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.
Ordinance: On Lending Money
In view of the fact that many interfere with their neighbors’ vested rights to have sole privilege of lending money at interest in certain localities, and very often the agency of the non-Jewish…
Shulḥan ‘arukh (Set Table): Laws of the Synagogue
One may not behave frivolously in synagogues and study houses, including exhibiting such behaviors as laughter, teasing, and idle conversation. One may not eat or drink in them, nor may one…
Ḥavvot Yair (The Villages of Yair): On Ceremonial Objects
Question: A woman pledged, when she lay ill, to give her disukia, which is embroidered with gilt silver thread, to be made into a ceremonial object for the synagogue. The disukia is what is called in…
Deed of Mediation between Husband and Wife
With the Almighty’s assistance.It having been the case that the esteemed and exalted R. Joseph Fico, may his Rock and Redeemer protect him, has been perpetually quarreling with his esteemed wife, Mrs…
Letter to His Mother
May the Lord who dwells in Zion protect you from any grief and sorrow. To my beloved mother, the crown of my head, the pious Mrs. Rachel, may she live long. [ . . . ] You should know, my dear mom…
Two Authorizations Given to Female Slaughterers
Stronger than the lions’ den [see Song of Songs 4:8; 2 Samuel 1:23], raise a banner over Mount Zion [see Isaiah 13:2], they are the mighty ones [see…
Sha‘ar ruaḥ ha-kodesh (The Gate of the Holy Spirit)
A yihud [magical-theurgic “unification”] that my teacher, of blessed memory, taught me to remove an evil spirit: [For] sometimes the soul of an evil person is yet unable to get into Gehinnom because…
For One Who Becomes Possessed
One who becomes possessed by a demon should recite this adjuration three times, and it [the demon] will leave him, God willing.
In the explicit name [Shem ha-meforash] of the God of Israel may His…
Ma‘aneh lashon (Expression of the Tongue)
Peace unto thy beautified and pious soul, beloved and affectionate mother, who hast given me birth, and who hast reared me. Thou who hast loved, fostered, and…
Re’shit ḥokhmah (Beginning of Wisdom): On Love
The concept of Love is further explained in the Zohar [II, Ki Tissa, 190b], where it is stated as follows: The Torah contains within it love and brotherhood and truth. Abraham loved…
Letter
In the name of the Lord:
My brothers and my friends, the inhabitants of Albanian Belgrade [Berat, Albania]: may all who are worthy merit seeing the salvation of the Lord. Hurry and send me the maḥzor…
Le-‘eyne kol Yisra’el (In the Sight of All Israel)
They distort the words of the living God. It is a clear Torah lesson, as the sages have taught: “Whosoever speculates on four things, a pity for him! He is as though he had not come into the world.”
T…