life. And…
Illness
Aramaic
R. Yoḥanan suffered from [the illness] tsafdina’ [or, tsifduna’; perhaps inflammation of the mouth or gums]. He went to a certain matronita [a non-Jewish woman]. She prepared [a remedy for him…
Division of the Earth’s Portions to Noah’s Sons
At the beginning of the thirty-third jubilee [1569–1617] they divided the earth into three parts—for Shem, Ham, and Japheth—each in his own inheritance. [This happened] in the first year…
Eluma, Mother of Samson
Now there was a man from the tribe of Dan whose name was Manoah, son of Edoc, son of Odon, son of Eriden, son of Fadesur, son of Dema, son of Susi, son of Dan. And he had a wife whose name was Eluma…
Noah’s Prayer for His Sons
During the third week of this jubilee [1583–1589], impure demons began to mislead Noah’s grandchildren, to make them act foolishly and to destroy them. Then Noah’s sons came to their father Noah and…
Abraham’s Prayer on Behalf of Sodom
You love justice and hate wickedness (Psalm 45:8, NJPS). R. Judan in the name of R. Azariah applied this verse to Abraham our father at the time when he beseeched [God] for mercy on behalf of the…